MTS CONFERENCE BY SEAN TRAN

This is the story of the GU pack that undermined the entire legacy of Michelin star.

MTS was the last major event before my spring break. As usual, I was the most pumped and the most prepared person before every race, probably across the whole team. Harry picked me up with the school van the day before the race. I always make sure that the driver has a special treat, so I made him a cup of Thai tea. We then sprinted the van to school, shoved all the bikes into the two trailers, and let everyone board. Everything was great.

By the time everyone was about to leave, I spotted a bunch of stuff laying by a tree in the parking lot, and a huge jug of Skippy peanut butter. As I saw that jug, I knew right away that those were Jayson’s stuff (I always triple-check his name because I send something out). We all mutually agreed to shove Jayson’s stuff into the bike trailer before he walked back from IV to make him confused.

Harry started to roll the car and the trailer out of the parking lot. My original plan was to get everyone to experience an international music tour through an aux cable. That plan didn’t age well. I was Harry’s co-pilot. Bing, Olivia, and Katie were mid-rowers. Jean and Matt W. were back-seaters. The drive to the package pickup site was lawful chaos. 5 minutes after the car left the parking lot, the aux cable turned half-functioning. Everyone then tried to revive the aux but wasn’t successful. This event proved that radio remained the “daddy” status of all car technology. Anyway, we didn’t arrive at the package pickup site first, BUT under Harry’s chaotic good driving skill, we parked our trailer first.

Next stop, Pizza Republic in SLO. The first magic of the day happened here. While waiting for everyone to finish up, a server at the restaurant asked if anyone ordered two chicken parms, and turned out no one did. Out of nowhere, the “supply and demand” curve rushed in my blood, I playfully told everyone at my table: “I would pay half-priced for the chicken parms”. Five minutes later, the server walked up to the table and asked if anyone wanted the food. Without any hesitation, I said yes to her generosity, followed by Bing. We both get the chicken for free. By the time the team left for the campsite, the server brought a free pizza to us! 2 free chicken parms and a piping hot rusty pizza before the race: WHAT A HOME RUN!

After a mysteriously glorious drive from the pizza place, we hit the gate of the massive campsite. It was rainy and foggy outside, no one knew where exactly where we would camp. We met Megan, followed by Amanda and Carlyn’s car. We all decided to follow Eddie’s trailer (Eddie usually knows everything). Eventually, we lost Eddie’s trailer, then caught his trailer turning back. I rolled down the window and shout: “Where are we going?”. Instantly, Eddie echoed back: “Where are we going?”. We all busted out laughing. We then drove a little bit more until the two UCSD Tri people showed up on the scene to help us out with their camp site map. The map didn’t help that much, so we decided to drive a bit more until we saw a bunch of college kids sitting on a cliff watching our trailer like they saw an exotic animal. We decided to stop and asked them for some direction. They couldn’t help either, so we decided to head back to the ranger’s station. This time, the two trailers and the two small cars met our 12 passengers van led by Gigi. We were all here stranded in the middle of the glorious race site. From here, Katie decided to sprint to the ranger’s station to get help. We finally got the help we needed. Vroom…vroom… we were now at the campsite.

            I gotta be honest, this was the third time I went camping in my whole life. It was harder for me to figure out how to set up a tent than playing Beethoven, so Matt W. had to help me out… Ouch, it was embarrassing, city boy! The team had a good two hours hanging around the bonfire until the rain occurred. Everyone rushed into their tents and we called it a successful night. Sleeping in a different bed is never easy for me, and sleeping in the tent made it even…. (I guess) more interesting. I was so nervous about the race the next morning, so I called my brother to distract myself, but then stayed until midnight to watch countless triathlon-related videos. My sleep was average. 5/10.

            Race Day! I think I was the first one waking up and certainly the last leaving for the transition area. Breaking down the tent was hard. I then had oatmeal blended with apple and blueberries for breakfast, which was unusual for me (I usually eat rice and bacon for breakfast, and this detail will come later towards the end of the story). AB and Coach Sean showed up at the scene and asked why the oatmeal I ate was purple. AB gave me a very suspicious smile, so I wasn’t sure what he meant. (Alright whatever, I know my food is oftentimes weird). After breakfast, I rolled my bike down to the transition area with Ava, one of the fastest girls on the team. Everything was great. I secured the best spot for the transition and said ‘hi’ to all the UCSD Tri fellows.

