Throughout the slow Hanover winter, on long trainer rides in our living rooms and bone-numbing snow day runs, all I could think – all we could think – was Florida. Outdoor pools, tri-kit tanlines, sunburned feet…Not only were we getting to start off the racing season in March – two months earlier than it usually begins in New England – but we’d also heard rumors of extensively-decorated Disney-themed rooms in our rental house outside of Orlando. And our dream of Florida was truly all it promised to be. Here are a few highlights, from training to our dreamlike week down South:
Saturdays.
Whether you think Saturdays are for the boys, for the girls, or for no one at all, for Tri Team, Saturdays were just for us. Saturdays meant BRick workouts: 2-3 hours biking on the trainer followed by a 3-5 mile run. Saturdays also held strength workouts, which meant, in the end, that most of our day was spent working out. And you know what? I loved it. I came to treasure Saturdays. Have you ever blocked out a whole day, every week, just for one thing, one goal and purpose? Saturdays were a meditation, a huge chunk of time to think, while my muscles fired and contracted and ached. They were a journey, each and every one of them, up until Saturday March 17th – raceday.
The trailer.
Hours of work over winter break and a spark of the captains’ design genius came to fruition in the form of a beautiful, shiny trailer complete with 25 bike hooks, lovingly named Steve. After digging Steve out of the snow on the Monday evening of finals period, Brandt’s engineering degree was put to the test. We all loaded our bikes, and Brandt, Valentina, Matt and Anna set off on their pilgrimage to Florida. They arrived two days later at our rental mansion, Mickey’s House of Champions, exhausted but propelled by Brandt’s guzzling of Mountain Dew and the great promise of sunshine.
The early mornings.
On the first morning of training trip, my eyes flew open at 6am to music blasting in the kitchen. Had I fallen asleep at the Championsgate retirement community nightclub? No, it was just Katie and Matt eating oatmeal before our morning swim. The rest of us dragged ourselves out of bed, and an hour later we were watching the sunrise over the pool at the National Training Center. Our sun-starved bodies soaked up the early rays between long-course laps in the water. We started all of our days swimming at the NATC, followed by biking, running, yoga classes, foam-rolling, pool-lounging, elaborate home-cooked dinners for 28 and 9pm bedtimes. It was the triathlete’s dream schedule – train, eat, sleep, tell stories and watch Miracle to pass the time – and we could not have been more content.
The raceday ridiculousness.
I remember raceday as a series of strange and comical events:
- Eating breakfast at 4:30am and watching Moises consume 2 slices of Domino’s pizza before his sprint triathlon, in the dark
- Putting on face tattoos and slathering our skin in body-glide and sunscreen at 6am, still very much in the dark
- Squinting from the beach with Sonia before the race, trying to make out the farthest orange buoy in the swim loop, which evaded us in the distance
- Casually chatting with Steve and Jim about the (way-too-hot) weather as they passed me on the bike course
- Bonking at mile 40 when I ran out of water and clumsily dropped both of the water bottles that volunteers at the final aid stations handed me in motion, one after the other
- Getting off of my bike feeling like I’d come home from a long, sweaty journey, only to remember I still had to run a half marathon
- Nearly bursting into tears of gratitude when I saw our teammates who were doing the Olympic race the next day cheering us on at transition
- Running out of ways to say “GO!!!” to Katie, Sonia and Evan when I saw them each four times on the run, only at mile 6 realizing it was a double-loop course
- Lying on the ground minutes after finishing the race and promising myself I’d never do a half ironman again
- Watching my teammates, Jeff, Jim and Steve take the podium an hour later and smiling realizing that they’d definitely convince me to sign up for another half ironman this year
The people, the people, the people.
Our people: the crazy-driven, (sort-of-just-crazy,) early-rising, car-singing, banana-eating, foam-rolling, fun-loving, wildly sunburnt athletes that make up our strange, determined family. Our coaches: the endlessly-inspiring, ever-committed, TrainingPeaks-revering, warm and loving people we get to look up to every single day. Tri people: the awe-provoking, dazzlingly-muscular, unevenly-tanned, wholeheartedly-vibrant people that make up a bigger and more welcoming community than we ever knew we were becoming a part of – we’re just happy to be in the middle of it all.
SBR,
Emma
About the Author
Emma Sklarin is an '18 on the tri team studying Creative Writing, Environmental Studies and Spanish. She loves exploring and boogie boarding, and farmer's markets.
