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Recently, four members of the exec board got together to write a new mission statement to update our vision for the team. The group consisted of myself, a sophomore captain, and two seniors to get a balance of both old values and future visions for the team. We have finalized a draft of our new mission statement, and I thought it would be helpful to share it along with some annotations about why tri team matters so much to me.

Mission Statement

The Dartmouth Triathlon Team aims to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for Dartmouth students of all abilities who are interested in training for and racing in triathlons. We strive to foster a supportive and positive team spirit that celebrates all types of success. The Dartmouth Triathlon Team empowers its members to pursue athletic achievement while also providing leadership opportunities as a student run team.

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”The Dartmouth Triathlon Team aims to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for Dartmouth students of all abilities”

One of the main reasons I stuck with the team after freshman fall was because of how inclusive and kind the older members were. I still vividly remember my first day of practice- an outdoor bike ride. I was flustered and overwhelmed by my first week of college and I was a little slower than the rest of the group. However, one of the 18s stayed back and rode with me so that I wouldn’t have to make it back to campus alone. The talent of my fellow teammates could have been intimidating and caused me to quit, but instead I felt included and supported.

“…who are interested in training for and racing in triathlons.”

This part is pretty crucial and self-explanatory- we are the triathlon team and everyone on our team should be training to do a triathlon, duathlon, or aquabike race. Dartmouth has a club swim, club cycling, and club running team, so the combination of all three sports is what makes us unique.

“We strive to foster a supportive and positive team spirit that celebrates all types of success.”

This sentence sums up our team really well. You don’t have to be ready to win a triathlon to be a member, but you should be training to achieve your own successes, whether that looks like swimming a smooth lap of freestyle or completing an ironman (shout out to Emma Rodriguez ’20 who is now an ironwoman!). Because our team is positive and supportive, practices are really fun. Last week we did hill repeats as one of our running practices, which could have been terrible. Instead, it was great because everyone cheered each other on as we ran up and down the hill at our own paces.

“The Dartmouth Triathlon Team empowers its members to pursue athletic achievement”

We have some pretty amazing athletes on our team- ironmen, people going to world championships this summer, and we frequently sweep the podium at races. Our practices involve challenge by choice- everyone gets a copy of the work out and there are lots of ways to tailor it to your ability level, which allows everyone to reach their highest potential. The practice format has allowed me to feel challenged without ever feeling frustrated and I have definitely improved in all three disciplines.

“…while also providing leadership opportunities as a student run team.”

We have two fabulous volunteer coaches that help us plan and run workouts and we are so grateful to have their support. However, we are still a student run team, so we are in charge of planning logistics for every event we go to, reserving spaces for practices and events, and making sure that our practices are safe. As a new member of the exec board, I have learned that it takes a lot to run a team. The captains and the exec board work really hard to make everything run smoothly.

The triathlon team has had a very positive impact on my time at Dartmouth so far and I was really thankful to have the opportunity to help write the mission statement. The statement allows us to have a strong set of core values that we can go back to in the future.

SBR,

Hannah

About the Author

Hannah Lang ('21) is a new member of the exec board studying Arabic and Quantitative Social Science. She loves cooking, slogs (slow jogs) with teammates, and traveling.

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I was convinced, for my first five minutes of my first pool workout with the triathlon team, that I was a pretty decent swimmer. Despite my raspy throat, burning chest, and aching shoulders, I was actually able to keep pace with my teammates. At the end of our first set, I stood up in the shallows and turned to Emily to ask her how to perform the specified drills. She replied that we were supposed to first perform catch-up at a moderate pace after our “easy” warmup, and launched into the drill in a strong, confident stroke. As I watched Emily, and the rest of the Tri Team glide across the pool with effortless technique, I bit my lip to keep from crying. It seemed that swimming, like everything else here at Dartmouth, would be a learning curve that started at level zero.