After that, I headed to the start of the swim. Although MTS Conference had such a stunning swim course, the start was sloppy. No announcement was available to remind athletes to get in the water. The boys were about to do the cheer but had to skip to rush to the swimming swarm. Everyone had to do two laps of the course. My first lap felt great. Second lap, not so much. I’m not sure if the lake has tides or not, but the water was so shallow during the second lap. I ended up running around 6-7 steps in the water to get back to the swim course. It was a terrific swim.

Before I talk about the bike, I need to talk about my inventory. I had two Gus, a bottle of water with honey and salt as my electrolyte. T1 was average: wetsuit out, shoes on, bike out. The same darn thing. 2 minutes on the bike, I dropped my first GU. Worse, it was my favorite flavor: LEMONADE! (important detail) I was like no big deal… let’s just smoke everyone on this bike course. Yup, I passed lots of people. I even passed Kyle and neck-on-neck with Ava, just some top people on the team. The bike was fantastic.

Bike in, run out… Holy crap, I had to run again, and this time was 10k, not 5k anymore. Honestly, I was pretty calm in the first 5k to leave room for descending on the last 5k, except I didn’t have a chance to descend. On the 7th kilometer, fatigue started to kick in. I sweated like crazy and my body halted. I tried to get back on the running pace but it was just impossible. I didn’t want to get a DNF so I just kept walking…and walking…and walking… I regretted eating that weird purple oatmeal instead of the reliable bacon and rice in the morning. I thought I was done. On the verge of blacking out, I saw a UCSB race kit passing by WITH 2 GU PACKS. THAT WAS MAYA!!! I used all the energy I had left and screamed: “MAYA COULD YOU DROP A GU?”. Oh! My! God! It was a LEMONADE GU! HOLY CRAP! I felt like I was given a second life after knocking that GU! A flow of energy rushed into my legs and blazed in my heart. It was THE MOST DELICIOUS THING I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. I had two one-Michelin star meals and one two-Michelin star meal in my life, they were simply nowhere near this GU. After that, I just sprinted to the finish line. Bing finally beat me for the first time towards the end of the race.

            MTS was such an important race to me. It made me appreciate the sport and the people around me even more. I was so embarrassed that I crashed on the run and didn’t spend enough time running and mismanaged my nutrition during race day. In conclusion, there’re three straight-up facts I learned from this race. First, Maya’s GU is just way better than the overrated Michelin guide. Second, if cars run on gas, Sean indeed run on bacon and rice. Third, if UCSB Triathlon is not the number 1 team in my heart, I don’t know what will.

TRITONMAN 2022 BY DORI LARBIG

Disclaimer: All events detailed in this story are subject to bias and my memory loss

Tritonman was finally here, the race that had been hyped up for the whole year. Now, as I am sitting in the UCSB library writing this race recap (specifically on the second floor, at the third table to the right in the Gender Studies section, sitting next to Logan) I can confidently agree that this race was a blast.

The six athletes racing draft legal were expected to meet at the Rec Cen parking lot at 9AM sharp. Knowing that I tend to run late in situations like this, I sprint-biked from my dorm, carrying 2 backpacks, my wetsuit, and a full bag of snacks. I fell over once along the way, denting my hydro flask, and some random dude had to help me up. Despite all of this, I was the first to arrive. And, to my dismay, everyone else were all very late.

We hitched the trailer to our luxurious Ford Expedition, loaded up the bikes and were off to San Diego. Eddie drove with Dillen on aux, Jayson and Daniel were in the middle row, and Paxton and I were partying in the back row.

This drive was relatively eventful. An hour into the ride, I had to take an Econ midterm, which unfortunately could not have been rescheduled. I told everyone to be quiet, and in response Eddie blasted the EDM song “Love Tonight” by David Guetta. Let’s just say I didn’t do as well as I wanted to on that test.

Somewhere along the road after we got through the Superbowl-Weekend LA traffic, the group came to the consensus that we were all in need of a pee break. It turned out that all of us had needed to go for the 3 hours prior but were too scared to say something with Eddie driving. After getting off the freeway and circling around the streets of Carlsbad for way to long, we finally found a spot to park the trailer, and set off to find food and a restroom.

