Coaches & Exec

The Exec

The club exec, a mix of student and community members, provides overall leadership to the club and handles a lot of the behind the scene tasks, including budget planning, organizing workouts, facilitating events such as our Swim-Row-Go, social events and club races, and leading a variety of workouts among other tasks!

Paulette Dalton – Co-President + Bike Leader & Instagram Manager  

Paulette has been an enthusiastic member of the triathlon club (on & off) since 2007. She competed in her first sprint triathlon back in 2002 when she barely knew how to do the dog paddle swim. Since then she has found a love for long distance running and triathlon.
She has completed 7 Ironman Triathlons and over 20 Marathons (including The Boston Marathon 7 times). She is also competed in the 70.3 World Championships twice.
She can usually be found leading Wednesday evening bike workouts.Ask her about: Anything bike related (if she doesn’t know the answer, she can find out!)


Nate Walsh – Co-President , Workout Coordinator 

Nate joined the triathlon club in 2013 and has been racing non-stop ever since. His first love is running, but he has since embraced biking and even swimming (he’s an adult onset swimmer). He has completed 2 ironmans, has qualified for both ITU Worlds and ITU Long Course Worlds, ran 9 marathons (including Boston in 2016), and has a half ironman PB of 4:29. Nate is also a NCCP Level 1 triathlon coach

You can usually find Nate running the 17km route at the thursday tempo runs

Ask him about: How to run a faster 5k and how to sing better at karaoke.

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 Alison Ytsma -Webmaster +Workout Leader  

Alison has been a part of the triathlon club since 2011 when she decided to race her first triathlon. She has recently discovered a love for trail running and was part of the first all women relay team to run the whole Bruce Trail. You can find her at evening runs and leading morning spin classes.

Ask her about:  Traveling with your bike,  Ironman,  Ultra running, Trail running
Marina: Treasurer 

Marina joined the club in September 2018 seeking a challenge and hoping to dip her toe in the waters of a new sport. Having swum in high school and run a couple half marathons she’s enthusiastically thrown herself into the sport and is learning to make friends with the bike thanks to the help and support of fellow triclub members. She completed her first Triathlon in June 2019 with Guelph Lake 1 Olympic distance and is now officially hooked on the sport.

You can find Marina at most swim and run practices and the occasional bike workout. Ask her about: Getting the most from the post track Wahooo! Cheer.
Ryan Chan: Recruitment    

Ryan joined the club in 2016 and quickly got immersed in the competitive nature of the sport.
He has raced in the Guelph sprint, Wasaga olympic and Niagara Falls half ironman triathlons as
well as the Scotiabank marathon. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and also enjoys
golfing and skiing.
Ask him about: How to incorporate a weightlifting routine as a part of your triathlon training.
Richard Magony: Race Coordinator + Brick Leader  

Richard joined the club in 2015 with the interest of continuing endurance sports at a competitive level. Richard has an extensive background in ice hockey and distance running, competing in Cross Country and Track and Field throughout high school, and wanted to try something different in university. Richard has fallen in love with triathlon ever since, quoting “Tri is Life” and believing that life is just recovery in between triathlons.

Richard is a keen participant in club practices. He leads the indoor Brick workouts every Friday at 6:30pm, but he can also be found at pretty much every other club workout throughout the week.

Richard knows all about balancing the busy lifestyle of being an undergraduate student and triathlete, so feel free to ask him questions about managing time between school and training. He also continues to play ice hockey on a weekly basis, so you can ask him how to incorporate other sports you enjoy into your training.
  Emma LeBlanc: Secretary 

Keen to find company to train with for a half-marathon in the spring, Emma decided to join the triathlon club at McGill in her first year of undergrad. Once she learned how to front crawl (or swim “freestyle” as swimmers like to call it), she fell in love with the sport. She discovered she could do so much more than she ever believed. She has now raced in 7 triathlons and 3 marathons, and earned herself a spot in the 2018 Boston marathon. The first thing Emma did when she moved to Toronto for grad school in September 2017 was to join the U of T triathlon club. She loves training with the awesome people in the club and discovering Toronto through tempo runs and long rides. Throughout the school year you can usually find her at the interval runs and morning spins or at any of our training she can make it to when she is out of the lab.

