MTS Conference 2025 Race Recap

By Bing Lin

MTS, or March Triathlon Series, hosted by Cal Poly, is the last race of the season for many of our athletes, including myself. It also happens to be my favorite race, due to many reasons such as the pretty bike course, the tasty water, and the fact that it’s after finals so everyone’s less stressed compared to the rest of the race season… except this year it got moved up a few weeks since nationals got moved earlier. But whatever, it’s not like I would’ve been more prepared with a couple extra weeks of prep. As someone who has exercised as much during races as I have outside of them this year, I’d say that my training for this race was a little less than ideal. But that wasn’t going to stop me. I wasn’t about to skip the only race that I’d completed all 3 years prior with this team. Besides, I’d done both MTS and nationals plus countless sprints off the couch in the past couple years, so how much worse could this one be?

The main problem with MTS being pushed up a few weeks is that it falls on the weekend before week 10 (dead week), which is usually when I am most academically busy. With 5 engineering classes, my senior capstone project, and a part time internship on the quarter, taking a weekend off put a huge strain on my already heavy workload. 

The day before the race, while the other officers were dealing with trailer and van logistics, I was busy working on the last of my 4 assignments all due at the end of the week. By the time I finished it was 1:30, and we needed to be at the rec cen at 2. I speedran my packing, threw my bags in James’s car, and rode my bike to the rec cen to load trailers and vans, before we drove up to the campground at Lake Lopez. The past couple years we’ve driven up to the race site the morning of, but my freshman year we camped at the race site the night before and this year we decided to bring that back, which meant way less chaos loading bikes and people the morning of. Everyone in my van was very excited to camp and energy was high.

After a quick stop at Trader Joe’s for food we arrived at the campsite, and after a bit of confusion regarding which campsites we were using, we set up our tents and hung out. As the sun set we roasted hot dogs (shoutout Nola for proposing the idea at the MTS meeting the week before) and s’mores over a campfire, played some games, and by 9 pm everyone was headed to sleep. Around this time, I went and took my contact lenses out, brushed my teeth, and got in my sleeping bag to try and sleep. But this wasn’t an easy task seeing as my average bedtime for the quarter is around 1 am. Still, I tried my best to close my eyes and relax to the sound of my sleep music playlist.

The other problem with MTS being pushed up was that daylight savings started this exact weekend, and we were losing an hour of sleep overnight. This led to some small discussion on whether to set our alarms to 5:30 or 4:30 in case our phones didn’t detect the time change with our limited reception. With no solid consensus on what time zone our phones would display the next morning, I just hoped that I had enough reception for my phone to not get left behind by everyone else before I woke up.

However, I would have the opposite problem all night. Not even 10 minutes later, I heard the noises of what I thought were a rabid bear ravaging someone’s tent. My first thoughts were “uh oh I wonder who left food in their tent” and “I wonder if Beloved made a run for it like he said he would during a bear attack”. I then wondered what these animals were up to, and as the growls went on I just hoped that whatever animal it was would leave so I could go to sleep.

I eventually fell asleep once the noises stopped, but I randomly woke up again a few hours later. I looked at my watch, and it said 2:13 am. Knowing that time jumps from 1:59 to 3:00 for daylight savings, I realized that those who set their alarm to 4:30 were right in doing so… until my watch updated to 3:13 two seconds later. This meant that those who set their alarms at 4:30 would be getting a rude awakening. Little did I know that despite my correctly timed alarm, I would be one of those people.

At 4:30 am (daylight time) I heard an alarm go off in the tent next door, and knowing that it was an hour ahead I tried to go back to sleep. I was not very successful. I woke up to my 6 am alarm and stuck my head out the tent to pitch black, and then to the blinding light of someone’s headlamp. It was the morning of the race, and while I wished for a moment I’d stayed home all cozy in bed, that feeling quickly went away as I packed up my tent and hyped myself up for this race.

Upon arriving at the parking lot near the run course, we unloaded our bags and started walking over to transition. Except Evan realized that his biking and running shoes had vanished, so he and Margie went back to look for them, while the rest of us walked over to packet pickup. While we waited in line I asked my teammates whether they were excited for the race. People were mixed, with some people eager to see the pretty course, others worried about getting through an olympic distance or getting the big climb on the bike course, and most people wondering why the hell they paid $100 to jump in the water and subject themselves to over 2 hours of suffering and pain early in the morning. That said, this race was supposed to start at 8:30 am, which is relatively late for a triathlon. But little did we know, it was going to start even later.

The entire morning, there was chatter about the race being too cold for a swim. But the memories of how cold it had been in years prior combined with my eagerness to swim (which was a new feeling that I’d never experienced before) had me confidently reassuring my teammates that the swim would happen. However, as I headed into transition to set up, I overheard an announcement regarding the race. It turned out that the air temperature wasn’t high enough for a swim and that the race start would be delayed an hour to 9:30 to accommodate. Whatever, at least it’ll be warmer after the swim, I thought.

I entered transition and picked a free spot to set up my stuff. Well, it’s more like I made a free spot to set up my stuff. The thing with setting up in transition during these races is that everyone always takes up as much space as they can, so a lot of the racks end up as inefficient as a bike with no pedals and barbed wire where the seat should be. I set up my transition, and thought about my nutrition strategy for the race. I had brought a bunch of CLIF bloks since I have like 20 packs of them in my apartment, and because I wanted something more solid for before the race or for the beginning of the bike. As I debated shoving the pack in my kit, taping it on my top tube, or the cursed lick and stick method, another racer gave me some unsolicited advice.

“You won’t be able to absorb that many carbs on the bike. You might as well eat it now since we have an extra hour before the race anyway”, he said.

Doubting my previous experience and knowledge of my fueling needs, I listened to him and took most of my nutrition out of transition, putting it away in my bag. I went and ate one of my packs of bloks and chatted with my team as we eagerly waited for an announcement on the race. With an hour left before the new start, I walked to our team tent to hang out with the team and kill time. But soon after, around 9 am, they made another announcement.