With no luck for a while and only Carl’s Junior and KFC in sight, Daniel, who was the hungriest out of all of us, was not satisfied with any of the food choices, and was probably annoyed at Dillen and me for being indecisive. Out of the blue, he took control by saying “WE ARE GOING TO SEÑOR GRUBBY’S.” Now you may be thinking, “wtf is that?” And that was our exact response. The small, hole-in-the-wall Mexican food restaurant ended up having the most delicious burritos. Eddie ate his in approximately 0.002 seconds. Paxton and Jayson made the mistake of getting some overly priced ramen instead.

The next stop was the race site, where Coach AB magically appeared next to the car, waiting for us (in his Croc slides of course) next to the transition area. We did a practice bike loop around Fiesta Island so that we could get to know the course, and I was already feeling the excitement for the race to come. Dillen and I scoped out a group of girls practicing their transitions, and we knew we were going to dominate the competition for the Draft Legal race. Unbeknownst to us, they were not college athletes, but instead kids in junior high practicing for fun.

Next on the agenda was to find a place to park near the UCSD campus, so that we could pick up our race packets and go to the Draft Legal meeting. We entered a parking lot that had a big height clearance sign hanging from a metal pole. Although we didn’t know the height of the trailer, Eddie said, “it’ll be fineee…” Daniel stood outside the car and said in his quiet and calm voice, “we’re gonna hit it…we’re gonna hit it…yep, we hit it.”

After we “cleared” the sign, we had to go under a clearance bar that didn’t need to be there. Unlike the sign, there was no way this bar was going to budge. This is when we realized the severity of the situation we just put ourselves in. We were stuck between the bar that we couldn’t fit under, two islands blocking a left or right turn, and at least ten cars separating us and the sign we hit earlier. Daniel, who was still outside, was directing the cars behind to go around us while we thought of our next move.

We were all stressed out of our minds while our fearless leader, Eddie, remained completely composed. Once there was a clearing, we did the only thing we could do, which was to backup with the trailer still attached to the car. We ended up turning into another section of the parking lot which had ZERO exits that didn’t have a clearance barrier besides the one we just went through. We tried seeing if we could fit underneath any of the signs/bars, but couldn’t—we were stuck. Here’s where the teamwork came in. While Paxton and I stayed in the back of the car laughing about the situation, Jayson and Daniel ran around the parking lot to check if there were any exits without a clearance sign. Our only solution was to back up into incoming traffic, underneath the sign we hit on the way in. But first, we had to turn the trailer around. With Daniel and Jayson standing in the middle of the road, they directed Eddie to “safely” make a U-turn. It is safe to say that neither of them should be hired for giving directions. Jayson was using zero hand signals with his arms crossed, and Daniel was mumbling the directions so quietly that Eddie couldn’t even hear them. People in cars were filming and laughing as we backed up down the entrance. Jayson bit his nails in anxiousness as we hit the sign again, this time so hard that it almost fell off.

Eddie quickly parked the trailer in a more accessible location on the street, and we began the trek to the packet pickup area.

We walked for a long time, across fields, over rivers, through valleys, and up a giant hill to finally make it to the location. Along the way, Paxton was going crazy, took off his shoes and started jumping around like a goblin. At the pick-up, the race coordinators gave us the option to pick either a Tritonman hat, pair of socks, or arm sleeves, but Paxton didn’t get the memo. He stole all three pieces of merch and somehow ignored all the strange looks he was getting. After, we went to the Draft Legal meeting. It was quick, but despite that, Eddie and I felt like we were going to fall asleep as the Triathlon official droned on and on. We made the journey back to the car, and according to Daniel’s watch, we walked over 7 miles.

Finally, and illegally, we made it back onto the road, grabbed some dinner, and arrived at Katie’s house, her parents generously hosting part of the team for the weekend. We went to bed shortly after.  

