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UCSD Triathlon Wins 2008 USA Triathlon Team Championship

Monday, April 28, 2008

The Toyota Prius remains a bestselling hybrid, but good gas mileage is only one reason Triathletes keep them around. Monday night, two days before we left for Collegiate Nationals in Alabama we did a test; in an attempt to save $2000 worth of bike shipping costs in oversized airline baggage, Dan Anderson and Adam Strobl had volunteered to drive our bikes across the country. That night we fit 12 bikes INSIDE of a Prius. Who would have thought? Dan thought. Wednesday night was even more impressive. After hearing that Daniel's wheel had been damaged on the plane that morning, there was a fight for what little car space was left for carbon wheels. Score: 12 bikes, 10 wheels, 2 tire pumps, some seat posts, helmets etc. The rest of our group left from Lindbergh Field the following morning. We switched planes in Dallas and met Tri teams from USC, Stanford, and Berkeley in the airport waiting to board the same flight to Birmingham. We arrived in Alabama and caravanned in 3 PT Cruisers, think Italian Job, but not quite as cool, from the airport in Birmingham to Tuscaloosa where the race was being held near the University of Alabama. Dan and Adam arrived with the Prius and our bikes Thursday night around midnight after 27 hours of driving...only to be woken up by housekeeping at the hotel at 9am. We went to the Athlete Village during the time slot for Californian teams and picked up our race packet with our numbers, caps and shirts. We unloaded our bikes from the Prius and put them together sifting through the piles of parts. We headed back to our hotels as the rain started to come down, and it didn't stop for a long time. On the Tuscaloosa news we caught an interview of our very own Sante Kotturi, sporting his new argyle cycling jacket, sharing his wisdom and informing the world that our only hope for the morning's race was that we wouldn't get flats. It looked as though a tornado had touched down in our hotel rooms as we all tried to get ready for the race the next day. Equipment for three sports is never easy to organize. As we put our race numbers on our caps, helmets, and bikes, Allison turned her sheet of numbers over to find that she had been given the numbers for Jessica Johnston from Berkeley. How about that for some unwelcome stress? Race morning: Race officials were not letting waves into the water until 6 minutes before their start time. We wanted more warm up than that, so after hearing someone say and point "Amanda Felder got in down there and swam up," Blair, Darlene and Allison headed off to do the same thing. It was good timing and all five of the Triton ladies were able to find each other in the water right before the start. Daniel and Justin were in the first wave of the day, followed by the first wave of women, including Amanda, Darlene, and Lauren. The next wave was Dan and Adam, then Blair and Allison, then Richard then Sante. The race was Olympic distance; 1500m swim, 40k bike, and 10k run. The sun was awkwardly low over the Black Warrior River making sighting the bouys pretty difficult. The bike was a two-loop course. With the two loops and the merging of 10 waves we had to be incredibly careful to follow USAT non-drafting and passing rules. When there are 15 people every 100 meters focusing on riding hard is virtually impossible while trying to maintain legal distances from competitors. The run had three significant hills in it and ended on a winding sidewalk along the river, lined with spectators. Daniel Derkacs was the first Triton to finish with a time of 2:01:00 until, for the first time in his 11 years of racing triathlons, a two-minute time penalty was added making his official time 2:03:00. Daniel was the 9th Graduate student, and 30th overall, even with the time penalty. Justin Arnold was the second UCSD finisher in 87th place with a solid time of 2:11:23. Justin also had the 27th fastest undergrad run split of the day. Dan Anderson was the third scorer for UCSD in 121st place with a time of 2:15:17. Dan has proved to be very consistent, staying in UCSD's top three every race he has done this season. The other half of the pair that drove across the country was Adam Strobl. Adam returned to Alabama after being the only male from UCSD to race in the 2007 Championship. This year Adam went 2:17:26 (146th.) Freshman Sante Kotturi raced in his first Nationals for UCSD. He followed a rough swim with a solid bike and very good run, to finish in 2:20:36 (175th.) Richard Armenta returned to Nationals after racing in 2006 in Reno, NV. Happy to be out of the water, he finished the race with the 36th fastest undergrad run split of the day, finishing in 2:24:20 (206th.) Amanda Felder was racing for the Individual title and a Berth at the World University Games in Turkey at the end of June. She did the work and won the race overall by a full minute. Our team coach Sergio Borges will be coaching that National team and it is particularly fitting that Amanda qualify.

In just their first season as triathletes, Lauren Chiodini and Allison Johnston's finishing times make it look like they have been doing this much longer. Lauren was the second female scorer for UCSD. After a rough swim she came back with an awesome bike and incredibly fast run, finishing the race in 2:20:17 in 15th place overall. It may not have seemed like it was going to be Allison's day at 5 AM that morning, but Allison put together a consistently strong race and was the third and final scorer for the team in a time of 2:21:18,19th place overall. Her ability to set aside the chaos of the morning reflects her mental strength to focus and just go out and race.

Darlene Hunt came out of the swim in great position near the front of the field, but unluckily got a flat on the bike. She was able to continue and ended the race with an awesome 10k run and what would have been a significant personal best without the flat. Her final time was 2:28:06 (41st.) Blair Ryan put together a solid race, having personal best bike and run legs finishing with a PR time of 2:28:57, but Blair didn't make it anywhere near 11 years without a penalty, her first making her official time 2:30:57 (56th.)

After some mingling with each other and the Felders and Pawson/Ryan family members who came to watch, we met back at the Prius to load it back up so that it would be ready to leave bright and early the next morning. We then spread around the course to watch the most elite in our sport race for a single spot on this summer's Olympic team.

That night at the collegiate awards ceremony we got to see Amanda go up twice on her own: once for being the Overall National Champion, and again for being the overall Graduate winner. As the women's team results were announced we heard the point gap between 3rd and 4th place was just 2 points, and the gap between 3rd and 2nd was only one. I would be interested to see what our heart rates were when they announced second place. It was not us. We had won. For the first time in UCSD history, our Women's team won the National Championship.

The men's team was 16th overall out of 50 teams. With a Men's team score of 238 and a Women' team score of 35 UC San Diego was 7th in the overall combined team competition of 45 teams nationwide.

We discovered that American Airlines will let you take 5 foot long Championship poster as your 3rd carry on. Keep an eye out for it in RIMAC.

More Headlines:
Apr 16 - UCSD Triathlon Hosts Annual Tritonman at Fiesta Island
Apr 2 - UCSD Triathlon Impresses in San Luis Obispo
Apr 2 - UCSD Women Victorious at UCSB Triathlon; Team Places 2nd
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