Ezra Nanes will wear two hats when the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley takes place on Sunday in Centre County.
As an experienced triathlete, Nanes will compete in the race. As mayor of State College, he’s bursting with pride about seeing such an event come to the area.
“It’s thrilling,” he says. “The sense of community excitement is powerful. I also was thrilled for the economy and the growth of our area. It’s a global flagship brand. It’s going to help us attract other big events. It’s a great moment for us.”
This Ironman triathlon is half the distance of a full Ironman race. It will include a 1.2-mile swim at Bald Eagle State Park, a 56-mile bicycle ride through Centre and Clinton counties and a 13.1-mile run through the Penn State campus, with the finish line on the 50-yard line at Beaver Stadium.
Race organizers expect to reach the cap of 2,700 competitors, including an estimated 200 from the State College area.
“I’ve kind of been involved behind the scenes with the Ironman group,” says Stuart Selber, an English professor at Penn State and longtime adviser to its Triathlon Club. “They’re seeing a race that’s selling out. They have a three-year contract for this race.
“It’s an opportunity to show people what the sport is about in a great host community. We have a great place to swim, bike and run. We have a sports-oriented town. People are going to be surprised.”
Following are the stories of five local residents who expect to compete in the event.
AMY & MATTHEW REAGAN
Amy Reagan claims she had “zero athleticism” less than 10 years ago and no interest in competing in anything. That was until she watched her husband, Matthew, participate in several triathlons over the years.
“You can only go to these things so many times before you’re like, ‘Hey, I can do that,’” she says.
Reagan never ran, biked or swam competitively before she decided to begin training for her first triathlon at the age of 41, a year and a half before an Olympic-distance race in the Netherlands.
“I started from ground zero on all three [disciplines],” she says, “so it was quite a challenge.”
Six years later, Reagan registered for the Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley. It will be her 10th triathlon and first at this distance.
She lives in Patton Township with her husband, son and daughter and works as an administrative assistant for Penn State’s Smeal College of Business.
Reagan’s husband, who recently retired from the U.S. Air Force and who will also compete in the July event, has helped her in her training and racing.
“He’s more experienced than I am,” she says. “He helps me develop my training plan. He also can talk me off the ledge when I start to get a little bit too freaked out or have a narrow focus on something that really is not a concern. He can keep me grounded.”
The Reagans, who are Texas natives, have a food truck that sells authentic chimney twists, a delicacy they discovered when they lived in Germany. They’ve fallen in love with Centre County since they moved here in 2019 and are ready to race the Ironman route through their new home county.
“I was onboard from the day I heard through the triathlon grapevine that it was coming here,” Amy says. “I’m super excited. I’ve never had the chance to race where I live. It’ll be great to have people come and see how beautiful this part of Pennsylvania is.”
STUART SELBER
A veteran of more than 100 triathlons, Stuart Selber remembers how and when he fell in love with the endurance sport.
He grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and ran cross country and track at the University of Delaware, from which he graduated in 1987. He moved to Boston to attend graduate school at Northeastern and discovered another avenue to challenge himself.
“There was a New England triathlon series,” Selber says. “It was easy and convenient to explore it. I was still feeling competitive. I needed to take a break from running. It kind of fueled my interest in testing my limits.”
He ran his first triathlon in 1988 in North Carolina and was hooked for life. Now 57, he’s an English professor at Penn State, faculty adviser for the university’s Triathlon Club and preparing to compete in the Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley.
Selber could very well be the foremost expert on triathlons in Centre County.
“Endurance sports are a way for people to test themselves,” he says. “Thirty years later, I’m still testing myself. As I’ve aged, I’ve moved from the two-hour race to the 12-hour Ironman races. I care much less about my results and much more about the experience of training for and then performing a 12.
“The body’s not meant to do this. You’re really coaxing the mind and the body. You can perform for seven or eight hours, but when you get beyond that, your body’s not meant to do it. It’s an interesting problem.”
The July race in Centre County is half the distance of a full Ironman, with most people expected to finish anywhere between six and eight hours, Selber says.
“You don’t just show up and do one of these things,” he says. “A lot of people have the goal of finishing. I think it’s going to be inspiring. If anybody really wants to pay attention to what’s going on out there, they will be inspired by people doing their best at a difficult thing.”