“Due to the air temperature, we will be pushing the race start back by another half an hour to 10 am. There will be a swim, but it will be shortened to the sprint course. That means both sprint AND OLYMPIC racers will do the sprint swim distance”.

I looked around and heard the groans and complaints of swimmers and the cheers of runners all around me, rejoicing at the thought of a sprint distance swim and an olympic distance bike and run. Despite being a runner, I was disappointed that we’d only get half the swim, since I was eager to try out my new properly-fitting wetsuit for the full mile. Oh well, at least it wasn’t a run-bike-run. I made my way back to the tent to wait longer.

Around 9:30, we all started putting our wetsuits on and prepared for the race start. We did our team cheer at 9:50, and the boys and I quickly made our way into the water for the start. It was around now that I started to get excited. My favorite race was about to start again and I couldn’t contain my energy. I tried my best to hype up Will and Jason who were treading water next to me, and before I knew it I heard the race director give us the one minute warning. Knowing my abilities, I moved myself further back in the pack to avoid the carnage. A minute later, the horn went off and it was time to swim. At Stanford the week prior I had started out way too fast and tired myself out, so I made sure to start slow and fall into a rhythm. It was smooth swimming until the first buoy, where one pesky swimmer kept swimming into me while we both turned around it. I took a stroke, and realized that he was right next to me, and we were impeding each other. As I took another stroke I thought I should get out of his way, so I used my legs to push myself off the nearest object. Unfortunately, the nearest object happened to be that same swimmer. Whoops.

The rest of the swim went smoothly, with my new sleeveless wetsuit feeling a lot more flexible than my old undersized sleeved one. I ran up the ramp to transition, and looking at my watch I realized that somehow, off the couch, I had allegedly done my best swim ever (by pace per 100yd) in a race. As I ran into transition I saw Will taking off his wetsuit, and after some chatting over a pretty slow transition I left, wished him a good race, and was onto the bike. Not 30 seconds after leaving T1, on the first climb, I heard “I’m gonna get you Bing!” (or something like that) and I turned around to see the mop himself, David Broom, passing me. I knew that he was a faster climber than me, and despite my best efforts I got dropped almost instantly.

The next few miles consisted of me trying my best to warm up, readjusting to my aero position, and wondering why my watch would display my biking speed in minutes per mile instead of miles per hour. Around mile 3 I passed a familiar aquamarine kit with orange flowers and butterflies, and I heard “NOOOOOOOOOO”. It was David again, whose lighter weight and lack of aero bars left him powerless to hold me off on the downhills. I flew down the highway and saw a familiar blue and purple gradient riding a white tri bike. It was Evan, who had found his shoes thrown into a dumpster earlier that morning and had managed to make it in time for the race due to the delay. After I passed him I started to see more familiar faces and kits riding the other way, and I cheered them on, knowing full well that maybe 2 of them would even hear it, let alone cheer back. However, if nobody got me I know Derrick got me, as he’s the only other guy who consistently screams at people during races. After exchanging screams I made it to the first U-turn, and as I rounded it I saw a few more flashy race kits, belonging to the likes of Lorenzo, Tyler, and Liam. I knew they were faster cyclists than me, and they were gaining on me, so I tucked back into aero and started pushing power into my pedals.

I started picking people off one-by-one, but after passing a guy from Cal Poly I heard the words “Hey do you know Ethan Britton?” I looked behind me and that same guy had been hanging onto my pace, and he seemed friendly. I chatted with him for a bit, and found out that his name was Mason, and that he was a childhood friend of Ethan. I talked to him more as neither of us could seem to drop the other, and before I knew it I had made a new friend.

Meanwhile, the hills that I’d been flying down earlier had turned into uphills that I’d have to climb back up, and Mason, being another cross country runner, flew past me and dropped me. Not only that, but Lorenzo had passed me too. Oh right, this is still a race, I thought, as I increased my speed and tried my best to keep up. As I was passing Mason for maybe the 4th time I heard a loud “HOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNKKKKKKK” which I first thought was a train, before almost getting sideswiped by a pickup truck at 50 mph. They have bikes on the back, they should at least be a bit more considerate, I thought to myself as I tucked back into aero. By then, Tyler had caught up to me and started to pass me.

“What took you so long?”, I asked.

“I had a really bad swim”, he responded. I knew that this would be the last I saw of him in this race before he dropped me, so I tried my best to keep up with him for a little while longer. We reached the turn onto the second half of the bike course, and I noticed our glorious co-president James taking photos of us. I posed for the photo quickly then got back into aero, trying my best to not let Tyler drop me too hard. I was unsuccessful on both fronts.

The second half of this bike course starts with about 6 miles of a false flat going up, and then leads into the infamous Hi Mountain Road, which is the climb that had many people worrying before the race. As David, Mason (again), and a guy from Santa Clara caught me on the false flat, I realized that we’d all be doing the rest of the race near each other, so I introduced myself to our new friend from Santa Clara (named Jack) and we chatted about the course as our teammates and other racers flew by in the other direction. Before I knew it, I was climbing Hi Mountain, I was getting dropped, and I was hurting. Maybe racing off the couch isn’t the way to go, I thought. But just like my attention span during lectures, the climb didn’t last very long, and it was now time to rip the descent.

The previous year I’d done this race, there had been almost nobody on Hi Mountain when I descended, so I’d tucked into aero and hit a max speed of 52.6 mph, almost crashing into Bethany in the process. However, I was unwilling to do that this year due to how many racers were around me. I still peaked at 44.3 mph, which was acceptable, and I was making up time on the false flat (now downhill). I passed David, and yet again I heard a familiar “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO”. But that didn’t last very long, as I got stuck behind 5 other racers and had to slow down. David caught up to me, and we were in a pack of 8 racers in total, including Mason and Jack. This pack stayed together for about 4 miles, except unlike in cycling races there was no working together. I would pass a few guys, get stuck behind someone, and then everyone would draft off me and attack me. I kept this up for 3 miles until I heard my stomach growl. Oops, maybe I should stop riding so aggressively, I thought as I eased off the effort and increased my cadence to prepare for the run. Biking down the last hill into transition, I looked at my watch and realized that I had also PR’d my bike split on this course, yet again off the couch.

