CU Triathlon wins third straight national championship

Published on April 24, 2012 on www.CUIndependent.com. 

We got on the bus to DIA last Thursday a group of hopeful, excited and admittedly nervous triathletes.

We came back national champions.

On the CU Triathlon Team, that’s how it’s done. We train hard all year, pushing each other and pushing ourselves, in hopes of winning big in April. This weekend, we captured our third straight and 13th overall national championship at the USA Triathlon Collegiate National Championship in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Junior Tess Amer on the bike course at the USA Triathlon Collegiate National Championship in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Amer finished 11th. (Courtesy of Thom Ward)

I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of this team.

Going into nationals, we knew we had the potential to win the combined team title. Three of our top four racers from last year’s men’s team were returners, and our women’s team had more depth than ever.

This year, in addition to the overall title, we had another goal: a long-overdue women’s team win.

The overall team win is determined by combining the men’s and women’s team scores. In previous years, the men have won big, taking first by a long shot so that even a second or third-place finish by the women would result in an overall title.

Not so in 2012 — the women’s team wanted to earn a championship just as much as the men.

We got our chance on Saturday morning, with the women’s race the first event on the schedule. Just before the first wave went off at 7:30 a.m., our whole team, men and women, gathered around me as I led our classic repeat-after-me cheer:

Iki la boomba (Iki la boomba)

Iki la wikki likki (Iki la wikki likki)

Affa la waffa laffa (Affa la waffa laffa)

Ooh-chee-ahh… (Ooh-chee-ahh…)

C-O-L-O-R-A-D-O

What’s that spell? Colorado!

What’s that mean? Victory!

With adrenaline pumping, our first girls headed down to the water for the swim start. We knew that all of those killer swim practices, endless bike rides and painful runs we had gone through together were about to pay off.

I was in Wave Three with teammates Heidi Spees and Maggie Scanlan. I knew they were stronger swimmers than me, but I still wanted them by my side when the gun went off. Though I lost them almost immediately, I focused on keeping good form, being efficient and staying calm throughout the swim.

Once out of the water, I stripped off my wetsuit, grabbed my bike and put on my game face. It was time to catch some girls.

I felt fast, passing entire groups of Wave Three cyclists with ease. Looking back at the results, I went from 220th place overall coming out of the swim to 51st place coming off the bike. It was my fastest bike time ever.

But my strength, the run, was yet to come.

I transitioned quickly, re-racking my bike and slipping into my run shoes for the final stretch. As I headed out of transition, I heard a familiar voice calling my name — there, on the side of the course, was a graduated teammate and good friend from my freshman year who had come out to Tuscaloosa to cheer us on. I smiled and picked up my pace, knowing I had the support of so many.

During the first two miles of the run, I caught and passed the teammates I had started with in Wave Three. A few minutes later, I passed my coach, Mike Ricci, timing from the sideline.

“Come on, Caryn — pick it up. We’ve got to win this thing,” I heard him say. I realized I may be one of the scoring four, and that meant my mental strength on this run could affect the entire team. I pushed harder.

Around mile four, I was hit with the worst cramp I’ve ever experienced in a race. My breathing became suddenly shallow, and my pace slowed way down as I tried to fend off what felt like a knife in my side. There were only two miles to go, but they would be the hardest of the whole race.

Whether you run fast or slow, this cramp is still going to hurt, I told myself. It can’t get much worse, and the faster you move, the sooner you’ll be done.

My run time wasn’t what it could’ve been sans-cramp, but I finished as strong as I could and ended up in 32nd place. The other scoring CU women finished 11th, 15th and 17th. We had a shot at the women’s title, but we would have to wait until the awards ceremony later that night to know for sure.

For now, it was time to cheer on the guys.

Watching the men’s race gave me an adrenaline rush all over again. I am constantly impressed by the talent and work ethic our men’s team has. Our top four men ended up in second, fourth, fifth and 14th place. There was no doubt they had earned the men’s team title.