I first heard about the Dartmouth Triathlon Team before I ever stepped foot on campus. While surfing the internet in search of activities to join once I arrived on campus, I stumbled across Tri Team’s webpage quite by accident. In spite of a team cover photo filled with happy smiles, funny blog posts, and well-organized calendar, I didn’t spend more than a few minutes scanning the website. Competitive athletics, I had decided, were a part of my past. It was time for me to close the yearbook and focus on the academic pursuits that I believed were the key to success in life beyond Dartmouth. I was convinced that coming to a new place like Dartmouth meant I had to be a new person and throw away my childhood in favor of the adulthood I hoped to find here.

Two weeks into term, my wish for a “new life” had been granted. Classes were new. Friends were new. The food, my room, professors, my schedule— there wasn’t one part of my life that was exactly how I remembered it back home. Overwhelmed, I began longing for the familiar cadence of a long run and the joy of having time set aside each day to focus on life outside of academics. Cranky from sitting in the Stacks for hours on end, I began to reevaluate my decision to throw my passion for athletics away.

On the heels of this realization, I remembered the smiling faces in the Tri Team photo I had seen back in December. I decided to begin showing up to practices, hoping that I could one day count myself among them. Yet standing at the end of my lane during that first swim practice, easily one of the slowest swimmers on the team, I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. I didn’t look, or feel, like those excited, athletic people that I remembered from Tri Team’s website.

“Try breathing more frequently, and don’t turn your head so far out of the water.” Glancing up, I looked over my shoulder to see Coach Jeff standing on the pool deck. As I focused on my technique, I felt a newfound steadiness in my stroke, and felt the dejected tension in my stomach begin to ease. When my lane-mates returned, we began the next set together; encouragement flowing through the group. By the end of practice, I wasn’t ready to join the Olympic swim team— but I wasn’t ready to give up either.

Swimming, Biking, Running. Each sport is difficult on its own merit, and as triathletes, we put them altogether to create a sport that is the ultimate test of athleticism, spirit, and above all, grit. Many of us on Tri Team came to Dartmouth with backgrounds in a wide range of sports and bring our own personal strengths and weaknesses to triathlon. For some of us, that may mean starting at level “zero” in at least one element of triathlon. Yet, my first day of swimming with Tri Team taught me that our first steps into the sport do not represent our limitations, but our launch pads. They propel us into improvements that reach as far as our hard work and tenacity will take us.

Most importantly, though, our journeys into triathlon represent a path that we walk with our teammates. Our shared experience as students at one of the most rigorous universities in the country, coupled with our demanding training, has created a community in which each person genuinely values the contribution of everyone’s personal best— because we all understand what it means to challenge your own limits every day. My love of athletics may have brought me to triathlon, but this accepting and hard-working community has been the part of my experience on the team that convinced me to stay. It has been such a blessing to get to know all of the amazing people on triathlon team over the course of the past seven weeks, and I can’t wait for all of our adventures together over the course of the next four years.

SBR,

Maya

About the Author

Maya is a ’22 from Minnesota. She loves running to Norwich with the team on Mondays, strawberry-banana smoothies from Collis, apple-brie sandwiches from Novack, Nordic skiing, and having outdoor adventures of any kind.

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As I stood at the start line of the CHaD, I went over my race plan in my head - First 7 km at a talking pace, next 7 km at race pace and the final 7 km give it all you got. The race director and the head of the Children’s hospitals gave announcements and speeches, however I could only focus on the race ahead, on my plan and my strategy.

Moments later we were off. Deep, deep into my own race and head, for the first few kilometers, I focused on my form, and repeatedly reminded myself to not go too fast. Conserve your energy, you can catch up later, you can do this.

These thoughts, however, were abruptly interrupted moments later by the words “how you doing?”. Being so focused on my own race, I hadn’t noticed two men that was running beside me. I was startled… talking to people was defiantly not in my race strategy, but I breathlessly replied that I was doing alright. We ran the next few kilometers together, chatting here and there.