I approached transition, and I took my feet out of my shoes to prepare for a flying dismount, keeping my momentum as I ran into transition. I just had to round the corner in, and then round another corner to my area, when BAM! I had rammed my bike directly into someone else’s. It wobbled and looked like it was about to fall, so I stopped running and held it onto the rack before slowly walking my bike the rest of the way to my rack and changing my shoes and sunglasses. It was now time for the run, and the hunger from the bike was starting to hit. I was regretting listening to the racer from transition and leaving my food in my bag, but at this point there was nothing I could do besides finish the race.

I started out conservatively, knowing that my legs would need about a mile to warm up. However, the flurry of attacks during the last part of the bike had my quads more sore than I’d ever felt them be, and I knew that increasing my pace by a bit would make them lock up, so I slowed down with hopes of loosening them up. On top of that, I was still feeling my stomach growl, and although I felt like I still had enough energy to make it through the run, I was getting hungrier by the minute. I eventually passed Lorenzo around mile 2, but in passing him I had pushed my legs past the pace I suspected would kill me, and while I hadn’t cramped up I felt a stiffness in my legs that I’d never felt before. It felt like my quads were frozen solid and that they’d snap at any second. But the downhill part before the first U-turn helped loosen them up and I was finally ready to ramp up the pace.

That didn’t last very long, since the downhill at the end of lap 1 was also an uphill at the start of lap 2. I slowed down, and at this point my only goal was to survive. Seeing Lorenzo about a quarter mile ahead of me kept me going, as all I needed to do was keep him in sight and he’d pace me to the finish without cramping up. I rounded the last U-turn, and that was the nail in the coffin. The hunger I’d been pushing off since the end of the bike struck, and I hit a wall. My stomach felt like an empty void and my stiff legs could not move any faster. I was moving slower than I do on my easy runs (which are pretty slow these days), and my heart rate was much higher too. Will passed me and encouraged me to keep going, and after a quarter mile with him it became clear that I would have to walk or very slowly jog the rest of this run. Passing Coach Matt, I shouted “I bonked! Worst bonk of my life!” and he responded “Keep it up for a few more minutes and you can have all the sugar you want”. The thought of sugar, specifically the CLIF bloks I left in my bag, were all I had motivating me, but it wasn’t enough. Never again will I not trust my own nutrition plan, I thought as I slogged toward the finish. I slowed down to just above walking pace because I didn’t want to say I had to walk to finish this race, and saw Connor wrunking (run-walking) his cool down. He said something that I was too delirious to understand and I shouted “crazy bonk since the bike”. He immediately offered me a half-eaten bag of Fritos and I did my best to grab them in my flustered state. I shoved all of them in my mouth at once, and they re-energized me enough to sprint to the finish. I kicked like I’d never kicked before, seeing my teammates cheering me on and the food table beyond the finish like waiting for me to stuff my face.

Unsurprisingly, that run was probably the worst run I’ve ever had in a race, but I didn’t care. I had completed MTS for the fourth year in a row, and as always I’d had a lot of fun with my teammates. I realized then why this race has always been my favorite. Although I love the pretty course, the olympic distance, the hilly run course, and the tasty water, the part I enjoy the most is being able to see my teammates and cheer them on, and to receive the same support. Something about this race being the last one of the year and the only olympic for non-nationals racers puts everyone in a good mood to cheer everyone else on, and that atmosphere is why I’ve always come back, even off the couch.

Tritonman Classic 2024 by Cameron Cox

Friday

Karena Lai: “U guys a fan of the duathlon??”

Me: “hell yes is that confirmed?!” 

insert picture sent of email informing racers that due to recent rain, both the Classic and DL races have been changed to Duathlon consisting of 1.25 mile run, standard 20k bike and 5k run.

To say I was a fan of the swim getting canceled would have been an understatement. As a run/bike favored triathlete, any mention of the swim being shortened or canceled filled my ex-cross country heart with joy. 

Sunday

At the diabolical time of 4:15am my watch buzzed me awake. For a concerning moment I forgot where I was and wondered why I was lying on a stack of sleeping mats on the floor in an unfamiliar house. Then it hit me that I was voluntarily racing a triathlon, and while that still did not fully make sense, I had enough wits about me to know I had to get up and moving. The next hour was a blur of getting ready, packing up to leave, then scarfing down a bagel with banana. 

We arrived at the race site and after my usual routine of panhandling the team for a multitool (my third time out of three races forgetting mine *thank you Bethany and Sam*) I secured my bike in transition. Then it was a frozen shuffle with Bethany and Veronika around the run course to warm up (that did not get me nearly warm enough). 

As we lined up on the starting line, I went through my mental checklist that I’ve done at each triathlon so far: 1. I voluntarily paid to do this 2. I’ve been training 3. I enjoy these things. This gets me out of any anxiety funk because there’s absolutely no pressure for me, it’s just for my own enjoyment and to see how much I can reap from the time at practice I’ve put in. Standing (emphasis on the standing not treading) on the starting line, I added one more to the list: 4. I don’t have to swim! 

The gun went off and the first 800 passed in the same mindless blur that I was used to with any cross country race start. I was a short distance behind Liz and was pushing to not let the gap increase. When I made it into T1 I had to remind myself that I was not done (transition does not feel like a real part of the race to me). I fumbled with numb fingers for too long with my helmet and bike shoes until I finally made it out of the transition area. 

After hopping on my bike I immediately started mentally singing ‘U Can’t Touch This’ and going as hard as I could and prayed that my training would save me from dying. I had a few lapses of concentration, mainly as I would stare in disbelief as the pro racers would glide by at mach speed on their TT bikes, but for the most part the next 12 miles were ridden by the most competitive alter ego I could muster. This actually was not too difficult, considering I was frustrated by the game of cat and mouse a pack of 3 girls and I were playing. In the end they beat me back to transition but it was the perfect motivation for me to chase them down on the run. 

