Reprinted with the permission of Mass Lawyer's WeeklyLawyers compete in grueling triathlon
By Mass. Lawyers Weekly Staff
Published: November 1, 2010
Iron clad
Two local lawyers recently ventured to the land of leis, but they weren't relaxing in chaise lounges or sipping daiquiris under palm trees. Patrick F. Dwyer and Timothy W. Tapply went to Hawaii to compete in one of the planet's most grueling races: the Ironman World Championship. The pair swam 2.4 miles through a bay, biked 112 miles across scorching lava fields, and ran a 26.2 mile marathon - all in the same day. "I'm still sick," says Tapply of Brand & Associates in Wellesley. "I've been sick since the day after the race. It takes so much out of you physically." It was Tapply's first Ironman triathlon on the Big Island, while Dwyer, who practices in Newton, had raced in two other events in previous years and fared a little better after the Oct. 9 race. "When I did my first Ironman, I was a mess afterward," Dwyer says. "But as you do more of these, your body becomes less fatigued afterward. I could have run a couple of days later. I was fine." Tapply, 35, completed the race in 9 hours, 30 minutes and 1 second. Dwyer, 39, posted a time of 10:09: 28. The winner, a 37-year-old accountant, reached the finish line in 08:10: 37. Dwyer says his body "suddenly locked up" during the run, forcing him to walk the last 13 or so miles and lose time. "Part of it was dehydration and other things," he says. "The physical issues on the run prevented me from having the day I wanted to have." Dwyer and Tapply say they spent dozens of hours training for the event. Tapply locked himself in the furnace room at his house and pedaled a stationary bike for hours on end while wearing a thick hat and heavy clothing to prepare for the Hawaiian heat. The two attorneys ran together and worked out before and after work. The preparation, they say, was more difficult than the race itself. "Ironman training takes so much time that it really limits the work week, especially as the owner of a small firm," Dwyer says. "Whereas some attorneys stay and work late at night, I'm typically trying to get home at a reasonable hour so I can get my workouts in ... and in bed at a reasonable time, so I can get up to get my workouts in." Dwyer kept up with his lawyering by e-mailing clients and colleagues between workouts, he says, adding that the life of a triathlete is not all sweat and pain. The local triathlons he and Tapply compete in throughout the year offer networking opportunities that have netted new clients. "There's a large community of triathletes in the area from all walks of life," he says. "For me, triathlon is my golf course. But instead of hitting the greens, I'm on the bike or at races." Triathlons can pay off for lawyers in other ways, too, Tapply says. "Personally, I gain a great deal of confidence knowing that working diligently yields results," he says. "That is absolutely something I take with me every time I set foot in a courtroom."
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