Soon we had passed the first 7km mark, and one of the men had dropped off, leaving me and the pacer. We then started to talk strategy together. He planned out the rest of the race as if we were a team. Telling me that we wanted to come back into New Hampshire strong and really work the hills. He helped me grab the water and Gatorade handed out by volunteers on the side of road, and ran ahead to make the crowds cheer as I ran by.

The last 7 km were some of the hardest I have ever ran in my life. I thought at some points that I was going to have to stop, that the grueling hills of the Upper Valley had gotten to me. However, I turned to my partner for support. He urged me on, and pushed me through right to the finish line.

A race that I thought I was going to run alone, and a sport that I previously thought was an individual sport turned out to be a team effort. The pacer, whose name I never even had the chance to ask, made me appreciate running and racing in a whole new way. He broke me out of my head, and made me appreciate the surroundings. I took in the entirety of the course, the volunteers and my triathlon teammates cheering me on, the beauty of the course, and the signs on the side of the road reminding us that we were running for a greater cause.

My partner made me realize that accomplishing something as a team is so much more fulfilling than accomplishing something by yourself and for that I am truly grateful.

SBR,

Charlotte

About the Author

Charlotte is a 19’ who has been on the triathlon team since her freshman year. She is pre-med and studies geography. She loves travelling, and spending time with her friends and family.

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The string of disappointments started, as we all know, in early March. Those of us on campus watched our springs and summers pass by from our childhood homes, many hundreds or thousands of miles from the campus and people that we love. The ‘24s watched their senior semesters get cut short, their graduations move online (and overtaken by bromide-laden speeches that sound much like this introduction), and countless other opportunities ripped from underneath them. But we all adapted. Everyone adjusted to Zoom classes. We grew accustomed to scanning problem sets, syrup metaphors, working only a few feet from where we sleep, and seeing our friends through a 13-inch screen. Swimming, biking and running together in this environment is immensely difficult, so we adjusted to the one hour a week that many of us shared as a collective exercise opportunity: strength.

To the uneducated observer, we are simply standing in garages, backyards, and home gyms, blaring pop music as loud as our already overheated laptops will allow between occasional pushups. For me, however, it was always a highlight of my week, in part because it was a bit of respite from sitting at my desk working, but mostly because I missed the team. In the spring term, strength was a chance for me to see the seniors and get in a good workout. Over the summer, organizing the practices was placed in my hands, and we had some fun opportunities to mix in some workout challenges. However, with the 20’s leaving and our motivation seeping the longer we stayed apart, it was not quite the same. Then came the fall, and more importantly, the ‘24s.

After finally being returned to campus and dealing with quarantine, we started up Zoom strength again. The excitement of the ‘24s seemed to immediately spread through the whole team. Something about hearing new voices and meeting new people while talking about the sport we love always brings vitality back to the team. Maybe it’s just because I am tired of seeing our captain, Jackson Danis (’21), outshining my beard with his own, but the fresh faces during Zoom strength always makes my (Tues)day. The few new members I have had the opportunity to meet in breakout rooms have reminded me that the ‘24s are truly that best class ever — at least for the time being. We will continue to get stronger over the remainder of the term, and I am so excited to see more people joining the triathlon community every time we meet.

SBR

-Thomas Clark ’22

About the Author

Thomas (left in image below) is a ’22 engineering major modified with computer science (he wishes it communicated that he is more interesting than that major implies). He enjoys spending time with his friends, board games, and teaching. In his free time, he can be found arguing over truly pointless subjects, staring blankly at crosswords, and writing self-indulgent bios for blog posts.

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Tri team is so lucky to have three awesome coaches, Jeff, Jim, and Eliot, supporting us and pushing us to be better athletes and teammates.

