Originally Posted: March 19, 2021
Nobody likes waking up at 4:30 am. That is not an opinion. That is an objective fact gleaned from 19 years of living experience. 4:30 is simply too cold, too dark, and too early for happiness. A few more facts I have learned the hard way: running is exhausting, biking hurts your legs, and it’s hard to breathe and swim at the same time. So needless to say, waking up at 4:30 in the morning to do all three strikes any logical person as a terrible idea. And it is perhaps ludicrous to suggest that doing so could actually be fun. And yet when Andrea sent an email inquiring about a training trip, I signed up immediately.
What could motivate a supposedly intelligent college student to do this to myself? The short answer is because I love it. I love the sport. I love the long hours spent in the pool and the bike. I love the beautiful views from the mountains of New Hampshire. Most importantly I love the unique and generous community that is formed by these sports. Training, living, and eating together for four days with the team allowed us to grow closer and bond over our mutual love for triathlons.
For background: on the afternoon of Thursday the 12th, we loaded bikes and set off to a house on the cape generously lent to us by the family of Andrea (a ’20 and team captain). The next three days were a blur of training, eating, chatting, and eating. We woke up early on Friday to explore the cape on our bikes and saw three gorgeous beaches and a lighthouse. That afternoon, we traveled to Cliff Pond in order to practice open water swimming. This was a beautiful pond surrounded by trees on all sides. We swam from beach to beach, practiced starts, and even accidentally surprised some patrons by emerging, clad in wet suits, from an otherwise empty pond. On Saturday, we did a second swim and ran down to a gorgeous beach in the afternoon. It was between these fun adventures that the real magic of the trip emerged. The triathlon team combines an eclectic mixture of Dartmouth students whose only mutual interest is our sport. Talking to the members of the team offered an incredible opportunity to learn not only about triathlons, but about Dartmouth, Andrea’s wild bike tour, how to upload to google drive, and a fascinating group of my peers.
All of this training and team bonding culminated into the Buzzards Bay Triathlon, which took place on Sunday morning. We had to awake long before the crack of dawn in order to clean the house and drive to the race. We then drove down to the titular bay where we unloaded bikes, wet suits, snacks, and 15 enthusiastic triathletes. The preparations went quickly, as race mornings always do: bikes were moved into transition, shoes were placed with precision, wet suits were donned, and before I really understood what was happening, a loud buzzer sent us scrambling over rocks and into the frigid Atlantic surf. After swimming through the ocean, biking 14 miles, and running a 5K we all began to filter through the finish line. As I ran towards the end, I heard Russell (a '20 and triathlete extraordinaire) yelling encouragement and positivity, which gave me a big boost when I needed it most. And that aura of positivity and support was the real highlight of the day. Between high-5’s on the course and being basically held up as we crossed the finish line, at every step of there was a palpable community offering positive energy.
I love running and biking and swimming, but at the end of the day, the highlights of the trip were moments of doing so with the team. The trip was a great way to form connections before the school year starts, and it leaves me excited for the upcoming year, when “tri-hard” and “tri-fun” become synonymous.
About the Author
Thomas Clark is a ’22 studying engineering sciences and physics. Other than triathlons, Thomas is passionate about teaching anyone who will listen about physics, playing games with his friends, and blackboards.