We spent the rest of the day cheering on our athletes in the open and relay races, eating barbecue with our team parents and anxiously awaiting results. Finally, at 8 p.m., it was time.

The awards are always more of a party than a ceremony. Teams traditionally dress in themed costumes, and it’s not unusual for flash mobs or loud team cheers to erupt from the audience. This year, the University of Wisconsin rolled into the awards ceremony on Razor scooters.

CU chose “Noah’s Ark” as our awards theme. Dressed as animals (or, in one case, Noah), our athletes proudly took the podium to receive both individual and team awards. Graduate student Rudy Kahsar, dressed as a buffalo, was recognized for his overall finish and for recording the fastest bike split of the race. Freshman Jak Hamilton, wearing pig attire, earned a third-place podium spot in the men’s open race.

Next, the women’s team titles were announced. We had finally done it. By a narrow six-point margin, we edged out Duke University, the University of California and the U.S. Naval Academy for the first-place women’s team title. Our win marks the first women’s team title for CU since 2005.

The men’s team was recognized next, having won the title over second-place University of Arizona by a hefty 98 points.

And finally, by a margin of 159 points, the CU Triathlon Team was announced as the USA Triathlon Collegiate National Champions for the third year in a row. Navy, our biggest rival, would have to settle for second place behind the top triathlon team in the country.

National championships do more for our team than just celebrate our top athletes though. They reflect the commitment that everyone on this team has to the sport and to each other. As our coach always says, we have no slow athletes. When we train, the fast ones push the faster ones, who push the fastest ones to win championships.

My teammate Morgan Burrows, a graduating senior, said the night before the race that she would rather be 13th on the Colorado Tri Team than be first or second on any other team. To be a CU triathlete is to be a part of something special, something irreplaceable.

I have one more year left on this team, and I will savor every moment of it. The CU Triathlon Team is my family, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Casa de Pancakeo

It's that time of year again.

The CU Tri Team has been back at school and training hard for a few months now. We’ve spent hours in the pool, on the bike and on the trails, and our first time trial is behind us. Needless to say, all this training has us a little tired out. Thanksgiving break is just around the corner, but until then, we’ve been doing all we can to motivate each other to keep working hard.

That’s why this Sunday, four teammates decided to host a pancake party following our weekly long run. Our team has gotten pretty skilled at pancake-making over the the past year, thanks to the ingenuity of Rudy Kahsar and other like-minded cake connoisseurs. We know, for instance, that Oreos make the best mix-ins and that while maple syrup is a classic topping, vanilla yogurt and peanut butter can work wonders on a flapjack.


Before we could chow down on pancakes, though, we had to earn them with a good workout. With a big group — about 20 runners of varying speeds — and a workout that could range from 45 to 90 minutes, we knew we would spread out over time. Still, we left together from the “Casa de Pancakeo,” heading south towards Bobolink Trail and eventually to Marshall Mesa.

It was a warm but windy morning, and as we struggled up hills into oncoming gusts, the only thing that kept us going was the prospect of pancakes to come. Marshall Mesa is a set of rolling trails near Colorado Highway 93, and it is completely exposed. We had no shelter from the wind and were all trying to draft off each other to make the effort a little more bearable.

As the time on our watches slowly ticked by, we finally settled into a comfortable pace. Finishing a long run is always a mental battle, but with teammates to talk to and pace with, it tends to be over sooner than you think. We picked up speed for the final few miles, knowing that the faster we made it back to the house, the sooner delicious cakes would be filling our bellies. When we reached the driveway of the Casa de Pancakeo, someone’s GPS recorded 10.8 miles; naturally, we took one more lap around the block to get to a solid 11 (it’s a triathlete thing).

Rob Helvestine was the hero of the morning as he poured dollops of pancake batter onto the skillet and took mix-in requests nonstop. The rest of us, spent from our effort and in need of some serious fuel, huddled around the stovetop with our paper plates outstretched. Leave it to a team of college-aged triathletes to consume enough pancakes and coffee to feed a small country over the course
of an hour.