Jeff Reed (’76) joined our team just over two years ago at the urging of former captain Kelly (’16), a friend of Jeff’s stepson. Kelly knew that Jeff was an avid triathlete himself, and seeking some extra guidance for our growing team, recruited Jeff to help us out. Despite 25+ years of coaching lacrosse, Jeff says he was hesitant at first to take on the roll only because he felt “woefully unprepared.” He quickly proved himself wrong, and became a central part of the team, volunteering his time at almost all of our practices. Jeff helped us set bigger goals for ourselves, taught us new bike routes, and encouraged us through many practices and races.

As a 4-year member of the tri-team, I can attest to the huge impact that our wonderful coaches have had. When I first started on the team, we were entirely student run. Though our awesome ’15 Tri Team founders, Nina and Sara, helped us through our first races, having a coach has made a substantial difference in the preparedness and expectations of the team. With Jeff’s help, we’ve developed more targeted workouts and established our baseline heart rate and power thresholds. At races, we know that someone will be there to look out for us, help solve any last minute problems, and cheer us on. Just as importantly, Jeff has gone out of his way to make each member of the team feels welcome, challenged, and supported. When old injuries have flared up, Jeff has helped me figure out how to balance training for the Season Opener without making it worse. When Jeff and three of our teammates competed in USAT Nationals this summer, Jeff drove all four bikes across the country. When we wanted to hold an end of the season banquet, Jeff volunteered his house. Most recently, when over 30 ‘21s joined the team (!!!), Jeff led a power test and made individualized power reference cards for all of our new members to use during spins. We are so lucky to have Jeff’s endless support!

When asked about Tri Team, Jeff says it has been “really awesome” and has surpassed his expectations. He points to the motivation and organization of the team as key features that have made his job more enjoyable and fun. Jeff has loved participating in team events, from the first race he attended as a coach (to Cranberry Trifest) to our recent team hike up Mt. Cardigan. We all love post-strength team dinners with Jeff at Foco! When Jeff isn’t helping us train, you can find him preparing for his own races, including a recent journey to Worlds! Jeff describes the experience as lots of fun, and is especially passionate about the community of friends that the sport has connected him with. A true competitor at heart, Jeff also loves any other form of athletics/competition, including crushing his daughter in Monopoly :).

Thank you, Jeff, for your endless dedication to the team! We couldn’t do it without you!

About the Author

Arielle Isaacson is an ’18 studying Anthropology Modified with Global Health and Neuroscience, and is pre-med. She loves spending time outside with friends, scuba diving, and snuggling with her dog!

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18X brought less structure, an opportunity to bond as a smaller community, and gorgeous weather. We spent evenings at Storrs Pond swimming in the murky water, late nights and early mornings running to avoid the sometimes humid and hot air, and filled our weekends with long rides perfecting our bike short tan lines. We biked both through sunshine and torrential rain, finished workouts by hopping into the river, and took days off from normal tri activities to hike. Through the endless possible backroads to explore in the NH/VT Upper Valley, each hill was an opportunity for strengthening and each downhill a chance to release tension and create our own breezes. As much as I enjoy the hours spent in the spin room with teammates sweating while singing along to throwback music (which we still fit into our summer schedules on the occasional morning), 18X was focused on soaking in every sunbeam and growing more and more comfortable and powerful on our outdoor bikes.

Carly and I trained to bike 100 miles in the Prouty, which provided us with a chance to do something we love while raising money for a cause. We rode with Hunter and our coach Jeff and finished the century ride in under six hours. As biking has been an escape from stress this summer, this ride provided me with six hours in my happy place. Climbing each hill in order to drop into aero and glide down the other side, I combined personal challenge with a reflection on the impact cancer has had on my family. Just as I worked with my sisters to be caretakers for our mom while balancing school work and health, I worked with my teammates to defeat each hill while balancing hydration and nutrition. The Prouty was a reminder of the incredible Upper Valley community. In the weeks leading up to this event, there were constantly bikers making their ways through the beautiful NH and VT backroads. Give the people in the Upper Valley a cause they care about and a physical challenge, and you see the huge participation and impact they can have.

