Alex Leandri

Alex Leandri

Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

HARVEYS LAKE — By her own estimate, it took Alex Leandri about ten and a half hours to make the trip to the Back Mountain.

So the two hours and change it took for her to write her name into the history books must have felt like nothing at all.

Leandri, currently residing in Nashville, Tenn., blazed through the course in 2:18.26 to finish as the top overall female competitor in Sunday morning’s Back Mountain Triathlon.

“I feel great, this race was amazing,” Leandri said. “I did this one nine years ago, so it was great to come back for it.”

Leandri was referring to the Wilkes-Barre Triathlon, which ran its last race in 2016 before Sunday saw the rebirth of triathlon in the region, as the inaugural Back Mountain Triathlon ushered in a new era of competition on the shores of Sandy Beach at Harveys Lake.

In all, 114 participants completed the grueling three-leg competition, including a strong field of 29 women ranging in age from 23 up to 65.

Leandri, who belongs to the same triathlete club as the triathlon’s overall male winner Conrad Goeringer, noted that the running portion of the triathlon was the one that gave her the most trouble.

“The run was really tough,” she said. “The swim was great, and the bike was absolutely beautiful, it was wonderful.”

Many of the competitors in Sunday’s race had originally included the Wilkes-Barre Triathlon on their competition schedule, and were returning to action in the Back Mountain, but there were a few first-timers in the mix, including the second-place finisher in the female competition.

Olivia Dalton, 31, currently lives in Lebanon, Pa. after originally hailing from Massachusetts. She has plenty of triathlon experience on her resume, but was competing here in the valley for the first time.

“A good friend of mine, who raced here today, mentioned it,” Dalton said. “I loved the course.”

Dalton took second place overall in the female competition with a time of 2:28.18, about 10 minutes behind the remarkable pace set by Leandri.

She differed a bit with Leandri in her opinion of which leg of the course gave her the most trouble.

“The bike was tough, it’s a gradual climb,” she said.

Third-place finisher Kelly Adamshick, who was just a second behind Dalton in the overall womens competition, took another approach when asked about the various difficulties of the three legs of the triathlon.

“They were all pretty even, they were all challenging,” said Adamshick, who pulled double-duty this year as both a competitor and a member of the Triathlon Race Committee. “But overall, it was amazing.”

Adamshick was a veteran of the old Wilkes-Barre Triathlon, and lives just across the lake from where the triathlon would begin and later end.

It was an easy decision for her when race director Dave Bass started to explore the idea of a triathlon revival at the lake.

“From the start, I wanted to do this,” Adamshick said. “It’s so awesome to have this race back in our area. … It’s so nice to have the support of everybody.”

With the beach, the trails and the finish line all packed with spectators eager to welcome the sport home on Sunday, each of the competitors noted how much of a boost it gave them to hear the cheers and shouts from the spectators around every turn.

“On Tulip Road, there were two kids out riding their bikes back-and-forth high-fiving people, it made me smile,” said Denise Thomas. “If he’s watching this, you never know, he might be inspired to try this out.”

Thomas, 63, has become a household name for her dedication to the sport and the surrounding community. Her first Wilkes-Barre Triathlon was in 1987, and she ran the old race over a dozen times.

Admittedly, she said, the last triathlon she competed in was the last Wilkes-Barre Triathlon, back in 2016. But when she caught wind that the race was returning, there was no stopping her from signing up.

“Truthfully, we live here at the lake, and I had not even gotten in the lake again until last year,” Thomas said. “I couldn’t live here and see all of this happening without getting back into it. … I needed to be here.”