Without times like these, we wouldn’t really be a team — we would just be a big group of training partners. Triathlon in itself is an individual sport, but when we take the time to bond over new pancake-topping creations, we make it a team thing. It may sound silly, but the friendships we build outside of regular practice are the ones that will stick.

And when we race, those friendships will carry us to the finish line.

Give and take.
Caryn

Nationals, Finally

So I wrote this article, a firsthand experience of racing with The CU Tri Team at USAT Collegiate Nats, for www.tri-magazine.net. Which is why I never wrote a Nationals race report... I wanted to wait until this article came out so I could post it here. The June issue of tri-magazine just came out a week ago- you can subscribe free by going here: http://www.tri-magazine.net/subscribe.php. But here's my contribution:

Traditionally, triathlon is not a team sport. It requires hard work, determination, and perseverance on an individual level. For those who race USAT Collegiate Nationals, though, the sport takes on a completely different feel. Athletes are motivated to lay it all on the line for their teammates, not for themselves.

At the University of Colorado, that team atmosphere is truly something special. I am a sophomore at CU, and while I joined the CU Triathlon Team as a freshman, this was my first year as a member of the Nationals team. I watched our team win the National Championship last year, and I, along with the rest of my team, wanted more than anything to bring home the title for the second year in a row.

From September through April, we trained as a team. Together, we made it through some of the hardest workouts of our lives, pushing our limits more than we ever thought we could. We motivated each other on tough days, paced each other through painful intervals, and suffered together during the most diffi cult practices. Without my team, I would never have grown as an athlete as much as I have.

The members of the CU Tri Team, though, are more than just strong athletes– we are also best friends. In addition to spending hours a day training together, we also go out to eat after workouts, have fun on the weekends, and in some cases, even live together.

After our regional race in Lake Havasu, Ariz., about twenty of us chose to spend our spring break training as a team in Tucson. Mike Ricci, our head coach, gave us workouts that definitely scared us. Because we were in it together, though, we made it through. Something about suffering can really bring a team together, and we certainly suffered.

In the two weeks between spring break and Nationals, the anticipation among our team started to grow. We began our taper, and we felt the energy just waiting to come out on race day.

During a meeting a few days before we left for Nationals, my teammate Rudy gave us some words of confi dence. A transfer student from UVA, he had come from a different team that wasn’t as connected to each other as we are. “You don’t realize that you have an advantage just being on this team,” Rudy told us. On race day, I saw proof that he was right.

Before the first wave of the men’s race went off, we huddled up for our team cheer: Iki la boomba Iki la wiki liki Affa la waffa laffa Oo-chee-ahhh!

I don’t even know what language that is, but for some reason it gets us going. We were all fired up, but the girls would have to wait to race for another two and half hours.

As the men started their swim, the girls watched anxiously, trying to control our adrenaline. We cheered our top males out of the water; then moved towards the transition area so we could see them come by on the bike. When Rudy finished the first lap of the bike, he was less than a minute behind the leader, Dustin McClarty- a swimmer who had gone to the Olympic trials.

Once we had seen all our males through the first lap, my teammate Tess and I started a warm up run. We ran next to the racecourse, and as we were jogging, we saw Rudy out on his run – in first place. He had caught McLarty on the bike and was building up a lead. Ryan Bice, our other first-wave male, was in third, looking like he was flying. He would go on to post the fastest run split of the race in 33 minutes, 31 seconds.

Tess and I made it back to the finish line just as the crowd was preparing to welcome in the winner. We heard a warning for the start of the women’s swim warm up over the loudspeaker, but we ignored it. Our boys were so close to finishing, and there was no way we were missing it.

Unexpectedly, McLarty broke the tape. He had had a great run and had passed Rudy in the final miles. Rudy came in less than a minute later, looking completely spent. When Ryan crossed the line shortly afterwards, I witnessed my favorite moment of the day: my two teammates, nearly keeled over from exhaustion, leaning on each other for support.