In addition to our feat on the bike, a group of us traveled to Boston for the Boston Triathlon, which became a duathlon (run bike run) due to weather. The optimism each person held through the storm and the two running events was a great reminder of the team spirit and energy that makes this group of people so special. Not only was it so nice to spend time with past and current teammates who traveled to Boston from their internships and jobs, but it was a reminder of the larger community that will join us again in the fall. This summer has provided an opportunity to strengthen relationships between us ‘20s while developing our sense of leadership and goals for the team as we move forward without the ‘18s. I am grateful for the time we have had to process the changes our community will face without the presence of the ‘18s we love so much, but 18X has shown me that we can honor their traditions and carry their energy and compassion into our team’s next generation.

As 18X comes to an end, we can still be found riding through backroads in NH, training for Buzzards Bay Sprint in mid-September, as we await the return of the rest of our teammates and prepare to welcome 22s onto our team.

SBR,

Andrea

About the Author

Andrea (’20) is a tri team exec from Hanover, NH studying Quantitative Social Science and Arabic. She loves winter, tea, traveling with family, and spending time outside.

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There is something truly magical about waking up in the summer right before sunrise. Outside, the sky is still a little purple, and the air has a misty, rejuvenating feel to it. Meditative.

As I remove a mug from my cabinet and put on a pot of coffee, a wave of relaxation often washes over me. No matter what is coming my way today, I am up early to prepare for it. In a sense, I have “beat the day.” With this first little victory (in fact, a great morning song is “Little Victories” by J.D. Souther), my thoughts are only positive. My actions are only deliberate. The morning makes this state possible for me. Here, I allow myself to let go. Here, I allow myself to breathe. My calm before the storm.

In 1948, the World Health Organization was established post-World War II for the amelioration of public health conditions by means of international cooperation. Its constitution defined “health” as “a state of complete mental, social and physical well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” In our current world fraught with uncertainty, where relationships are strained, future plans held by a thread, where we are suffering, politically divided, tired, and ill, holistic protection of our well-being becomes even more important. My stress comes from having (and wanting) to do so much during the day. Sometimes I feel as though I am running for hours on a treadmill set to a speed too fast for me rather than primed to race. The surrounding chaos disrupts my focus, which doesn’t suit the adrenaline that comes with having to perform at a high level in the first place. I like to use that adrenaline to visualize and actualize, not self-paralyze.

As we have had to adapt amid a pandemic beyond our control, I have found security in the embrace of the early morning, with its empowering stillness. As we have lost the comforting structure of scheduled team practices these past two terms, except for our weekly zoom strength sessions, of course, I have found the morning to be the time when I can take control of at least one aspect of my life: my training.

For me, this spring meant getting back into running after injury, and I am incredibly grateful for Coach Katie’s 10-week training plan that helped me do just that. Katie’s plan held so much in store for us. We had days specifically scheduled for rest and yoga videos tailored specifically to runners. We had timed 5ks spaced evenly throughout the term to track our progress. We had a mix of tempo runs and track workouts, middle distance runs and long runs. We had strength sessions and running drills. To top it off, there were motivational videos to help us stay connected to racing and zoom office hours to help us stay connected to our team. It was a holistic training plan if I have ever seen one. And I am grateful to all of our coaches, Coach Jeff, Coach Jim, and Coach Katie, for their unwavering support. Thank you.

Since the spring term, I have also been a part of our executive board. I have been able to give back to the team that has meant so much to me over these past three years; coming into my fourth, there is nowhere else I would rather be. Socially, my well-being has been very much taken care of by our weekly meetings.

So to anyone struggling with training motivation during quarantine, I recommend that you connect with a teammate virtually (as our team has offered), watch a motivational video, and remember how with training comes mental clarity, social connection, physical strength, and an endorphin rush: training in three, holistic pillars — the mental, social, and physical. And if you are having trouble scheduling in your training, may I suggest the early morning, when free, light steps in the quiet, cooler hours can help prepare you for the weight of the world.