Coming off the bike into T2, I don’t recall having any coherent thoughts. I relied on pure muscle memory and was grateful for the bricks that had prepared my body for this feeling. That’s not to say I felt fresh at this moment, my legs simultaneously felt like they were missing and made out of concrete. But I knew that like any 5k I ran in highschool I could mentally deceive myself into running fast. 

On the first lap I told myself that I should run fast because it would help shake the lactic acid out of my legs. On the second lap, I thought about how little I had left until the final lap (which was basically the end of the race). Finally on the last lap, I told myself to give it everything because I was (basically) done! There was also the bonus of running by Coach Matt and teammates who gave me extra encouragement to run fast (they wouldn’t know I was grateful because I was too dead to smile at them). 

After crossing the finish line and high fiving Donovan, I immediately ate as many free snacks as I could. Then it was the blissful chaos of congratulating everyone on their races and comparing funny race moments. Super grateful for everyone who made this race possible and all my teammates who got us there. Can’t wait to do it again next year (hopefully following another season of rain)!

Ironbruin 2023 by Lauren Salerno

As one of the travel officers, I have read the Cal Tri website what feels like a million times. Since Sunday, I have revisited the site and honestly (I know this is a false accusation) I truly believe it was updated mid-race, after they realized their masterful fuck-up,  to say the following: 

“There are police at major intersections and volunteer course marshals at other key locations as well as route arrow markings on the road.  The police are primarily there to provide athletes the right of way at intersections and not provide course instructions.  Athletes are responsible to study and know the course.” 

So yes Cal Tri, against common sense, we the athletes should have never listened to your volunteers at said “key locations.” It is entirely our fault that the swim was not in fact 400 meters, but 750, and the ride was not 12.6 miles, but a minimum of 15. 

And how clever of you Mr. Race Director to try to DQ 88% of racers for following your volunteers’  instructions. Seriously, hats off to your intelligence and rationalization skills. 

Thanks to the careful planning and contributions of Cal Tri, I have the following congratulations to give: 

• To newcomers, congratulations on completing your first triathlon!

• To Donovan, who went the wrong way not once, but twice, congratulations on completing your first Sprint-Olympic (Sprympic?)  hybrid, mess of a race. 

• To Connor, the know-it-all and the only person I know of who stayed on the correct course, congratulations on a well-deserved 3rd place! 

• To Ava and President Gigi, our resident girl bosses, congratulations on 1st and 2nd! 

Moving onto even better news, WE HAD NO CRASHES!!! I want to say this is unprecedented (Is it unprecedented?). We’re going to say that it is because last year Ironbruin was a battlefield.  

While some left more mentally defeated than others, everyone left with all their teeth accounted for and zero road rash, so I’d call that a major accomplishment.  

For me personally, this race had a ton of mixed emotions. Leading up to the race I was ridiculously nervous. Both for the race itself and whether all travel arrangements would go according to plan. Thanks to a group of wonderful drivers and hosts, everything went relatively smoothly! When all is said and done, my pre-race anxiety seems so silly by the time I cross the finish line. 

Something I was reminded of multiple times this weekend is that “the best part of triathlon is the people.” This is a sentiment I think will sit in my heart for the remainder of my time here at UCSB. All my stress is trivial in comparison to the teammates I’ve met along the way.  

To anyone else who gets anxious before races, or is still doubting themselves and debating whether or not to join our team, come find me and we can be nervous (for no reason) together. 

I’ll end with a note to UCLA. We wholeheartedly support your decision to host your own race separate from Cal Tri in the future. Thank you for your sportsmanship along the course and for kicking our season off to a very entertaining start!

Nationals 2023 by Thea Zalunardo

Nationals, the trip that had been the bane of my existence for the month of March. It cannot be understated how little time I spent doing anything else other than nationals preparation in the few weeks leading up to the trip: from personal training to team logistics and planning. Every race this past season, my brain was filled with a healthy glaze of team issues, and none of my own. This trip was no different. I have come to actually prefer this; you can’t fret about your own race until you’re staring it in the face and you’re on the starting line because the rest of the time you have every problem except your own on your mind. 

The beginning of the itinerary, Wednesday April 12th, 23 of us loaded into vans at 4am to head to LAX. Our bikes had already left for Georgia with Paxton, Sean, and Ava a few days before. The journey to Georgia was relatively uneventful and we arrived at the cheapest motel Buford has to offer tired. We got dinner at chipotle and then headed to bed.

The next morning we went to Walmart for food and any other essentials and then we got breakfast at Waffle House. Following which we packed up our stuff and got ready to head to the race site. The same as last year, Margaritaville did not disappoint with its clear and beautiful water of lake lanier and beautiful white imported sand. The weather was foggy and rainy, but not cold. Megan, Ava, Dori, and I practiced some DL starts and fighting for a draft with Coach Matt. We stood in line for our packets and then other cars left to drive the bike course while DL people stayed behind. We had a DL meeting right after the coaches meeting. We killed the time in between by driving the bike course. While driving it finally occurred to me that I raced the very next day. And that it was DL. AND that it was only my second time ever doing a DL race, and it was at Nationals. And then I had a second triathlon the following day. My DL experience at Tritonman had been a ton of fun, but the swim had been brutal and I was scared I would have the same experience again. The DL meeting was the shortest meeting ever, and the race directors were blase about their explanations. I wasn’t sure whether to take this as a good or bad sign. We all got our packets and then headed to team dinner at Cava, where we ended the evening singing happy birthday to Maya! I headed to bed finally stressed having realized I was personally racing the next morning.