The wave of emotion I felt after seeing Rudy and Ryan finish reminded me that I was about to race. I grabbed my female teammates and we headed over to the lake. We couldn’t recreate the “Iki la booma” cheer with just half the team, but we formed our own huddle and reminded each other how hard we’ve all worked, how far we’ve come, and how this was our chance to lay it all on the line for each other. It was go time.

Honestly, there’s not much to report about my race. The adrenaline, the physical effort, and the unbelievable heat combined to make my memories of that race a blur. The moments I will remember, though, are the ones where I saw my teammates out on the course, either racing or cheering from the sidelines.

The boys all yelled for us as we came out of the water. Seeing the intensity in their faces reminded me that they were depending on us for the championship. No matter how well they had just raced, they would need strong results from the women’s side to get the overall team title.

Since I’m a slow swimmer, I tend to start out from behind on the bike and make my way through the pack. I like that, since I get to see my teammates along the way. As I passed my teammate Molly, she reminded me to stay to the inside of the road to avoid a penalty. Looking back on how many penalties were given to our team, I’m thankful that she was there to keep me focused.

As I finished the second lap, I heard my coaches yelling at me to drink water- on a 90-degree day, I had forgotten to take one sip thus far. I made sure to stay hydrated over the last 12 miles, but I knew a painfully hot run was just around the corner.

Though I finished the 6.2-mile run in 43 minutes, 30 seconds, it seemed like a lifetime. Because of the intense heat and humidity, I felt like I could collapse at every step. It was thanks to my teammates and coaches that I was able to finish the race.I saw my coaches, Mike and Dave, just as I topped the last of the hard hills. They cared about my safety more than a fast fi nish, reminding me to drink water at every aid station.

Soon afterwards, I saw some of my male teammates. Their faces told me they had confidence in me; that they believed in my ability to run. I wanted to prove them right. All I had to do was keep passing people, one by one.

About four miles in, I saw my teammate Bryn. She couldn’t have been more than a minute ahead of me, but she had started in Wave 1- eight minutes ahead. She was supposed to be our second-fastest girl. What had happened?

Bryn looked over and noticed me. “We need you,” she called out. The fi rst four fi nishers determine the team score. I am not usually a part of that four, but it was clear that something had gone wrong in Bryn’s race. Now, I would be a part of the team score, and finishing the race strong mattered even more.

When I got to the finish line, I vomited and nearly collapsed. When I was able to stand up straight and see clearly, some of my male teammates approached me. “Hey, great race,” Rudy said. “That was unreal,” said my teammate Bryant.

Coach Dave, who had been receiving and taking care of each of our girls as they finished, walked me to the medical tent. I sat down in an ice bath, totally spent. Later on, looking at my time, I saw that I finished third on my team. Bryn had flatted on the bike, so we lost her in the team score.

Our coaches didn’t relax until all of our athletes had finished safely. Our teammate Will had collapsed during the men’s race and been taken to the hospital, but we confi rmed that he was doing okay. There was nothing left to do but head back to the hotel and await the results.

The men’s team received multiple penalties for allegedly drafting or blocking on the bike – never on purpose – so we knew the team scores would be shaken up. Nothing would be certain until the awards ceremony, but we all knew that we had given everything on the course, and that was all we could ask of each other.

The awards ceremony gave CU its second National Championship in a row and its 12th overall. Rudy ended up winning the male title due to a penalty by McLarty- not the ideal win, but Rudy deserved it nonetheless. The men’s team earned first, and the women third behind Navy and Army- an impressive finish considering we were without our No.2 girl. The men and women’s combined score was good for the overall title. Together, we accomplished what we had been working for all year.

This team is a family. When we race, we race for the good of each other. I am motivated and inspired by each and every one of teammates, and I hope they can say the same for me. Collegiate Nationals was one of the best days of my life- not because we won, but because we were there for each other. We worked through the highs and lows, the tears, the pain, the frustrations and the victories, as a team. That’s what CU Triathlon is about.

National Champion jersey photo credits: Greg Mionske