Swim team captain alumna strokes . . . and peddles . . . and runs. . . her way to gain the title All-American
Being a wife and mother of two is a full-time job, but, for the past decade, Richa “Lynnie” (Alfred) Terry ’83, senior vice president for Perry Homes, has bookended her days with triathlon training as well. The challenges and the juggling have been worthwhile, though, because she’s good – good enough to represent the United States at the World Triathlon Championship this past year in Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal.
Her goal for the world championship last May was a Top-20 finish, but she hadn’t counted on the hilly terrain. “All week, we viewed the course, and all week, I was scared to death. It’s hard going uphill, but I’m worse at going downhill because I don’t enjoy going 40 to 50 miles an hour on a bike. It’s just you and the concrete.”
Apprehensive about a headlong descent, Lynnie decided to stop beside a competitor who had given up. “There was a Canadian girl who was crying on the side of the road because she was scared too. So I stopped with her. We both decided we were going to finish the course but would walk a little bit of it to where we felt comfortable to get back on the bike,” Lynnie said.
Though the breather prevented her from reaching her goal, she was ninth out of the water, had a run split of 19th fastest and finished 43rd.
Though usually located in more distant U.S. cities, the 2003 USA Triathlon National Championship was held in Shreveport, La., Lynnie’s hometown. “When it came to Shreveport, I thought, ‘This is my chance.’ I had to place in the Top 16 in my age group to qualify for the world’s team. I got 10th.” That placement earned her a spot on the U.S. team.
“It’s the closest I’ll ever get to an Olympics, to compete against other countries in a foreign country,” Lynnie said.
It was the capstone of an athletic career that began in high school and matured in college. “I enjoyed swimming for Lamar. It was a lot of work; we were at the pool twice a day, five days a week. I remember walking from Gray Hall at 5:30 in the morning across the tennis courts to the swimming pool. The thing I really enjoyed was our Christmas break training,” she said. On those breaks, she traveled to Padre Island, Mexico City, the Virgin Islands and Colorado Springs.
Lynnie was team captain for the 1982-83 season, her senior year, and set a school record in the 50-meter breast stroke, a strength that helped her qualify for the AAIW national championship and, later, pursue the triathlon.
“Having the swimming background gave me a big advantage. I ran all through college during the off season. So, I had the running and swimming,” she said.
Lynnie and her husband, Dennis ’84, general partner for Solana Venture Partners, a privately held investment partnership, have been together since their college days. When Lynnie, a member of Lamar’s women’s swim team, injured her shoulder, she went to Dennis for treatment. He was a Cardinal b-ball trainer in the sports medicine program who also worked for the swim and volleyball teams. Both came to Lamar on scholarships.
A Dallas native, Dennis recalls his college days with affection. He was “in charge of the women’s athletic dorms” his last two years before graduating in May 1984, but his interest was firmly fixed on only one of the 90 female athletes. He and Lynnie, who had earned a B.B.A. the previous December, married that July and lived their first year of marriage in the Unit Apartments while Dennis took post-graduate courses and Lynnie worked with the swim team.
She remembers being involved in Cap and Gown, and Dennis was in Blue Key. “He was a Kemble Award finalist,” she said, “but I can’t say I was a finalist for Bess Gentry. I was nominated but not a finalist. He gives me grief about that. But I would not take any of that time back for anything. It was a great part of our lives.”
Today, the couple has two boys, Dustin, 16, who runs cross country, and golfer
Tyler, 12.
Dennis’s early career evolved from high school athletics to a health club and then to a position as a trainer for the Houston Rockets in 1994 and 1995. He counts the experience valuable but blessedly brief. “I got in on the good years – the two championship years. I got the world championship ring and traveled with them extensively. It was like a year of constant travel, never knowing where you’re going to wake up, meeting movie stars and eating bad, sleeping on planes and buses. But my family got to participate in the world championship, the parades and all the celebrations,” he said.
Early in their marriage, the couple lived in Memphis, Tenn., for a year, and Lynnie chose to swim in the Master’s Program, a post-collegiate organization for athletes still interested in competitive swimming after they graduate. Fellow competitors were triathletes, and the fever was contagious. When her husband gave her a bike for Christmas in 1996, she entered a short triathlon race the next May and “got hooked.”
She began to compete, running about 10 races each year during a season stretching from April to October. Her training regimen – staying proficient in three sports takes
commitment – is robust: swimming in the mornings three days a week, running each evening after work, biking in the mornings the other two days a week. “On Saturday, I would do a long bike, and on Sundays, a long run,” she said.
And during her days as VP with Perry Homes, that affinity for structure and organization allows her to manage high-volume home building – the company builds in four Texas cities and begins construction on 250 houses each month.
Lynnie has been in the USA Triathlon category called “elite athletes” for five years. These are the Top 20 athletes in a region, and “when they show up for a race, the race is worth more,” she said. Points races are those sanctioned by USA Triathlon. “Championship races are worth more points than others. At the end of the year, there’s a ranking, so your goal is to place high in championship races, and you have to do at least three races each year to be ranked,” she said.
In 2003, Lynnie was ranked first as the overall female in region – across all age groups, “which is a pretty good accomplishment for being 42,” she laughs. She was 12th in the nation last year in the age group 40-44, and her best has been fourth. For the past five years, she was USA Triathlon All-American.
The win gave her a fulfilling sense of accomplishment and a gladness that her training paid off. “You feel good that your family is there because they’ve been there to support you. That first overall win in 2000 was really neat. To look at all those females in the race and know, ‘I’m faster than anyone here today.’ You get there that morning and see who’s there, and race your own race and see what muscles are gonna show up that day,” she said.
She’s a tough competitor, but, even as a devotee of the sport, she’s “amazed at the stamina of the women who race in the Ironman,” the mother of all triathlons. Her average race takes about an hour and 15 minutes to complete. In Ironman, the professional athletes take nine hours and the average triathlete about 15. “I can’t imagine doing a marathon period, and they do a marathon after swimming and biking,” she said.
She competes in about two triathlons each year at the Olympic distance: 1.5k swim, 40k bike and 10k run. The other races are slightly shorter.
Though Houston’s flat lands didn’t prepare her for the hills of Madeira, she’s comfortable with the effort. “That bike killed me overall,” she said. “Some people just have a lot of guts. There were some European women not even trying to put their brakes on downhill. You have to train that to be able to do that.” The next day, she and her sister Brenda Antee, who traveled with her to Madeira, watched the pros race to qualify for the Olympics. She wouldn’t trade the experience, the race or her placement, but she’s ready for another breather.
She and Dennis are eager to spend as much time with their children as possible before they leave home, so Lynnie will race and train less for a few years. But when the kids are older, “I’ll get back into it. I’ve worked out since 1976 when I started swimming, and that’s all I know to do. I’ll still be doing that to stay in shape and then . . . just race.”