About the Author

Julianne Mehra is a '21 majoring in Comparative Literature. Apart from triathlon training, she enjoys playing piano and cooking with her family.

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Sika Henry, the very first African-American female triathlete with a pro card, spoke with the Dartmouth Triathlon Team in April. She shared her story of starting to do triathlons, her perspective on diversity in the sport, and a few lessons she’s learned about training.

Sika was an athlete in college, but not an endurance athlete; she was a walk-on high jumper at Tufts University. Her experience in endurance sports began several years after college, when she decided to start running and chose to run a marathon. Although she wasn’t a top finisher in her first event, she committed to training and tried again. She went on to win the Newport News marathon, not one time, but two years in a row. After a few years of distance running, she became interested in trying triathlon and began with a sprint-length race (0.5 mile swim, 12.4 mile bike, and 3.1 mile run). She found she enjoyed triathlon particularly for the variety in sports and the benefit of cross-training. As many of us on the Dartmouth Triathlon team have also discovered, practicing swimming improves a person’s running!

As Sika began competing in triathlons, she learned more about the notable lack of diversity in the sport. Often, she is the one of only a few African-American triathletes at a race, and she noted that African-American athletes make up only 0.5% of triathletes. When she started racing, there were no African-American female triathletes with a pro card, so Sika set her sights on earning a pro card as a way to inspire other athletes who can identify with her to pursue the sport. Receiving a pro card requires finishing in the top three at a qualifying race, and several times she finished just a few places after third. Sika hoped 2019 would be the year she achieved this, but she had a serious biking accident during a half-Ironman race in Texas which sent her to the hospital and required several weeks of recovery.

While she was recovering, she received cards from many people, including children, encouraging her in her recovery and showing her that she was a role model as an accomplished female African-American triathlete. Only a few months after the accident, Sika raced at the Ironman Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Despite being blown off her by bike strong winds, she completed the race. Sika said that hearing the words “Sika Henry, you are an Ironman,” made all her challenges worthwhile.

Although 2020 put a road block in the way of earning her pro card, she continued her training, and last month, shortly after speaking with the team, finished in the top three of the Cancun Challenge Triathlon to become the first African-American female triathlete with a pro card!

Sika often speaks about her experience to triathlon teams, to African-American audiences and to female audiences, as a way to share the sport with more people and increase its diversity. Within the Dartmouth team, we also notice a lack of diversity, and we are trying to improve this situation. Sika suggested a couple of good ways to start addressing this:

  • Since people are much more likely to try triathlon and join the team if they are invited, she recommended that we make sure we are welcoming by specifically reaching out to people in groups at Dartmouth that are under-represented on the team.
  • Because triathlon can be daunting, she suggested finding ways to make the sport less intimidating. Not everyone comes into the sport being comfortable with long races or with swimming, biking, and running. Providing opportunities for relays, duathlons, and pool-swim events can make triathlon seem more accessible to more people.

In addition to being a professional triathlete, Sika works full time. As busy Dartmouth students working hard to manage schoolwork and triathlon training, we found Sika’s balance inspiring. Sika had several suggestions for seeking balance:

  • Find the time of day, either morning or afternoon, that works well in your schedule for workouts.
  • Get ample sleep. Balancing work and training is tiring! Sika goes to bed early – often by 9pm – to make sure she has energy for her training and busy days.
  • Eat a healthy diet and enough food to have energy for training. Cooking at home is the best way to have a lot of healthy meals.
  • After long weekdays of work and training, find time to relax fully. Sika uses her weekends to train hard in the mornings and “relaxes hard” with friends in the afternoons.
  • Listen to your body and recognize that sometimes taking time off from training is the best thing.
  • If it’s hard to stay motivated, set a goal and work toward it. Sika picked an ultramarathon; she also suggested that something as simple as a 5k on the track can be a helpful goal.
  • Find a personal “why” for training and build workouts around that to stay engaged.
  • When training gets hard, having accountability partners to work out with or check in with maintains the community aspect of training.