DAY 1: Draft Legal

4:30 AM

The Draft-Legal squad woke up bright and early. It was a restless night of sleep, but we were alert and ready to go. The butterflies in my stomach seemed to be on crack because I was so excited, I could barely eat. I chowed down a bagel and a banana to get myself fueled up. It was still pitch black when our car rolled into the race site. We arrived at the course at about 5:15, the sound of “Love Tonight” blaring so that the other teams would know our presence. We headed over to transition and set up our gear.

This would be my first draft legal race. With swimming as my strongest leg of the race, I knew I had to push myself hard, so that by the time I got to the bike, I was far enough ahead to not get lapped out. On top of that, I was trying to remember the rules that were mentioned during the meeting the day before. Coach Sean reassured me that I was racking by bike correctly and that I knew everything necessary to not get a penalty. I felt some comfort as my race number was 202, landing me the prime spot of being the very last space on the girls’ transition rack, so I didn’t have to deal with losing my bike during the race.

6:50 AM

The boys started warming up for their race by getting used to the water temperature in the bay. Us girls were fortunate to start over an hour later, and Dillen and I watched from the shore as the triathletes lined up for their in-water start. Dillen and I started an Instagram Live to have some fun before we were going to be in a lot of pain during the race. The gun went off, and the boys race began. The 750-meter swim went by fast, and we were shocked to see that an Olympic Trials swimming qualifier was over 10 body lengths ahead of the second-place swimmer after only a few minutes. One by one, the racers finished the swim. According to Jayson, he was, “at the front of the pack until I drowned! They unzipped my wetsuit AND my race kit underneath!” Apparently, he “was in fourth place” until someone “almost killed him.”

After seeing the boys have strong finishes, my game face was on. I did some warm-up stretches before heading to the shore.

8:30AM

A shotgun blast signified the start of the girls’ race. I was in the front of the lineup, but still had to push and shove my way through some competitors that were in my way. The swim was fast, and all I remember was elbowing a girl in the stomach because she was touching my feet and then she yelped in surprise/pain (whoops ). My adrenaline was through the roof as we swam in the 58-degree water, and I got into a rhythm with my stroke. The run from the water to transition seemed like forever. I made my way to my bike, clipping on my helmet and made sure that I put everything in my designated bucket so I didn’t get a penalty.

Next came the bike. I quickly realized that racing Draft-Legal was a lot different than drafting during training. A large pack of athletes came hauling towards me whom I had beaten in the swim. At only halfway through lap 1 of 3, I got left in the dust by about 8 girls who dropped me off the pack. The rest of the bike consisted of me and 3 other girls in a pace line. It was brutal when the wind picked up. Paxton had told me how mentally taxing drafting is, and I didn’t understand what he meant until I was in the thick of it.

Soon enough the bike was over, and I transitioned to the run. It quickly got very hot during the race. The boys were fortunate to have had the chill of the early morning, but it got to 80-something degrees by the time I got to the running leg of the race. I had gone all out on the bike and was really paying the price on the run. With help from Daniel, Eddie and Paxton cheering from the sidelines, I kicked into a fifth gear and finished the race strong. Jayson ran alongside me for a bit of the last lap, yelling at me to go faster until he almost hit a pole while filming me on his GoPro.

I finished the race gasping for air, overwhelmed with it being over. Eddie told me to sit down, but I knew if I did, I would never be able to stand back up. Soon after me came Dillen hauling across the finish line. Race 1 was a success, but I felt even more prepared for the Collegiate race the next day as I was familiar with the course and knew there were technical things that I could do better.

12:00 PM

After recovering from our efforts during the race, we went to back to Katie’s house to debrief the race before getting a post-race meal. Eddie and Jayson were showing off their rubix cube solving skills, and I felt like I was in a coma because I was so tired. We drove to a little diner, and the wait was “30 minutes” which turned into 2 hours because of a group of grandparents taking their sweet time eating pancakes. During the wait, Jayson got Coach Sean hooked on Pokémon Go, and Eddie and I saw a guy decked out in USA merch. He looked like a stellar athlete, and we decided that he was probably a track athlete. We googled 2022 Olympians, and low and behold, the guy we saw happened to be a 5x Olympian in the long-distance races.

When the food came, everyone sat in silence for a long time while we ate. It could have been my hunger, but it was the best burger I’ve had in a while. Coach Sean had a giant milkshake and exclaimed, “I need to fatten up!”

