This week I have another guest writer. Also a former Columbia swimmer, Ben Neuwirth (c/o ’06) is responsible for keeping me out of the 400 medley relay at my senior conference meet by being faster than me. While I was off crying in the corner, Ben pulled out a 48 low in the 100 fly and helped our team move up a few spots in the rankings. Ben was a transfer from the Banana Slugs – UC Santa Cruz, and he brought with him a California attitude (positive) and the quiet bluntness that could pull people right off their high horse.

A couple weeks ago Ben and Jake raced in the Kirkland Triathlon. I rode my bike there with Brian Davis to cheer on our friends in their first ever triathlon. What we saw was pretty funny from our point of view, so I thought it would be even funnier from theirs.

From left to right: Tobin White, Henning Fog, Ben Neuwirth, Jake Abbot, Mike Bentley, and some guy that sneaks into all our pics. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a picture of swimmers with clothes on.

Yo dude, here it is, better late then never. Sorry it took me so long. Let me know if it’ll fly for your blog. [it's flyin'! - ben]

Kirkland Triathlon

On September 16, 2007 myself (Ben Neuwirth) and my roommate (Jake Abbot) participated in our first triathlon (the Kirkland Tri). Jake and I were not quite as prepared as we could have been for our first tri, but we were depending on our general can-do spirit to get us through the race.

Our alarms went off at 5:30am the morning of the race, and I immediately popped up and began cooking eggs/getting ready. Jake chose to take the more relaxed approach, and remained in bed until I reminded him that no one was going to win the race for him, he had to go out there and do it himself. Finally, race gear in hand, we were out the door and on the road, praying that we hadn’t forgotten anything important.

Arriving at the transition area, Jake and I began anxiously preparing for the race. Jake laid a towel out in front of his bike and lay down. About 5 minutes later he went off in search of a bathroom, but returned mumbling something about “No TP”. I stretched out a little bit and made nervous comments about the approaching inclement weather. About a half-hour before the start the race-director invited all athletes to the starting line for a pre-race pep talk. Jake and I declined his invitation, and continued our preparation. About ten minutes before the race started, a volunteer actually had to come over to us and kick us out of the transition area, saying if we didn’t go over to the starting line we wouldn’t be allowed to race. “Ahhh man,” we said, but began to disrobe.

Walking to the swimming starting line, one thing became immediately clear: we were in Speedos, and everyone else was in wetsuits. While on the outside we loudly questioned the manhood and testicular fortitude of our competitors, on the inside we were like “uhhh…crap, I wonder how cold that water is?” No matter, it was too late to turn back now, and Jake and I made our way down to the edge of Lake Washington. Toes in first, and then the ever-shocking groin region, we were in the water, and waiting for the send-off. Go! Continue Reading »

This week I’m starting my first of regular guest written posts. I suppose Brian Davis’ posts are technically guest written, but he’s completely undependable when it comes to writing, so I can’t make promises for when I’ll have more of that.

This week, Mike writes about how he started racing triathlon, and more importantly, why he stuck with it.

First, I’d like to thank Ben for giving me the opportunity to post on his blog. [nobody else made the deadline -ben] I’ve known Ben since our freshman year at Columbia on the swim team [we had to share a bed in Aruba...awkward -ben]. He’s making all of us “Lions” proud. Ben asked that I write a little bit about my experience with triathlons, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

I started swimming when I was probably about 8 and continued swimming right up through college season, peaking at about 20 hours a week of training. All I knew about training was that you show up to the pool, on time and do what the coaches tell you, and you’ll become a better athlete. Sure enough, this worked and I achieved some moderate success in the pool [He's modest. -ben]. By the time my senior year was rolling around, I knew that I had to start thinking about continuing athletics in my post-collegiate career. I’ve seen too many friends go from toned athletes at their prime to coach potatoes. I knew I couldn’t let that happen.

Triathlons seemed like the logical step up from swimming. I was already proficient at swimming and biking and running didn’t require any hand-eye coordination (I was never any good at ball sports). The only problem I saw with triathlons is where to start. I didn’t really know anyone who did triathlons, I didn’t know there were clubs, I wasn’t exactly ready to hire a coach over the internet. A met up with a friend of mine who I swam in high school with and he told me that he was doing a triathlon in Wisconsin and that I should give it a shot. I thought, now was as good a time as any and signed up for the race. Fast forward a couple weeks to my arrival at my first triathlon. Holy Nervousness!! It was like I was 10 again and going to the State Meet.

I felt horribly out of place. Here I was, standing there with my 4-year old mountain bike, a borrowed pair of bike shorts and jersey and a deer-in-headlights expression. I didn’t know much about bikes (I still don’t), but I knew that everyone else there had better equipment than I did. All the bikes looked so aerodynamic, the athletes so toned, their shaved legs shining in the morning sunlight. I tried my best to act confident, but it felt like everyone’s eyes were on me while I was wheeling my bike through the transition area to my number. “They must think I’m such a chump” I thought. I overheard some of the guys nearby talking about how they bought the new Dura-Ace rear derailer and were able to shave a couple grams off their bike weight. I was so in over my head. It still only got worse from there.

As anyone from Wisconsin can attest, most lakes stay pretty cool all year round. I didn’t have a wet suit. I was only armed with my stars-and-stripes speedo. So there I was, swim cap, goggles and speedo in a sea of wetsuits. Now I knew everyone’s eyes were on me. I lined up in the back of my wave, thinking that I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way. My goal was just to finish the race. Once the gun went off I found out, although a lot of these guys looked the part, they weren’t all that fast.

Fast forward through the race (nothing special, just swimming, biking and running)… I ended up finishing the race in the top ten percent of all the athletes. Not bad for my first race, I thought. I’ve done about 10 more triathlons since that first one, improving a bit on each one. I finally got an entry-level tri bike and have spent much more time running. Interspersed with those triathlons, I’ve also done some mountain bike races, duathlons, 5k’s, 8k’s and cyclocross races. I have pretty good aerobic conditioning and am able to “muscle” my way through most of the races and have had consistent success. I usually am able to finish within the top 5%. Even with this success though, I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m the odd-man out and all the other competitors know it.

I wonder if everyone else feels the same way. Maybe they’re just as nervous and self-conscious but mask it better by discussing bicycle components. Maybe they really are interested in bicycle components.

Regardless of the nervousness I feel in the transition and at the water’s edge, I always see kindness and respect out on the course. One of my favorite aspects of triathlons is when you pass (or in my case, get passed) on the bike or the run, it’s pretty common to hear “keep it up” or “way to go.” With words like those, even newbies feel at ease.