In a healthy dialogue or debate in class, students might have a fighting chance. Otherwise, if those same students want to go head-to-head with Chris Roy, they had better do the legwork and come prepared. It also may help to have a bit of endurance and stamina.
In the classroom, Roy, a professor in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, tackles complex problems in computational fluid dynamics. He teaches courses in aero/hydrodynamics, verification and validation in scientific computing, and turbulence modeling and simulation.
Outside the classroom, Roy spends his free time training for and competing in triathlons. In 2021 alone, he has competed in 12 of these endurance races. His most recent accomplishment was qualifying for and competing at the Ironman 70.3 (also known as the half-Ironman) World Championship.
As he moved into the world of academia, Roy found swimming to be the outlet he needed to take a break from the long hours of research and mental strain that come with computational work. “I find it to be a huge help in stress relief,” he said. “Swimming and later on, biking, were a way to help turn off my mind and focus on something else for a change.”
In the past decade, Roy incorporated running into his fitness regime, and he tackled his first triathlon in 2013. From there, he was hooked.
Shortly after Roy qualified for the world championship race in 2019, the global COVID-19 pandemic hit. All races, competitions, and events where athletes might gather and draw crowds of spectators were halted.
Despite the disappointment, Roy continued with his training. As a substitute for the formal races that were continually being postponed or canceled, Roy created his own triathlons in the New River Valley for himself and a handful of local triathletes. As official events began to open up again in 2021, he overloaded his schedule, sometimes participating in both a sprint race and an Olympic-distance race in the same weekend.
After his qualified entry was deferred and Edmonton was canceled twice, he participated in the Carilion Clinic Ironman 70.3 Virginia’s Blue Ridge triathlon in Roanoke. There he qualified in his age group for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in St. George, Utah.
St. George, a city in southwestern Utah known for its iconic Red Rocks, hosted the 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championship in September. “Two weeks before the race, the daily highs reached 108 degrees, and I thought, ‘what have I gotten myself into?’” Roy said. “On the race day, a rare storm came through, and it ended up being much cooler than anticipated.”
Roy competes in the 50-54 age group, among athletes from around the world. First up: the 1.2 mile swim. The one-loop open water swim took place in the Sand Hollow Reservoir at Sand Hollow State Park near Hurricane, Utah. With the swim leg being one of his strongest, Roy had the third-fastest time of the 268 athletes in his age group.
Straight out of the water, the athletes immediately transitioned to the cycling portion of the race. During this leg of Roy’s race, the aforementioned storm unleashed high winds, rain, hail, and lightning. “About 28 miles into the bike, I was riding 20-25 miles per hour while battling a 30-mile-per-hour crosswind,” Roy said. “I had to lean over to brace myself against the wind, white knuckling it and hoping not to crash.”
During the cycling portion of the race, Roy finished 25th in his age group.
For the final 13.1 miles, athletes tackled the two-loop course on foot. Roy said that the running portion of the race is the weakest of his three disciplines. During this leg in St. George, he suffered from quad and hamstring cramps, all the while enduring a run on a course with two miles of 15 percent grade downhill.
In this last leg of the race, Roy finished 168th among the runners, giving him an overall finish of 44th place in the 50-54 age group.
After his is recovery from the Ironman, Roy continues to train, track his results, and make improvements. His next goal is to perform well at the 2022 Toyota Age Group National Championships held in Milwaukee in August, where he hopes to again qualify for Team USA and compete in the Olympic Distance World Championship in 2023.
— Jama Green, Virginia Tech