8:30 PM

After returning to the house, all of us draft-legal peeps were laying on the couches recovering from that morning. Like the wonderful scholar I am, I finished up my math homework while I used Katie’s dad’s fancy compression-marathon-recovery device on my legs. Jayson was sitting upright petting one of Katie’s many cats, and I joined him after a while to give the cat some love. Suddenly, I was mauled!!! The cat scratched my face deeply, and I was bleeding out. I didn’t think I was going to make it, and told Jayson that it’s all his fault, and to “tell my parents I love them.”

The team was finally back together when the second van arrived. Pasta, pizza, salad, and garlic bread were generously prepared, and we had a superb homemade meal. During dinner, we looked at all the race pictures from that morning and laughed about our absurd facial expressions. Someone took a picture of me from the run that should never have seen the light of day, put my phone number on it, and captioned it “Looking for a Valentine.” Everyone joked about printing out the picture, making t-shirts, and finding me a Valentine at the race the next day. This started the meme battle of the century, and I have to say, I was most definitely the best at coming up with captions that absolutely ROASTED everyone. The racers quickly fell asleep shortly after, packed like sardines on Katie’s living room floor while Dillen and I slept in beds.

Day 2- CLASSIC

4:00 AM

It was day three of the Tritonman weekend, and those of us who raced Draft Legal the day before were a little tired, a little sore, but hyped up for another chance to race. The UCSB triathletes found themselves well rested after an early bedtime the night before, and they trailed after the scents of cappuccinos and bagels to the kitchen for the hearty breakfast.

On the way to the race site, Jayson and I sat in the back of the van firing each other up for a great race, meanwhile Daniel sat quietly as….yep you guessed it…“Love Tonight” played another million times (via Jayson and Eddie’s expertly curated playlist that they made the night before).  

Upon arrival, we continued playing the most basic house party songs known to man while we re-assembled our bikes. It was soon announced that the water temperature was even colder than the day before, meaning that wetsuits would be mandatory for everyone. I saw Ryan in the transiton area with a look of panic on his face, and the team group chat started popping off in hysteria. Out of nowhere, a bin of team wetsuits appeared, and all was well again. Except for Taryn’s wetsuit, which was so old and beat up that she had to tie it together with a string for it to stay together. 

This race had 2 heats of boys and 2 heats of girls. After both heats of boys were set off, I started the OLÉ gauchos cheer and it was time to race. While waiting, we watched the first wave of boys exiting the water. Jayson redeemed his horrendous performance the night before by being third out of the water! Even though I raced the day before, I felt way faster. On the swim, there were 2 girls drafting on me for a while. They turned out to be Gabby and Megan and neither of them knew it was me.

On the bike, I tried to keep my pretty decent start from the swim. Coach AB and Sean cheered from the sidelines and watched everyone start their laps. Somewhere along the way, Logan whizzed past me on his TT bike, and I said something to him like “good job,” but he didn’t hear. Paxton and Daniel came up behind me too and said some motivational words. On the final lap of the bike, I caught up to Taylor and we rode the whole last lap together. There really is nothing quite like seeing all your best friends racing their hearts out on the same course.

I felt so fresh off the bike, went as hard as I could on the run. I ended up beating some of the girls who had beat me the day before in the Draft-Legal race, and I showed them who really was boss .

If there was a spirit award, we would have won. Our new tropical-printed kits looked so good compared to the boring yellow and blue of the other schools, and we cheered loudly as our teammates ran through the finish line.

After everyone was finished, Jayson set off to find me a Valentine. He was set on a dude named Drew from the CU Boulder team, but he disappeared before I could pop the question.

11:00 AM

WOOHOO! Both races were over! I was sitting shot-gun next to Eddie and was on aux, sparing the other passengers from listening to my dreaded country music. Eddie told me I had to stay awake which was very difficult for me, so I kept myself entertained by making fun of Jayson and feeding Eddie Hawaiian rolls and Redbull.

Nathan and Megan had joined us on the car ride back, and Nathan insisted that we stop at Burger King because they, “sell 8 chicken nuggets for only 1 dollar! 1 DOLLAR!” Me with my expert navigational skills found the closest possible Burger King off the freeway and took us to the classic fast-food restaurant, which I had never been to before.

