How Radio Host Sheri Lynch Became a Triathlete – Interview by Joe Nuss
Nationally syndicated radio show host Sheri Lynch, the on-air partner of Bob Lacey on the Bob & Sheri show, can take the darkest of situations and relate it back with a unique blend of empathy and side-splitting humor. Undoubtedly developed during her own turbulent childhood, her deadpan humor has become drive-time therapy for a nationwide following of Bob & Sheri show listeners. Sheri’s ability and willingness to find the humor in the mundane gives her show a coffee-shop atmosphere and makes you feel like you’re laughing over lattes with your best friend after a particularly difficult morning getting the kids off to school.
Last year, during the wake of the break-up of her marriage, Sheri decided to tackle her first triathlon, Endurance Magazine’s Ramblin’ Rose. During our interview, Sheri described that difficult period of her life and how choosing to do the Ramblin’ Rose helped change it.
ENDURANCE: Tell us why you chose to do a triathlon.
LYNCH: I was at a place in my life where I felt like I was really failing at some of the most important things I had taken on. I was in the wake of the beak-up of my marriage and I was trying to navigate that, learn to be a parent on my own, and still try to sustain my career. But, I just felt like a failure. I had let myself down, I had let my kids down, and I had let my own standards down. It was a very difficult time because it’s the nature of my job to be happy and bright no matter how I feel inside. There was this real dichotomy between the incredible pain and heartbreak I was living with and the nature of my work, which is to be “happy – happy”. So, I was searching for a way to get back on track and I knew that for me that would have to be something very physical because when I was growing up, I was not allowed to play any kind of organized sports. We moved a lot and my parents were broke so, there was no money or parental support for playing sports. Plus, my father believed that it would not be a desirable trait if I was ever to “snag” a husband.
ENDURANCE: So, why choose the Ramblin’ Rose?
LYNCH: And there’s something about Ramblin’ Rose that makes you feel like you’ve been recruited for it spiritually by someone who has done it. For me, it was Rachel Sutherland who works for the Charlotte Observer. She had just done the Ramblin’ Rose for the first time and was going to celebrate by getting tattoos with her friends who had also done it. She described herself to me as someone who hates to run and work out, but yet here she had just done a triathlon. Even when she described what an amazing event it was, I said to her “better you than me, girl! I could never do a triathlon.” But it was like she had planted a little seed in my brain and I kept thinking about what she said and truly she was the reason that a triathlon was what I turned to when I was at my lowest.
ENDURANCE: You said you had the running and cycling down, but not the swim. How did you overcome that barrier?
LYNCH: I went to the YMCA and signed up for swim lessons with the other six year olds! I got an amazing coach at the “Y” and I told her immediately, “I want to do a triathlon and I don’t know how to swim.” Her response was that, “You’re gonna ‘rock-star it’ and you’re going to be great.” She made me believe right from the beginning that this was not only doable, but was a completely reasonable goal. So, I got in the pool and by God, she taught me to swim. I took it very seriously and swam like it was my job and then that first day I swam a mile, I got out of the pool and I just cried because I had done something I didn’t think I could do – something that was literally beyond me – but I did it and I did it well. That was the day I knew that one way or another I was going to do this triathlon and I was going to finish it. Because if I could swim a mile, that by itself was symbolic of what was possible for me.
ENDURANCE: What advice would you give someone contemplating doing a Ramblin’ Rose Triathlon?
LYNCH: Before you say “I can’t do it” or “I don’t have time” give yourself 30 days and really immerse yourself with a variety of workouts. The things that happen inside your head when you take on a challenge like the Ramblin’ Rose… there’s no where to go to buy that kind of well-being and sense of inner strength and inner resourcefulness. Ramblin’ Rose really embraces the first timer and the person who is doing it for reasons that are not really about athletics. There was such a feeling of fellowship and sister-hood that you go in there and feel that it doesn’t matter what shape or size or age I am, there’s an achievement for me here today. It’s so deeply, deeply personal. It’s just inspiring. I can’t imagine anyone participating in the Ramblin’ Rose at any level, whether as an individual or a relay team, and not walking away feeling six inches taller.
ENDURANCE: As a working mom, is there any advice you’d give a woman who doesn’t think she has the time to do a triathlon?
LYNCH: You steal the time from something else and you’d be amazed at the places there are to steal time. You make a deal with yourself that this is something that’s going to be really good for your head and your body. You probably don’t need to watch quite as much TV. There’s time for you. The time you make to train makes you feel so good that you do get hooked. If you had told me that I would become someone who is grouchy and cranky when I can’t exercise, I would have had the biggest laugh as I poured my second martini. But the truth of it is this experience training and the race itself, my body did the work but all the benefits were to my head – all of them, although I do look kickin’ naked now as a result of all that swimming.
ENDURANCE: What were the most memorable parts of your Ramblin’ Rose experience?
LYNCH: While I was training or working out my head would clear. It gave me a new way of thinking about myself that at a time in my life was so sad and so overwhelming. So, I would tell myself that ‘yeah, this is hard and this sucks, but girl, you can swim!’ It gave me a feeling of power and well being and confidence. I have brought that into every corner of my life. It was good for my parenting. It was good for my stress levels. It made me feel better about my body and when I say ‘better about my body’ I’m talking about every woman who doesn’t carry a bunch of negative body image like ‘oh, I’m fat, or saggy, or this or that’. Well, whatever my body is or isn’t, it’s a triathlete body and it can do amazing things that I never gave it credit for.