I slept fitfully and did not feel rested when my alarm went off at 5am. I was still sorta half asleep when I got downstairs to find that the trailer had been blocked in by a big truck. Ava, directed by Connor, did an amazing job maneuvering the trailer out. I felt like absolutely no help, which as president is sort of the worst feeling in the world. We got to the race site and set up transition. We put on our wetsuits and headed to the start area to warm-up in the water. However, due to lack of lifeguards, they did not let us warm up in the water so instead we just sat in the shallow area to get water in our wetsuits. None of this was helping my confidence. I needed a decent swim to catch a draft group on the bike and not get lapped out. Unlike Tritonman’s DL start, this was a run-in, which I much preferred. And I did not get drowned or punched, which was great. At a certain point I did have a lot of people grabbing my feet and overtaking me, but that was to be expected and it was not nearly as brutal. I had a goggle side slightly knocked off around the first buoy and spent the rest of the swim sighting with one eye. I was grateful to get out of the water and see properly. The T1 run was long with a nice steep hill and I used it to try and pass as many people as possible, with no idea where I actually was in the race order. I had been fretting the day before about being lapped out. Entering transition, I could tell from the amount of bikes left on the rack that I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, which relieved me a little. I mounted my bike right behind two girls and set off on the bike. This race was weirdly spread out on the bike, and I dealt with an annoying group of two girls who did not want or could not pull and then one who only wanted to pull but then would slow down when she did. They refused to work together and take turns. As a result the bike was a frustrating leg of the race, which was sad because drafting done properly can be a ton of fun. The race finished with the run, which also had some nice hills, though most of the run in my memory is a blur. I felt only pain on that run but Coach Matt’s unintentional encouragement of “You can slow down if you want, Megan is in a good placement”, fueled me to keep trying. On the run I also got to finally input the cheers from my teammates who were not racing DL. It’s funny as a racer what you block out and choose to ignore and what you do notice and hear. I do not remember any of them from the bike segment, though I know they were there. I finished happy that I hadn’t been lapped out and ecstatic that Megan and Ava had done so well!!

The best part of the day was cheering for Connor and Henry as they raced DL. With all my stress gone I could just have fun. I got to run around the course aided by the propeller hat, which spun as I cooled down/jogged for cheering. When it was time for the run portion, I ran to the far end of the course where the hills were. I was the only one out there other than the course monitors cheering people on and ran back and forth over the tunnel pass they ran under to catch them on either side for both laps. Whoever says cheering isn’t a sport is very wrong. I got about 3 miles total while running around cheering for the race. When they finished, we went to lunch and I spent the rest of the day rolling out and trying to get some homework done before the olympic race the next day.

I’m not sure what it is about olympic distances, but I’m way less stressed. I know I can maintain pace for long periods of time, and it seems easier mentally than going as hard as possible as fast as possible for a shorter length like the sprint triathlons. Also a benefit of having done the DL race the day before is that most of the race nerves, at the moment in that morning, were gone. The hardest part of my racing was over. There was no fear of being lapped out, I was there to just try my hardest and enjoy the race. 

We all lined up next to our wave number spots, multiple seas of collegiate athletes, all sporting their wave color cap. Those of us in wave 2 women’s sought out other UCSB teammates and made a small conglomerate to do our team cheer. In opposition to popularity, I am not a fan of doing the cheer. But it was a nice way to start the last race of the season, and end my collegiate Triathlon career. The first few waves of men and women took off and then I was lining up on the start line. The gun went off and I dove in. Oddly, this swim start was slightly more brutal than the DL start the day before, I think mostly due to the large numbers of people starting at once. I managed to catch onto the back of a line of girl’s swimming side by side around the first buoy, and managed to maintain that draft until the exit from the water. An even longer T1 run to transition than DL. I honestly have very little memory of getting out of the water or the first part of that run until I reached the bridge and coach Matt started blaring the siren on the megaphone. He had so much joy in torturing me in the middle of a race. Up the steep hill, find bike, wetsuit off, helmet on, mount bike (struggling to get my foot on top of my bike shoe) and I was off on the bike portion. 

The previous year at nationals I had been in the last wave of girls and athletes to be set off for the race and so spent the entire bike passing people struggling. It was the first race however I distinctly remember enjoying the bike and learning to push myself instead of just biking aimlesly. I enjoyed the rolling hills. This year, actually near girls my speed, I was able to choose a girl in front of me to keep pace with. The course, same as last year, was as fun and enjoyable as I remembered it. The bike is the longest portion of the race time wise by a long shot yet I barely remember anything from it. Each new stretch of land was another segment I tried to go faster on, into the next, and the next, … and the next. I made sure I shoved down one Gu not long after getting on the bike and then again near the end of the bike. I went purely based upon my knowledge of the course to estimate where I was at because I refuse to wear a watch during races. About halfway through the bike I caught sight of Dori, who was also in wave 2. Her and Megan are faster swimmers and so my overall goal was to hopefully catch them on the bike, but it is hard to know just how far ahead they will be out of the water. Dori was in my view for a while, but just out of reach. I stayed consistently the same length behind her for a long while. Eventually, I passed her, I’m sure choking out some half-thought-exhausted-race-brain words of encouragement. Having caught her, my next goal was to hopefully catch Megan. Not long after, I saw a small red bike in the distance. I passed Megan as she choked down a Gu. This is what reminded me to think about taking my second Gu. I also realized I needed to drink more of my water, as little as I felt like doing so. Forcing down Gu’s and water during a race is never easy and I tend to feel horrible after doing so, but all I can hear while racing is the coaches saying how much water and fuel successful athletes take during races; so I forced myself. As I biked back onto the island, I caught Gigi from wave 1. That last stretch hurt so bad, and the only thing keeping me going was Gigi pushing as hard beside me and that it was almost over. As I approached transition, my mind started to shift to the run. 

