GORHAM – After months of vigorous training, a Gorham couple is ready to compete and win what is perhaps the state’s most unusual athletic competition – the North American Wife-Carrying Championship.

Jesse and Stacey Coleman, both former university athletes, are entering for their first try in the annual event, Saturday at the Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry.

“We’re planning on winning,” said Stacey Coleman, 30.

This weekend is the 11th annual event at Sunday River. The Colemans expect to compete against couples from as far away as California. The winning couple becomes eligible to compete in June in the world championships in Finland, where the sport originated.

The Colemans, who own a fitness studio in Gorham, learned about the event on TV while away on a snowboarding vacation.

“It looked like something fun to do,” said Jesse Coleman, 31.

Saturday’s North American championship will draw an estimated 2,000 spectators. A strong rooting section from Gorham is expected to cheer on the Colemans.

Competing in a field with 50 teams, Coleman will carry his wife over a 278-yard obstacle course.

According to the ski resort, the course, built on the lower slopes of Sunday River, begins with an uphill run on a dirt road and from there, continues through a field of obstacles including a series of 39-inch high log hurdles. The course is relatively flat with sections of soft sand, grass and sometimes mud, with one hairpin turn.

“We’ve trained hard all summer,” said Jesse Coleman, “and we’ve got some secrets up our sleeve,” he said about the carrying style they’ve developed.

While they won’t disclose how much his wife weighs – “That’s a secret,” she said – there’s no weight requirement for the wife in the competition.

Carrying techniques for the event usually include piggyback, fireman’s carry over the shoulder, and the Estonian-style, in which the wife hangs upside down with legs around the husband’s shoulders and holding onto his waist.

“It’s a modified Estonian carry,” Jesse Coleman said about their style. But he declined to reveal how they had modified it.

A Lewiston couple won last year’s event at Sunday River in 54.45 seconds and Coleman said last year’s winning wife weighed 96 pounds.

“They’re going to be tough to beat,” Jesse Coleman said.

According to the rules, the wife being carried is not allowed to touch the ground. If she does, Jesse Coleman said, the husband and wife team is penalized 10 seconds.

Also under the rules, an option would allow a woman to carry a man.

The couple has trained rigorously and she said she won’t be on a crash diet this week to lighten the weight he’ll shoulder Saturday.

“I know he’s strong,” she said.

And he said his wife’s strength would help her stay “neutral” as he carried her in the event and would make him faster.

The couple own My-Fit-24, formerly named the Gorham Fitness Studio, on Railroad Avenue in Gorham. Their motto is to grow stronger, healthier and happier families, she said.

While they are personal trainers, they had a trainer to help them prepare for the wife-carrying championship.

The couple also added sprint training to their exercises. But this week, they couple practiced light maintenance routines in a final tune-up.

The two met while students at the University of Southern Maine. They have two children, Zoe, 4, and Bode, 6, a first-grade student at Narragansett School.

He wrestled and she played soccer at the university. For the wife-carrying event, their knowledge of sports science will come in handy.

They’ve trained over a couple of courses they built and have practiced vaulting over log hurdles. They’ve research the event and “scoped out” competitors while reviewing films of past years.

They’ll leave Gorham early Saturday to view the actual course for the first time before the competition. “It’ll be cold,” Stacey said about the weather.

The winning couple will receive the wife’s weight in beer and five times her weight in dollars. If they win, the Colemans plan to auction the beer and donate winnings to benefit the Maine handicapped skiing program.

They expect the course to include a water obstacle. “We’ll go into the water,” she said.

“Waist deep,” he said.

But, “he promises I won’t get wet,” she said.

Stacey and Jesse Coleman, owners of My-Fit-24, a health and fitness facility in Gorham, have been training hard for this weekend’s North American Wife Carrying Championships at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry. Although the Colemans are both personal trainers, they called on the expertise of other personal trainers to prepare.Photo by Rich Obrey