For the Dartmouth team, which has had a year without competitions and with reduced team connection, listening to Sika offered some much-appreciated motivation, regarding both diversity and training. We look forward to implementing her suggestions in the coming months as Dartmouth practices and competition resume.

Sika, thank you for speaking with us, and congratulations on your pro card! You are an inspiration to the Dartmouth Triathlon Team!

About the Author

Sarah Hutchinson is a ’22 from Concord, Massachusetts, majoring in Engineering and minoring in French and Human-Centered Design. She debuted her endurance athlete career at age 8 by running the 4th of July mile race in her hometown. She competed as a runner in high school, while dabbling in swimming and biking. Sarah started on the Tri Team during her first fall at Dartmouth and has never looked back. Outside of triathlon, Sarah enjoys hiking, adventuring in general, cooking, and doing anything related to water.

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I first realized my interest for long distance in high school. Even though I was involved in Track & Field and Cross Country, my passion for running came from the Students Run LA program that helped many middle school and high school students in the LAUSD district to train for the LA marathon. It was a great experience, so suffice it to say, I had a pretty good background in endurance running when I joined the Triathlon team my freshman fall.

I was never much of a swimmer (by much, meaning not at all), nor had ever really cycled apart from riding to and from the grocery store. The only actual experience I had before was running, but even in that, I was never the fastest.

I first reached out to Coach Jim about whether or not attempting the 70.3 miles was possible. When he said it was totally possible, I thought he must have not noticed how slow I was in practice. Despite my doubt, I trusted Jim’s opinion and decided if I was going to go through with training for such a big race, why not do it during my off term.

During winter break, I remember I would train twice a day – once in the morning and once in the afternoon. And I remember everyday trying to get my sister to come on a run with me or to the gym, but she was somehow always asleep when I was heading out – strange. Anyway, I did quickly realize the difficulty of training on your own. When you have no one beside you, encouraging you, talking to you, or even just sweating through the intensity, it becomes harder to motivate yourself. It was not until I got to campus, where I felt I was really improving.

Racing in Clermont reminded me of home: no snow in sight, heat pounding down on you, and best part of all, the resulting sunburn after having spent 6+ hours out in the sun.

The morning of race day, I was overwhelmed with nerves. My nerves never fully settled until the gun went off and we were off, dipping into the chocolate-colored water and trying to break free from the swarm of women all trying to avoid being hit by somebody’s elbow. As I started settling into a pace, I started to relax knowing I would reach land at some point.

As I transitioned to the second leg, biking, I felt alive. Alive and free, knowing I had survived the swim (the part my parents were fearful of me drowning), and was moving strongly. Overall, the biking went pretty smoothly, until the inevitable Sugarloaf Mountain (an excruciatingly painful incline). As I was making my way up the hill, attempting to keep a moderate pace, I started moving so slowly, I doubted whether or not I was actually moving. At that moment of doubt, I suddenly found myself tipping over. By the time I had walked my way up to the top of the hill, a fellow cyclist helped me back on (as I was still pretty new and inexperienced with clipping on), and I was off and away. I felt the last 10 miles go by so fast because now all that was on my mind was getting off my bike as soon as I can because, wow, sitting on your bike for more than three hours is not at all a pleasant feeling.

Two minutes into the run was when I started to feel the toll of the race. It was then when I started to see the finish line quickly fading away. I began thinking I was not going to be able to finish. As I hobbled onward with doubt clouding my mind, I came across some familiar tunes – “Atlantic City” by the Band. I looked up and saw Coach Jim holding up a speaker playing the song we heard endlessly five minutes before the end of a practice on the trainer at the “Pain Cave” (Jim’s basement). At that moment I knew, despite whatever pain or tiredness I was feeling, it was only temporary. I was not about to give in and let the past four months of training have been for nothing. So I pushed onward and before I knew it, I was rounding the corner with the finish line in sight and my teammates in the sideline cheering me on.