The run is by far my favorite leg of the race. During the sprint triathlons I usually sort of feel like I’m slowly dying on the runs and my heart rate is usually insanely high, and my breath very uncontrolled when I come off the bike. I learned the hard way at Tritonman that this leads to asthmatic issues and wheezing. I always take some albuterol before a race (some call it drug usage, I call it survival) however I also have an inhaler in transition. Coach Matt had my second inhaler. I biked into transition, dismounted (as I heard someone say “oh wow, a stop and then dismount” with slight disdain in their voice; some of us, by which I mean me, have not yet mastered a flying dismount or mount and apparently the spectator did not approve) and ran to my spot at the racks. The one thing I can say is that getting my feet in and out of my shoes on the bike has become almost second nature and I have no memory of doing either, but obviosuly must have. I took the extra 3 seconds to put on socks – which was a great call because everyone who didn’t had blisters or blood when they finished the race – and then stuffed my feet into my shoes. Of course, my quad cramped up. I shook my leg, desperate, half pretending it wasn’t there and started running out of transition. I came out right behind Gigi and in the first stretch (the same as the DL run from the day before), we passed Coach Matt, who told me to slow down and not overdue it. He assured me everyone else would die after the 5k, I just had to hold pace until then. I usually tend to listen to him, but I was surprisingly feeling really good and so did not slow down. I wasn’t sprinting or anything, but I just aimed to hold my pace consistently. Again, all based upon feel. I passed Gigi somewhere around mile 1 and got a horribly tired high five. Around mile 1.5 I had the realization that I had to run another 5 miles still. But I still felt fine, aside from my quad that was consistently on the verge of cramping, but as I said I was ignoring that. it was just a mental challenge. The course was essentially mostly uphill on the way out and mostly downhill on the way back. My goal was to utilize the uphill and pass people. I slowly passed girls one by one. The benefit of the out and back course was that you got to pass teammates. Every one of the guys I passed though looked like they were absolutely dying and all that was exchanged was eye contact. Paxton and Sean cheered for me as they passed by on the bike. I finally passed Ava on her way back and she gave a very encouraging high five. I then passed a girl on the side of the sidewalk near mile 3 having a full on asthma attack; I tried to yell at her to breathe regularly (which I know as someone with asthma is particularly unhelpful) and yelled at the next volunteer I saw that she needed help. This also made me realize I forgot to grab my inhaler out of transition. I had a mini moment of panic that I couldn’t breathe but then realized I was just psyching myself out. I didn’t need my inhaler, I felt fine.

I shoved down my 3rd Gu of the race just after mile 3, and felt horribly nauseous but convinced myself I was fine. Basically half of this race was convincing my body that I was totally okay even if I sorta wasn’t, but looking back I think it worked. Because despite all the things that came back to me while writing this, overall during the race, I really did feel strong and calm. I enjoyed the first set of twisting hills, and felt like I was running a cross country race. I passed the last water station and happily accepted water, but instead of drinking it, dumped it on top of my head to cool myself down. The final set of hills on the run back almost killed me. I sped-walked more than ran that final super steep hill, and tried to breathlessly cheer Harry on, who was struggling up the hill (only later did we find out he had broken his toe; nobody knows how). In the last stretch, Coach Matt encouragingly yelled at me that every place counted and it was the last stretch and the last hill (which was a blatant lie). Then, another coach got aggressively in my face because I was right behind a runner from his school and I almost pushed him out of the way. I rounded the last hill and heard teammates screaming at me. I raced a girl to the finish line and she beat me by a few seconds, but it was a great way to end the race!

I accepted water and stole as many of Welch's fruit snacks as possible. I made sure to drink the water but felt too nauseous to do anything else. Then I joined teammates to cheer on others near the finish line. The next hours of time went by very fast and included trying to eat and cheering. We finally went and collected our stuff, took team photos, and then grabbed stuff from transition and headed out. 

It was at this point as we reloaded the trailer, half of everyone lying on the ground too exhausted to move, that we realized the inner structure of the trailer was shaking a lot and needed to be fixed. We drove back to the hotel where I showered, ate, and then headed to home depot for supplies. The presidential duties never end. We fixed the trailer and then it was basically time for dinner soon after. I was exhausted and brought my canned and microwaved food to the restaurant and tried to just not fall asleep at the table. That evening I crashed so hard, relieved I didn't have to race again and hoping for a fun and restful next day. Unfortunately, that was not in the itinerary.

I thought last year after being stuck in the ATL airport for 27 hours straight and missing two flights was the worst nightmare nationals could be. I was wrong. Paxton and I’s itinerary, which so far had gone according to plan and smoothly, which was a relief and a huge success, unfortunately fell apart on the last day. We were so close to a perfect itinerary and everything going to plan.

The morning of MTR, I woke up early to go with the athletes, but for once, not racing. It was such a relief to just be there to cheer. Another part of me however was a little sad, realizing I had finished my last collegiate race with the team. This was the first time that thought had occurred to me. Megan and I focused on the task of cheering at hand. However, cheering is not a simple task. You have to be strategic about where you set up. We decided to go up near transition since you couldn’t switch between the start zone and the rest and of the race. We watch the T1 run, transition, and then found a good spot on the bike course/run course to set up. We watched Connor come up and bike and then run, and then Dori! We were in 7th. We turned after Dori passed us going down the last hill to watch other racers. About one minute later my phone dinged: 

<Triathlon Nats 2023>

James Pflaging: need a coach at the sharp right turn. Asap.

Part of me hoped that it was not Dori – that James was just looking out for another racer. But I called him. He picked up instantly and said something along the lines of “Get down here” (I honestly do not remember that whole moment of time is a blur). All I know is I started running. I’m not sure I ever communicated with Megan what was going on, but she followed. We sprinted down the hill, and when it got too muddy and I was slipping in my sandals, I started running on the road, which was part of the course. We got yelled at, but I didn’t particularly care. We got down there and saw Dori lying on the ground obviously in a lot of pain and not just recovering from a normal slide-out. The next bit of time was very confusing and stressful. Long story short, she eventually was transported to a hospital and Megan, Coach Matt, Daniel, and I drove there to meet her. The rest of that day was long. We spent the day first in a sketchy hospital waiting room and then in a nice surgical wing waiting room. I spent the entire time either on my phone communicating with people and figuring out logistics since we had left so abruptly and everyone else had still been at the race site or I simply zoned out. Dori’s dad managed to catch a flight out and we got to see her after her surgery. She was in bright spirits despite having broken her femur. I was so relieved she was ok. 