Eddie pulled into the lot with the trailer, parking across 6 parking spots. I have to say, for my first time at Burger King, it was pretty mediocre, but anything was better than DLG. I had my double-whopper and shortly after, my fight-or-flight kicked in because I almost got locked in the bathroom. To prevent getting stuck in another parking lot, I took charge and did a way better job at spotting Eddie than Daniel and Jayson (I actually used hand signals unlike certain individuals). Then we set off again.

So, in conclusion, I’d say that this weekend was a success. I know that “Swimmer’s-high” and “Runner’s-high” is a pretty cool phenomenon, but trust me, “Tri-high” is 1000000x better. I’m so proud of how everyone did, and stoked for the next races to come. And no, in case you were wondering, I never got a Valentine.

IRONBRUIN 2021 BY LOGAN UNGER

This is Logan Unger and I am a first year.  This race was my first triathlon ever.  

On Saturday, the day before the race, we all gathered at the Recreation Center parking lot with our bikes and bags.  We had a pretty uneventful loading of the trailers and vehicles.  The drive was about two hours, which felt pretty reasonable.  I was excited to be in the car with all my best friends and nervous for the race the next day, which made me chatty.  My filter was turned off and I pretty much said whatever thought came to my head.  I made people laugh about 30% of the time with my dad-joke-esque puns and bizarre rants.  Everyone in the van was joking about how much they hated me.  Well, they told me they were joking.  All the vehicles stopped to get food at this little strip mall before we broke off to the various houses in which we were staying.  I was staying at Teresa’s house and it was amazing.  Teresa’s mom provided a few air mattresses and even some food in the morning.  I went to bed at about 9:00 knowing that my alarm was set for 4:15 the next morning.  

I woke up at 4:00 and I was completely juiced with adrenaline.  I lay in the air mattress just staring at the ceiling with wide-open eyes and no hope of getting those last 15 minutes of sleep.  We had another blissfully uneventful trip to the race site.  

The site was nothing if not chaotic.  There were over 1300 athletes racing in 15 events.  Nobody really had a full understanding of what was going on.  We managed to get all the vans with people into a parking lot close to the transition, but the trailers with the bikes were forced to go in a parking lot about half a mile away.  My background is cross country and track, where the meets are extremely organized and the runners can focus solely on preparing for their race.  This was the complete opposite.  Announcements for the races blared over the public announcement system.  People asked each other questions every 30 seconds.  We had to find the bike trailers and unload them as quickly as possible.  All the while, the time until the race was set to begin was getting shorter and shorter.  Thankfully, Coach AB collected all of our race packets for us, so that part was centralized.  

After everyone prepared their transitions, we walked toward the race start.  I had never put on a wetsuit and my nerves made it difficult to do it properly.  When I finally got it on, I marveled at the ingenuity of putting the zipper in the front before realizing that I had put my wetsuit on backward.  Thank goodness that Rohan was there to calm me down and help me put it on the correct way.  I walked into the water, fully expecting myself to seize up from the coldness of the harbor water.  I was wrong.  Wetsuits work.  I felt comfortable, bordering on warm, in the water.  The race start was delayed for 20 minutes, which really iced us.  My race anxiety started to settle down at this point.  Matt Scurria was shivering quite a bit.  He looked like he had taken a dip in a frigid ocean wearing a thin layer of polyester and spandex and was being forced to stand in cold, windy weather, which made sense since that was exactly what happened to him.  I was iced in the sense that I started doubting my abilities in this endless 20 minutes.  I got some energy and confidence back with the team chant.  UCSB was by far the biggest college team at the race, so we looked imposing and inspiring during this chant.  