Katy Tiper: Social Coordinator + Bike Leader 

Katy has been a committed member of the triathlon club since 2017. She joined to help improve her running, but soon after started biking and swimming getting pulled into the world of triathlon. She has completed two 10kms, two half-marathons and three sprint triathlons and is working towards moving into long distance running and long course triathlons. You can usually find Katy at Monday track, Thursday tempo runs and any swim practice. Ask her about: learning to swim and ride with clipless pedals as a newbie

COACHES  

Vanessa-Head Swim Coach

Vanessa joined the Tri Club Coaching team in September 2018. She has several years of experience coaching with TMU and other competitive swim programs. After graduating from U of T with a Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology, Vanessa has found her niche designing training programs for athletes, both in and out of the water.
Spending 15 years as a competitive swimmer herself, Vanessa is no stranger to the excitement and challenges (lots of them) that come with the sport of swimming. While at U of T, Vanessa was a member of the Varsity Blues women’s swimming team and collected a variety of swimming accolades, including: 5x U SPORTS All-Canadian, 2x OUA female swimmer of the year, and in her graduating year, Vanessa was awarded the Clara Benson Honour Award for her outstanding excellence in athletics, leadership, and scholarship.
Joshua Kahn– Swim Coach
Joshua is qualified as a certified personal trainer, swimming coach, and nutrition counsellor. He promotes comprehensive physical health habits that have been honed by over 20 years of experience in competitive and recreational athletics.
Monica Brundage: Swim Coach 

Monica was a competitive swimmer for ten years growing up. In that time, she competed primarily as a distance swimmer, in the 1500 and 800, and a backstroker. Although she has since quit competitive swimming, she still spends much of her time at the pool lifeguarding, teaching, and coaching. She has coached various teams, including recreational kids teams, competitive kids teams, Masters, and, currently, Triathlon. She brings her knowledge of distance and open-water training to the Tri Club.
Carlos Rodriguez Larrain Herrera: Swim CoachCarlos has been coaching swimming for the past 6 years with over 10 years of experience in aquatics. He started coaching the TriClub in 2016 and has enjoyed the atmosphere of the club ever since. He emparts his experience from both competitive swim and general athletic competition to swimmers in order to help them improve their times and achieve their personal goals. You can typically find him at Sunday morning swims, brewing up new and “interesting” workouts that will push your limits.
Dimitrios Petropoulos – Swim Coach 

Dimitri was a competitive swimmer for 10 years, competting as a sprinter in the Breastroke and IM events. Along with the earlier years he spent learning swimming, and more recent ones coaching, he has been around a pool deck for 2 decades. He began coaching Triathlon swimmers in 2019, and his goal is to guide the swimmers towards faster performances, by providing his knowledge and experience

Workout Leaders (Non-exec)

   
   
  Katie Wittmann: Spin / bike workouts + Tempo runs 

Katie graduated from the Master of Science in Planning program at the University of Toronto, and enjoyed the Tri Club so much she never left! She currently works at the City of Toronto. Katie got her start in triathlons at Queen’s University, and loves the variety of the sport. She did her first sprint triathlon in 2013, and increased her distances each year until completing Ironman Mont-Tremblant in 2017. When she’s not training or socializing with the Tri Club, she’s most likely tossing a disc (“Frisbee”).

You can usually find Katie at early morning spins, evening runs (as the turtle on Thursdays), and Sunday swims.

Ask her about: opportunities for slower runs and bike rides, good races for beginners, commuter cycling
 

 

 Donald Johnston- Bike Leader 

 
Don did a 5k once, commuted by bike, and started swimming lessons at 24 years old. Then he decided to try a triathlon, and loved it. Since then, he’s made a home for himself in the short course races because he likes to be done racing before brunch. He joined up with the Tri Club when he started his Master’s of Teaching program in the fall of 2018. Someday, he hopes to somehow shoehorn a lesson about triathlon into a high school science classroom.
 
When he’s not swimming, biking, or running, (or cleaning his bike), Don likes baking bread, woodworking, and eating pasta.
 
You can ask Don for tips on bike fit, how to do this sport cheaply, and bread recipes.