That evening when we returned from the hospital, I felt like I was in a different world. I realized my co-president, Paxton, had left long ago and it was just me in charge. Everyone else still had lots of energy. I, on the other hand, was utterly spent. I showered, ate – realizing I had barely eaten anything all day – and then packed. I went to bed later than I wanted and as a result got only 2 hours of sleep. The travel day back was long and I only managed to sleep on the drive to the airport and somewhat on the first short flight. By the time we reached the drive back, around 10am California time, after having left Georgia at 2am Georgia time, I was so confused and exhausted. We’d had a whole day of long flights and drives and it was only morning. The drive back to school felt short. I drifted in and out of sleep, or some form of it. When we reached UCSB’s parking lot I had a huge sense of relief and weight lift, however at the same time I was still so existentially stressed I didn’t want to stop moving. The final last leg of the trip, I returned the van to the TPS parking lot.

I thought doing that would bring a great feeling of relief, but my body was most definitely still running on stress and shock and keeping me going despite lack of sleep. I felt nothing. Just the need to go do something. When I got back to my apartment and my roomates welcome me back, happy and excited to hear about the trip, I realized I had nothing left. They asked about my races, which I had honestly sort of forgotten had ever happened after the day before. I had full on presidential burn out and emotional burn-out from worry. 

However despite it all, I would do it all over. The experience of racing was amazing, and looking back, my races went extremely well, and I can’t believe I only joined this club my junior year. I will never get to participate in this experience or race again (or at least until I break and inevitably go get my PhD). It is a sad/happy thought. The trip didn’t end on a high necessarily, but my final races and overall the nationals trip in general, were a great ending to my collegiate triathlete experience! 

MTS Conference 2023 by Ryan Chaudoin

On the evening before MTS, UCSB was blanketed in a strange sense of quiet. The sun, shaking off the clouds that had strangled it for months prior, lay just above the horizon, its reflection blazing a line of fire across the calm ocean. It illuminated the lagoon, which was devoid of life save from the ducks floating serenely on its still surface. A few students could be found on various corners of campus, reveling in the bucolic post-final air. As the sun’s last light died, a group of students stepped out of a dining hall, breathing in the cool dusk air. The quiet twilight was a final moment of sanity before the events of the weekend unfolded.

“Bing and James gave you their locations? How many people’s locations do you have?” I demanded of Derrick.

“Not as many as me” Donovan boasted, with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“I’ll give Donovan and Ryan my location if Donovan can find a way for Ryan to get ice cream,” Bing proclaimed.

“I won’t need that next year,” I said, lip-biting aggressively at Derrick and Donovan. Donovan contorted his face into an awful imitation of one of those gigachad memes.

As the twilight dwindled, so did our conversation, until Derrick and I were left chatting as we biked back to our dorms. 

“See you tomorrow at 4 AM” Derrick laughed, turning to his dorm. I scoffed; I had a few races under my belt, so I was no stranger to early mornings. Plus, my roommates were gone, finals were over, and I had spring break to look forward to. How hard could it be to fall asleep?

My roommates are gone, finals are over, and I have spring break to look forward to. How hard can it be to fall asleep? I thought, popping a melatonin and flopping into bed at 9 PM.

My roommates are gone, finals are over, and I have spring break to look forward to. How hard can it be to fall asleep? I thought, checking my watch at 10 PM after laying wide awake for an hour.

My roommates are gone, finals are over, and I have spring break to look forward to. How hard can it be to fall asleep? I thought, trying to get comfortable and feeling no closer to sleep at 11 PM.

My roommates are gone, finals are over, and I have spring break to look forward to. How can it be this hard to fall asleep? I thought, punching my pillow into a more comfortable shape at midnight.

Well shit, I thought at 1 AM, beating my pillow against the wall.

90 minutes of sleep is still pretty good, I thought at 2:30 as I moved my blankets and pillow to the floor of my room and slept there.

What the hell was that? I thought as my alarm beeped, rousing me up from an uncomfortably sensual dream about a non-bald Donovan. I shook my head and scrambled to get ready. I stuck an Ortega breakfast burrito in the microwave and threw whatever I had been too lazy to pack the previous night into a duffel bag. Five minutes before we were supposed to be meeting at the rec cen parking lot, I stumbled out of my room, clutching a suspiciously sticky and still unsettling cold burrito in my mouth, and tripping over my bags. I wobbled all the way to the rec cen, teetering like a car dealership tube man in a hurricane. 

Arriving at the rec cen, I was pleased to find that I was on time enough not to have been left behind. In fact, I was so close to being on time that I didn’t even receive panicked phone calls from Bing or Derrick.

The drive to the race felt like a dream, in that I was only half awake for it. Shout out to Thea for getting us to the race in one piece, since I think I would have fallen asleep behind the wheel if I had been the one driving. 

The race arrival and setup were fairly standard, which was actually not very standard. I suppose this just goes to show that the mean of a distribution can be misleading since a distribution can be such that the mean value has no chance of happening. Fortunately, in this case, we landed on the seemingly 0% chance that nothing went super wrong at the last minute.

Something went a little too right though. For the week leading up to the race, rumor had had it that the swim was going to be canceled. It was not.

I am not prepared for this, I thought as I stepped into Lake Lopez. I am not the greatest swimmer, and I had spent the week mostly preparing for a run/bike/run. As I waded into the lake, the water seeped into my wetsuit through the zipper on my back. I braced myself, and fully submerged, then pulled out instantly out of revulsion. While submerged, the color of the water was a little too similar to the water in my toilet that morning after my body rid itself of the remains of my breakfast burrito.

