Athlete Profile: Jim Merrifield & Jan Perrin

by Kat Gandy

The thing about Jim Merrifield and Jan Perrin is that they are two pieces of the same pie. They both love playing at their sports and playing hard. As Jan says, “We both feel the same way about our athleticism, it’s good, hard work.”

She asserts that talent has got nothing to do with it, but any innocent bystander would have to disagree. There is an evident talent for joie de vive and sharing their passion with others.

In fact, it was on their annual trip to Inverness, Florida, that I caught up with them when they invited me to enjoy a fun week of paddling and cycling with them.

Both are enthused about all sorts of outdoor activities. Last fall they backpacked in the High Uinta Wilderness Area in Utah and plan to tackle the Pacific Coast Trail in the summer of 2007, but their passions lie in the canoe and on the bike.

They hail from the unassuming little hamlet of Johnsonville in northern Rensselaer County. It boasts the benefit of being on the Hoosic River, giving Jan ready access to many hours of paddling she does each year. The rural setting provides Jim with many miles of country roads to train and a 21-mile commute by bicycle to his General Electric office in Waterford.

Early in his fitness career, Jim had been bitten by the running bug but found it left him depleted and empty. “I did a few 10Ks with no strategy and it was all how much can you hurt yourself,” he said.

Born and raised in California, Jim moved to New Jersey at age 30. A co-worker’s husband was leading cycling tours there and he jumped on the bandwagon. “I’d always run or been physically active,” said Jim, “but I was never competitive until I got involved with a bicycle touring club and started riding with faster and faster groups. A couple of folks were racing and I decided to give it a whirl when I was 35. That’s when I realized how fun it was to compete.”

“Bicycle racing is as much a cerebral sport as a physical one,” he said. “You could be the strongest person there, work your way to the front of the pack, get tired and then get dropped. You can either push yourself or conserve energy. The trick is to know when to do what – it is every man for himself.”

Jan is just as competitive while racing, she would say that in the canoe it is usually every two people for themselves. She most often races flatwater courses in tandem “C-2 marathon” boats, which are 18.5-foot, 30-pound carbon fiber creations built for speed, not stability.

It wasn’t always canoe racing for Jan, though. “I started surf kayaking when I lived in Manhattan when I was fresh out of college in the summer of 1976,” she said.

A move to Schenectady brought several changes to her relationship with water sports. She became one of three primary owners in the company WILD/WATER and spent a lot of time teaching whitewater paddling and leading tours. In addition, someone asked her if she wanted to learn how to paddle a canoe. She said yes out of curiosity and it was soon to become an all-encompassing passion that would lead to a fierce dedication to training.

“I needed to know how to paddle rivers,” she said. “I seemed to be working out with guys all the time, so I had to make sure I had the strength and stamina to keep up with them on the Mohawk River.”

With all that time on the water, slipping into competition came naturally. “I just happened to luck into racing,” she said. Her first race was the 12-mile sprint at the General Clinton Canoe Regatta in Bainbridge on Memorial Day Weekend. She entered a myriad of other races including the Erie Canal Towpath Regatta, Electric City Canoe Races, General Clinton 70-miler and Adirondack Canoe Classic 90-miler.

“I was just infatuated with the long distances,” she said. “I lucked on a lot of wonderful, amazing partners. I was really blessed with mixed (male) partners.”

Jan and Jim were introduced to each other by mutual athletic friends and they got married in 1992. “After marrying Jim, I learned how to train more intelligently and since he raced every weekend, I started racing every weekend,” said Jan.

The example of their respective regimens was a boon to each other’s enthusiasm. But more training led to more questions: Why does more training not always equal more benefit? Why do I get worn out? How can I work smarter, not harder? These questions led to a whole new level of dedication.

“Jim let me know what his cycling buddies were doing,” Jan said. They were working with Carmichael Training Systems, led by Chris Carmichael, the personal coach to seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong. The system brought Jan around to a whole new way of looking at her schedule.

“Part of it was that I was overtraining,” said Jan. “I didn’t have enough variation, not enough rest days, not enough planning to build up to races and I was getting sick before major events. It was happening like clockwork each spring before the General Clinton 70-miler to the point where I was getting spooked about it,” she added.

Six months later, Jim took his own advice and signed up with CTS too, “I knew how to train a 35-year-old body but was not sure about how to train a 50-plus one.
“Nobody thinks they are overtraining but many people do,” said Jim. “You don’t build strength when you’re training. You build strength when you’re resting. You get strong by training hard, then healing during rest.”

Jim did 30 races last year between March and September, sometimes more than one in a day. Jim finishes his races mid-pack or “pack meat” as he puts it. In August 2005, he was proud to win the Master Men 45+ category race at the Ascension Church Criterium in North Tonawanda.

Jan participated in 24 races last year. She and partner Pam Fitzgerald of Scotia, have been the Women’s C-2 category New York Marathon Canoe Racing Association points series champions for as long as she can recall. At the 2005 USCA Marathon Canoe Nationals, the pair came in third place in C-2 Senior Women’s category and Jan took second in the Mixed Masters category with Cole Lee of Elmira.

Jim and Jan do rest in the spring, during the racing season and after it. “Our summer saying is ‘What do you look like again?’” said Jan, with a laugh. “That’s why we spend the fall together and do some backpacking to catch up on what happened over the summer.”

At one time, Jim decided that a change of scenery would benefit himself and their relationship so he “ferried” over to paddling. “For whatever reason, I was bicycling slower while climbing hills and it’s not much fun getting dropped,” said Jim. “Also, since we were going to different races and not seeing much of each other, I decided to switch to canoe racing.”

Jim spent three years canoe racing several partners, before he decided to return the bicycle racing scene again. When asked why the two of them didn’t get into a boat together, Jan answered, “Because we wanted to stay married!”

Carla “Kat” Gandy of Saratoga Springs has been a writer for over 20 years. She also enjoys paddling, hiking and running, though not quite as “avidly” as Jan and Jim.