Twenty-five years ago, Jeanne Zwart decided to help out friend, Bill Frost, who was trying to pull off the inaugural Elysian Rookies Triathlon.

There were 63 people entered in the swim-bike-run event and Zwart was assigned to directing traffic at a key intersection of the race. Frost moved out of town the next year and organizing the triathlon fell into Zwart’s lap.

On Saturday, the Rookies Triathlon celebrates it’s silver anniversary. For 24 of the 25 years, Zwart has been coordinating the show for the City of Elysian and the Elysian Area Chamber of Commerce.

The triathlon has endured some growing pains along the way, but Zwart says the course has remained essentially unchanged.

“We’re one of the oldest — if not THE oldest — triathlon’s in the state,” she said this week. “We started with 63 participants and last year we had 350.

“We get a lot of the same people who come back year after year to compete. And we get a lot of new faces every year, too.”

The Elysian Rookies Triathlon begins with a 1⁄4-mile swim on Lake Francis, continues with an eight-mile bike ride, and concludes with a four-mile run. Both individuals and teams may compete and the starting time is 8 a.m.

When Zwart first took over the race in 1985, she never dreamed she’d still be doing it more than two decades later. It’s still a labor of love for the civic-minded Zwart who wants to ensure that everybody who attends, as either a competitor or a fan, has a positive experience.

There have definitely been challenges. When it first began she continually heard griping from some people who said they’d like to do it but they weren’t any good at swimming or they could swim and run but didn’t’ care for the biking.

“Seven years into it, we began the team competition and that’s been a real boost,” she said. “This way people can specialize in just their one event and still be part of the race. We had more than 30 teams last year and we already have 30 signed up this year,”

One year, due to bad weather, Zwart canceled the race and rescheduled it for the next day. That brought about some major headaches and now, Zwart says, she’ll wait out any bad weather and just start the race later if need be.

Last year, PT Timing took over the timing portion of the event and that proved to be beneficial. The times are now more accurate and Zwart doesn’t need as many volunteers to keep track of times manually.

“It’s so much more efficient this way,” Zwart said. “It’s definitely worth it; it takes out some of the stress.”

The biggest challenge for Zwart every year is to make sure she has enough volunteers to make the event run smoothly. On race day it takes between 50 and 80 volunteers to make it work and Zwart says the community has been extremely supportive.

“We have a women’s group in Elysian that helps out every year and we always get help from organizations like the Elysian Volunteer Fire Department, the Le Sueur County Water Patrol, and the sheriff’s department. Pepsi and A.H. Hermel have been our main sponsors for more than 20 years so they’ve helped out, as well.”