Slowly, the water filled with the athletes in the collegiate men’s wave, and we all made our way to the in-water start line. In-water starts are great since they make you so cold that your brain forgets to work and you don’t have the capacity for pre-race nerves. As the crack of the starting gun sounded and the water immediately transformed into a churning froth of limbs and aggression, the pummeling from all sides felt like the soft tap of fluffy pillows to my numb body. That was until someone kicked me in the face and knocked my goggles off. I spluttered, pulling them back on, and started fighting my way through the watery warzone.

I better never find out these guys' identities, I fumed as the swimmer to my right started swimming on top of me for what seemed like the fiftieth time. However, it was at least comforting to feel like I wasn’t completely alone as I swam through the empty space between buoys, far from transition and spectators. The guy on my right started speeding up (or maybe I was just slowing down), and I increased my effort to match him. However, he kept going, and as he pulled up next to me, I caught a glimpse of large, aviator-esque goggles that seemed like they would have been more at home on an airplane than in the water. Of course, I would recognize these goggles anywhere, and I wasn’t about to let Luke drop me, so I redoubled my efforts and stuck on his tail. 

I found out after the race that there was some confusion with the course, and people ended up swimming wildly different distances. However, I didn’t realize anything was amiss during the race, as I just turned my brain off and clung to Luke. I’m told we did the longer route, which makes me feel better about the fact that the front pack swam times that were about half of mine.

After dragging me through most of the swim, Luke picked up the pace as we neared the marina and I couldn’t hang on. I muscled through the last 150, feeling like a napkin that had been drowned in a lake and hit by a truck. My feet found the rough concrete of the boat ramp and I stood, spitting drops of muddy water from my revolted mouth. As I ripped my cap off, the roar of the onlookers assaulted my ears; simultaneously, the sun, an orb of pure white surrounded by a fiery red halo, blinded me as I took off my goggles. My eyes cleared, and I realized I was actually just looking at Donovan, who stood beside Paxton in the crowd of spectators. Encouraged by their cheers and Paxton’s luscious hair, I stumbled into transition, ripping my wetsuit off in record speed and pulling on my helmet. James arrived moments later and I tried to offer words of encouragement, but the only sound I could muster was a raw gurgle. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my bike, and ran, joining Sean and Luke. We dodged and weaved through the chaos and carnage of the veritable warzone that was transition, eventually fighting our way to the mount line.

The first six miles of the bike passed in a haze as my brain and body tried to shake off the chill from the swim. My quads were frozen, my fingers numb, and my mouth dry. I ripped open a Gu and succeeded only in gluing my mouth shut.

As I neared the first U-turn, I started to see the leaders racing back towards me. Not long after, I started seeing people I knew. Daniel, Henry, Connor, Matt, Nathan, Derrick… Derrick? Shouldn't there be a few more people in that mix somewhere? As I reached the U-turn and was still yet to see several of our fastest athletes, I became concerned. 

Who’s missing? I pondered, but no sooner had this thought crossed my mind than I saw Taylor on the side of the road fiddling with his gears. Still, several people seemed to be missing.

But there was no time to worry, Derrick was irritatingly far but tantalizingly close and I had one goal: to catch him.

The bike flew by, and soon I was anticipating the run leg as I sprinted back toward transition. Still, a nagging feeling of confusion gripped me. There should definitely be more UCSB people ahead of me, I pondered. Logan hadn’t passed me yet. Had he died on the swim? 

My questions were shortly answered, as I saw a familiar blue tri kit, sleek aero helmet, and enormous pair of quads on the side of the road fiddling with a flat tire.

Clarification: the quads themselves were not the things fiddling with the tire, but I was so enamored with them that I couldn’t look at anything else. At least Logan had made it through the swim, a flat tire was probably the worst thing that could happen to him at this point…

Shortly thereafter, I arrived back at the transition area.

“How are you feeling Ryan?” I heard my dad yell at me as I pulled my running shoes on. It sounded like he was talking from the end of a very long tunnel.

“Bleeurpghfth” was all I could manage.

After hitting an alleged heart rate of 218 during the second Stanford run, I figured the best approach for this leg would be to take it easy at the start and settle in before pushing too much. Additionally, after an IT band injury and very limited running for most of the quarter, it seemed like a good plan to pace conservatively. As long as Derrick didn’t gain on me at the start, I was pretty confident that I could catch him during the second half of the run. So I forced myself to assume a comfortable pace. As I started approaching the first U-turn, I saw the succulent face of Derrick Chan heading back towards me, red with exhaustion like a sweet interior of a watermelon, if watermelons got exhausted. He was less than a minute ahead of me.  However, by the time I got to the second U-turn, I realized I had gotten too comfortable: Derrick was gaining on me, and my heart rate was certainly under control, it had dropped below even my tempo heart rate. It was go-time.

I negative split as I had never negative split before (mostly because of how slowly I went for the first three miles). I caught Derrick with a mile left and tried to turn on the heat. However, the thermostat must have been broken, because he was hanging on annoyingly well. As the finish drew nearer, I became increasingly concerned. I’ve been notoriously bad at kicking in the past, and I knew my only chance to beat Derrick was to tire him out with a decent amount of distance left. However, my run fitness was at an all-time low and when we rounded the final corner, still together, Derrick pulled out a kick that I just couldn’t match. He beat me by five seconds in a two-and-a-half-hour race. 

Allegedly, Derrick and I were in the top seven from UCSB. However, something about that seemed off. Then I realized that like half the team was sick, or injured or had some kind of disaster during the race. Maybe the reason nothing went wrong the morning of was because things went wrong for people way beforehand. But maybe things going wrong is just an occupational hazard of being a triathlete. Maybe it’s just an occupational hazard of being a person who’s alive. Who’s to say? However, seeing my teammates push through injuries and setbacks, and whatever is thrown their way has been a huge inspiration to me. I guess the nice thing about being insane enough to do something as difficult as a triathlon is that it really demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit. This team, and triathletes in general, are crazy kick ass. You all inspire me to be a better person, and I love you all for it.

-Ryan Chaudoin