Members of the Oskaloosa Police Department and Fire Department will be participating in a triathlon as part of a fundraiser on August 15th.

The event will consist of a 500-meter swim, a 12-mile bike ride and 3.1-mile run. Chief Mark Neff of the Oskaloosa Fire Department sat down with the Herald to discuss this topic in detail.

“We thought it would be interesting to challenge the police department to put a team together, or individuals to compete against us in the sprint triathlon,” Neff said.

The fire department is expected to have a team of three from the department participating. He also highlighted the other three individuals would be taking part in the whole event.

He added there will be some people that are going to run alone. He talked with Chief of Police Jake McGee to do the mini-triathlon. Neff said that it should be interesting to see how each of his men and the police department’s men perform during this challenge.

Although he said the triathlon has been held in the past, this will be the first time the police and fire departments have entered into this challenge.

Neff said sometime in September, there will be a trade-off between the police department and the fire department where they will swap entrance exams. These exams are generally used to determine if a person is physically fit to be able to join the various departments.

In terms of the fundraiser, Neff indicated there might be the possibility for donations. “What we are going to do is for whoever wins the competition will get to pick a local charity to donate that money to,” Neff said.

Overall, he said the event will be fun, but that it will also be challenging. “We will have to do some training for it and some of the guys have already been doing a little bit of training for it,” he said.

Story Provided By Jonathan R. Pitman

The Oskaloosa Herald