JOE LUNDBERG
Joe Lundberg’s interest in fitness and eventually triathlons stemmed from a health scare almost 20 years ago.
Lundberg was diagnosed with a kidney infection in 2004, but his doctors seemed more concerned that he weighed 271 pounds and that his blood pressure was high.
“It scared me,” he recalled. “I says to myself, ‘I gotta do something about this.’ I fell in love with riding a bike over the next couple of years. And a few years later I learned to finally set goals. And I kept setting bigger goals.”
Lundberg competed in his first sprint triathlon in 2009, which led to his first half-marathon in 2013, and his first half-Ironman and first full Ironman in 2014. Now 61 and weighing about 195 pounds, he plans to compete in the Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley.
Cycling remains his most passionate discipline; he is the founder of the State College Cycling Club.
“We had our first Tuesday night group ride in 2008,” Lundberg says. “It was just two of us and grew to be four and then to six and then to eight. Over the course of the years it picked up momentum. Now on a typical Tuesday night we can have 50 people coming out to ride different courses.”
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Connecticut, he enrolled at Penn State in 1979 and never left State College. He graduated in 1983 and in 1990 joined AccuWeather, where he’s a senior meteorologist who gives local forecasts on radio stations along the East Coast.
Lundberg enjoys mentoring others about cycling and the triathlon.
“Ironman was in town a couple of years ago,” he says, “and I got involved in some of the discussions. One thing led to another and I helped them design at least part of the road course we’ll be riding on.”
EZRA NANES
The decision was easy for Ezra Nanes.
“When I saw Ironman coming to town, I was like, ‘I’m there,’” he says. “I love doing this stuff. I not only have to do it; I want to do it.”
The 50-year-old Nanes will participate in his seventh triathlon, but his first at such a distance in the Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley. He considers himself an avid swimmer, biker and runner.
“I’ve always loved athletic pursuits and adventure sports,” he says. “My whole life, wherever I am, whether it’s surfing or biking or running or adventure, I just love those things. I just love physical activity. I love how it makes me feel. I love competing, the atmosphere and the community.”
Nanes is the mayor of State College and director of business development, account management, for AccuWeather. Finding time to do both jobs, raise two daughters with his wife and train can be challenging.
“The hardest thing I have to manage in my life is my schedule,” he says. “All the things I do, I have well in hand. I’m an efficiency-obsessed person. I’m methodical and meticulous when it comes to getting things into my calendar. I keep very careful notes.”
Nanes grew up in New York City in midtown Manhattan, where his father was a dentist. He grew up running and biking through the congested streets. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA at Penn State. He and his wife have lived in the State College area for more than 12 years.
“It wasn’t our plan to stay here, but we sort of fell in love with the place. Then our roots started growing.
“This job [with AccuWeather] was the job I was looking for. That was when we made a long-term commitment. It’s a wonderful place.”
DANA MILLER
The Ironman 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley will be the first triathlon for Dana Miller, and she has one great fear.
“I do not want to embarrass myself by drowning in front of my friends and spectators,” she says with a hearty laugh.
Don’t get the 60-year-old Miller wrong. She’s fit from 30 years of long-distance running and cross-country cycling, but she’s not accomplished in swimming, the other leg of the triathlon. She’s been training in the pool at the State College YMCA since January.
“It’s a huge challenge for me,” she says. “I am not a natural-born swimmer at all.”
Miller graduated from Bellefonte Area High School and was a hair stylist for several years before she enrolled at Penn State and earned a degree in health policy and administration in 1991. She moved to the Washington, D.C., area and lived and worked there for about 20 years.
That’s when she became an avid cyclist. She rode across the country by herself in 2010 and has competed in about 12 marathons.
Miller returned to Centre County about 12 years ago and serves as human resources and operations director for Care for People Plus in Bellefonte, an agency that supports people with intellectual disabilities.
“I kind of got sidetracked by doing all those things [running and cycling] instead of concentrating on doing a triathlon,” she says. “When it was announced this triathlon was coming to State College, I thought, ‘OK, this is a message. This is a sign I have to do this.’”
During her training, she’s received a lot of support from her partner, Paul, her family and her employer.
“I’m like this old gray mare,” Miller says. “What was I thinking at 60 years old to do my first Ironman triathlon? ‘What were you thinking?’ Oh, my goodness.” T&G
Rich Scarcella has covered Penn State football for the Reading Eagle since 1989.