For me, my place or rank in a race does not matter. As I achingly lunged past the finish line, I teared up at the sight of my teammates. I realized then that the most surreal moment of this trip was the journey. The journey of having trained endless amount of hours with a team I love so much and with friends that lift my spirits each and every day. I gained something more valuable than a medal on this trip. I gained a family.

About the Author

Emily Martinez is a ‘21 from Los Angeles, California. She is interested in Engineering Sciences with a modified major in Environmental Science. Apart from triathlon, she loves playing soccer and eating as much of Coach Jim’s bread and cinnamon rolls as possible.

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I participated in a duathlon at Sebago Lake, Maine on Sunday. The race director believed it was the first multi-sport event held in New England since the onset of the pandemic. It thereby serves as a kind of litmus test of the efficacy of new racing protocols instituted to protect the health of the racers. The director has requested that we report back if we test positive for Covid in the next several weeks so other participants can be notified and for contact tracing. While we won’t know for sure for a while if the protocols worked, I’d like to give my impressions and describe what the race was like so if any of you are considering a race in the near future you can have a better idea what to expect and make a slightly more informed decision.
Here is what the race company, TriMe, did to reduce people density and maximize social distancing and safety:

  • it had us check in on-line and do a pre-event health screening
  • the pre-race meeting was a zoom meeting Friday night and was recorded for anyone who could not attend.
  • TriMe requested we self body mark prior to the race using our own markers (although it provided back-up)
  • we had to estimate our finish times at least two days before the race and were seeded and placed in waves accordingly. No more than 50 athletes were allowed in the venue at a time. Each wave had its own transition set-up time and start time.
  • each 13 foot bike rack had spots for only 3 bikes allowing for 6’ spacing. The bikes on the end of each rack faced east, the one in the middle faced west. It was a luxurious amount of space! Our race packet hung from the rack at our specified spot.
  • the only close contact was with an official who checked our proof of identity
  • face masks were mandatory for racers, staff, volunteers and spectators at all times except for those actually in the process of racing. TriMe discouraged spectators from coming.
  • TriMe used a time trial start, with the fastest (by estimate) seed of wave 1 leaving first with progressively slower athletes (lining up at 6’ delineated spots) following every 20 seconds. The second wave left 30 minutes after the start of the 1st wave. I thought the seeding worked really well. I passed or was passed only 6 times during the entire race with racers giving as wide a berth as possible. That was enough racer “contact” to give it the feel of a real race. The run and bike courses were loops thereby avoiding close encounters that would happen with out-and-back courses.
  • The finish line had self-serve hydration and pre-made bagged nutrition. The finishers did a good job of social distancing and not congregating at the finish area.
  • There was no timing trailer to get your results, but one could opt for a phone message, a message which arrived almost immediately after a racer finished the race.
  • Finisher medals were in the race packets.
  • The award ceremony was a zoom meeting that evening and awards are being mailed.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the race, felt comfortably safe and thought the protocols worked well. The event, normally a triathlon, became a duathlon because the organizers felt they could not provide social distancing getting into and out of the water given the layout of the swim venue.

For those considering a race, here is the upcoming schedule:

Live Free and Tri-Freedom NH August 29,30- sprint, Olympic and half - http://tritekevents.com/events/

Sunapee- Sept 19 – Sunapee NH - Olympic. http://www.millenniumrunning.com/sunapeetri

Wallis Sands- Sept 20- Rye NH- Sprint triathlon/duathlon. https://tri-maine.com/wallis-sands-triathlon/

About the Author

Coach Jeff '76, is a retired Construction Company owner and long term Hanover/Dartmouth lacrosse coach. He is a current Dartmouth Tri Club coach and triathlon competitor. In his free time, he loves working/playing anything outdoors.