In a continuation of the organization of the race, I didn’t hear the race director start our race.  Luckily, it wasn’t that important for me to be near the front since I was expecting to be in the back of the pack in the water and the race would start when my chip crossed the starting line.  The swim felt like it was taking forever, even though it was only 400 meters.  My body felt exhausted and fully energized at the same time.  I didn’t feel like I could move any faster than I was going but I also didn’t feel like I was putting in much work.  The day before the race, Dixon and I had talked about how fast each of us wanted to go in the water.  I told him that I would be happy with 7:30 for 400 meters (laugh all you want, swimmers) since that is about 1:42 per 100 yards.  I was pleasantly shocked when I looked at my watch after the swim and I had hit 6:59.  My excitement was dampened when I realized that I didn’t know how to remove my wetsuit.  I knew that there should be a long zipper that I could pull to get it off, but I could only feel a really short zipper.  I was super embarrassed and I imagined myself racing the rest of the race in a wetsuit, completely boiling myself alive and being ridiculed by everyone in attendance.  This crisis was averted by asking Philippe to pull down on the zipper, who did so without hesitation.  I had a horrible transition because of this folly, my inability to find my bike, my inefficient manner of putting on my helmet and bike shoes, and the fact that my bike computer had turned itself off. 

Because of all this, I was unbelievably stoked to get on the bike and just pedal away from my problems.  The bike was so liberating.  I averaged 25 miles per hour for the first three miles and I felt incredible.  I flew by a few people and struggled past others.  When I passed Dori, I waved good-bye to her, which is a pretty arrogant move in hindsight.  About 3 miles into the bike, there was a punchy hill.  I thought about Primoz Roglic and his incredible ability to fly up hills like these but decided to save myself for the rest of the bike.  I was still winded and I knew that I wouldn’t gain much time by putting in a strong effort on that climb.  As I came down the hill, I saw the top athletes zooming past me on the other side of the road in the opposite direction.  In about fourth place was someone in a UCSB kit who was absolutely cooking it.  I thought it was a former UCSB triathlete wearing out kit who had gone pro because this dude had a beautiful black and white aero helmet, a sexy white TT bike, and a perfect aero tuck.  It took me until the beginning of the run to realize that this guy was Eddie.  He was definitely in his element.  A tiny bit farther down the hill, I saw a bullet go by on the race course.  Okay, I understand that this is a cliché, but there is no other way to describe Dixon Atkins when he is on his TT bike with a mission.  He was making the top triathletes in the race look like they were on cruisers going to class.  After that, I saw Henry, who was in a nice paceline, and- wait.  Paceline?  This is an INDIVIDUAL time trial!  I teased him about this after the race, and he claimed that it was fair for him to draft since he was on an aluminum bike.  Readers, make your own opinions about this controversial issue.  Anyway, this is where I entered the pain cave.  Every pedal stroke felt harder than the last one and my cadence was slowly dropping.  I pushed my body past what I thought was possible.  For the rest of the 8 mile bike, I was deep in the pain cave.  I naïvely thought that I would feel better when I started running, but this was definitely just wishful thinking.

When I got into T2, I was pretty wiped.  I followed Rohan, thinking he would be at the UCSB bike rack, but he was racing for Cal, so I went to the wrong rack.  Matt Scurria yelled to me that our rack was way back in the other direction, so I turned around to try and find it and went too far that way.  Needless to say, I was pretty flustered when I finally found my running shoes.  I took off for the run and that intense pain of being fully lactic consumed me.  It was brick time.  I moved my legs as fast as I felt possible, but it felt like I was a jockey and my body was a horse that wouldn’t listen to me.  The entire run was in the red and felt like it was in slow motion.  About one mile into the run, there was a steep hill.  I told myself to relax on the uphill, a tip from cross country in high school.  When I got to the top, I felt like I had recovered a bit.  I made the U-turn and sent it.  I passed about five people on this roughly 300 meter descent, bombing down the hill at 4:30 per mile pace.  One of those people was Emory, who looked very much like a shark out of water.  See, I could say that Emory was a fish out of water, but that wouldn’t do him justice.  When he’s in the water, he’s a shark: gigantic and powerful.  He placed third out of everyone in the swim, which is ridiculous.  However, on this downhill, he looked like he was trying not to fall, which is fair.  The rest of the run was a slog.  I was already so far back that there wasn’t anyone faster than me behind me, so I was able to spot people in the distance and track them down without being mentally devastated by someone blowing by me.  I basically held my position in the run, running a bit slower than I would have liked but still finishing strong.  I told Harry before the race that I wanted to finish on empty, and I can confidently say that I did that.  I almost collapsed at the line; it felt exactly like crossing the finish line at the end of a cross country race in high school.  

Everyone compared times after the race, which was fun.  People seemed, for the most part, happy with their races and excited to be competing either for the first time or again.  I did a little cool down jog with Matt Scurria and we then packed all of our stuff up and hit the road.  I packed my own lunch and our van stopped for burgers.  We talked a little bit and slept most of the way back.  I could definitely feel the 4 am wakeup time.  

Overall, it was a beautiful experience and I can’t wait to do it again!

UCLA Ironbruin 2019 by Paxton Rush

Hey everybody! I’m Paxton, a first year here on the tri team, and this is Ironbruin 2019! Woo!

So we all got to the parking lot by the rec cen somewhere around 4. Lots of people had rented sleeping bags and pads from the adventure club. I road in Dustin’s van with Colby, Vanessa, Zephyr, Phillipe, Michael, Ian, and Declan. We drove for around two hours through some thick traffic, listening to Zephyr’s jams and telling jokes, then we stopped to get dinner at an Italian place. We ended up going to baskin Robbins afterwards for some pre-race ice cream for another hour or so, then we pulled into Jared’s parents house, who were kind enough to host us for the night! Phillipe swore that the couch was too soft and slept on the floor; his loss!

Our group slept from 11-4:45ish, so a decent amount of sleep. We got up, had some bagels and grapes generously provided to us, and drove to the race site!

The race site was at Santa Fe Dam. Transition was in a parking lot right outside the lake. The swim was a weird triangle around lake, then you hiked up to the top of the damn and did two weird loops around it, and then you ran a lap around the lake.

We spent a while prepping in transition, with Dustin showing me and the other freshmen how to set everything up. We put on our wetsuits, took one last crap, warmed up for a bit, and we were off!

The swim was pretty good, everyone felt fast. We were greeted by cheers from Coach, Zephyr, Rick, and Sean at transition. The bike course ended up being very flat and very fast. The run felt awful, but it was actually a good course. Just need to do more bricks.

I ended up finishing in 13th place; 4h in the team and the fastest freshmen. Dustin podiumed and got third with the fastest run, and Jared got 6th with the fastest bike and the second fastest run. Michael ended at 10th, and was a little too far away for me to catch. Sarah ended up winning the whole thing! Iris also got podium with a third. Declan ended up crashing on the second loop; his tire went out from under him and he fell on the turnaround. He scraped up his chin and his elbow, but he still finished! Everyone did such a good job on the race. We stopped at luscious dumplings on the way back for some quality refueling, and then we went home to nap :)

ZOT TROT 2019 BY KELLYCLAIRE ROBERTSON

The Gauchos’ first race of Triathlon season was both a success and a blast! The team left for Irvine on Saturday, 2/9, taking two vans and enjoyed a smooth ride down from Santa Barbara. As alarms went off at 4:30am the next morning, the gauchos sprung out of from their sleeping bags filled with excitement and nervousness ready to take on the first race. Upon arrival at the transition area, the news quickly spread that bike section was cancelled due to the rain that morning. The athletes experienced mixed emotions as they then keenly prepared for the run-swim-run.

At the starting line, all the jitteriness and nerves were encountered with a beautiful Southern California sunrise and our “olé, olé” cheer that rang through the Irvine suburbs. When the horn went off, the men, shortly followed by the women, dashed around the field beginning the 6k run. Athletes sped through transition until jumping feet-first into the pool where they zig-zagged, flip-turned, and splashed their way through a transient two-hundred-fifty yards. Emerging out of the water and tearing their way back the transition, they raced the final stretch as a 2k until flouncing their feet through the finish line.

Our very own Iris Wu took second place on the women’s side followed by Bella Ward placing seventh, and there were many strong performances from first time Zot-Trotters Bella Siering, Emily Wapman, Addie Seale, and Angela Huang. On the men's side, Ricardo Cortes took eighth place followed by Eddie Schultz, and Jacob Ogawa, and Jared Kliszewski taking 10th, 11th, and 12th place, respectively.

Overall, this race was a great way to kick off the season! Special thanks to Dane’s family for allowing us to squeeze into their lovely home in Irvine and making it possible for so many athletes to compete. Also thank you to Coach Matt, Sean, and former president Gordon for making the drive down to support all of us.

KellyClaire Robertson, Team Member.