The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: triathlon

  • Triathlon ends season in Arizona

    by Vanessa Saltos

    Swimming, cycling, running; all great sports on their own, but some people tackle all three at once. For Cal Poly Humboldt, seven triathletes took on this challenge. On Saturday, Nov. 11, the Lumberjacks traveled to Tempe, Arizona for the NCAA National Championship. 

    After their last race on Oct. 1, they had about four weeks to prepare to finish out their fall season. Head Coach Kinsey Laine wanted to ensure she was getting the best out of her athletes for this last stretch of the season. What Laine wanted to focus on in practice was speed and maintaining health. 

    “The deeper you get into the season, the greater the chances are for injury and illness. After regionals, I did have them take a week where it was easier,” Laine said. “They had an extra day off, just because I wanted to make sure they were healthy and not go right back into challenging training, and maybe compromise their immune system or put them at a higher risk for injury.”  

    This is the second season Cal Poly Humboldt has had a triathlon team. The growth from the players and the team is evident. Last season, they finished 12th out of 12 teams. Going into this race, they have earned the 7th spot out of 13 teams. Laine attributes this growth to the culture shift she has seen within the team. She notices her athletes wanting to not only get the best out of themselves, but out of each other in a positive way. 

    “It’s been phenomenal. It’s been such a joy to watch this team grow and improve,
    Laine said. “I think probably the biggest difference is that the new athletes that are here this year came in knowing part of the reason they came to Humboldt was to do triathlon.”

    One of the new athletes this year is Sierra Erlandson, a freshman majoring in environmental resource engineering. Erlandson had no experience with collegiate triathlon, and didn’t know what to expect when joining the team. She was pleasantly surprised to be a part of what she now calls family. Erlandson understands that the deeper you get into the season the more mental strength it takes. 

    “Right now, we’re just supporting each other, and we’re just so proud of how far we’ve come so far as it is, that we’re not looking for some miraculous outcome from nationals,” Elandson said. “We’re looking for strong finishes and smiling faces”. 

    Six out of the seven Lumberjack athletes crossed the finish line in Tempe, Arizona this weekend. Leading the way was freshman Eve Wendley placing #137 out of 208 athletes. Racers were either from division I, II or III programs. As a team, Cal Poly Humboldt placed 10th out of the 12 division II teams in attendance. 

  • Inaugural Women’s Triathlon season wraps up

    by Dezmond Remington

    On Nov. 12, 2022, the Cal Poly Humboldt Women’s triathlon team competed in their first ever national championship in Tempe, Ariz, taking 12th out of 12 teams. It was a historic season to say the least; the first season ever for this team, the first time ever competing in triathlon for most of the athletes, and the first national championship for the program. 

    It was a hectic season, and will probably be the only season like it, according to head coach Kinsey Laine. 

    “I think it will look very different next season,” Laine said. “Some of the attitudes and characteristics of the team that we have now that I hope stay are bravery and the ‘yes’ attitudes that [the athletes] showed in terms of, ‘Oh, I’ve never tried this, but I’ll give it a try.’”

    An eager-to-learn attitude defined the season. No athletes on the team came from a pure triathlon background and everyone had things they needed to learn.  According to athlete Emilie Cates, expectations at first were low and kept rising. Over the course of the season, athletes learned skills such as proper swimming technique, using clipless pedals, or even just learning how to ride a road bike altogether. However, these experiences were not just individual gains. 

    “Just seeing the people around me and their growth is always helping [me] to learn more too,” Cates said. “You can learn off of each other. It’s just been an overall pretty positive experience.” 

    Teammate Elizabeth Odell shares this sentiment.

    “I think it’s kind of fun! I’m glad we’re, in a way, all in the same boat, kind of figuring it out together,” Odell said. “But also interesting to see because we have our strengths and most of us have one sport that we’re strong at and we give each other advice and teach each other about that sport we specialize in.”

    There were quite a few setbacks as well. Transportation to faraway competitions in Oregon, Missouri, and Colorado were very difficult to get to. Administrative holdups, such as requiring lifeguards at every practice involving open-water swimming, hindered the progression of the athletes. 

    At one competition, only one competitor from Cal Poly Humboldt finished the race after they were lapped by Division 1 athletes they were racing. Rules in the emerging sport of women’s triathlon are complex and oftentimes labyrinthine, such as a ru

    le about helmet placements during the transition between the bike and the run legs. It can be appealed, but if lost it’s a $50 fine and a disqualification from the race. 

    Even though Humboldt is a DII school, the team competed against DIII schools several times as well as some DI schools, ranked among the best in the nation. Against such competitors, defeat, while not guaranteed, is far more likely. 

    “It was cool to see just how fast people can be,” Odell said. “But I also had to take a step back and be like ‘OK, this is the…equivalent of learning how to mountain bike and then a couple months later trying to race UCI events’, but it definitely surprised me.”

    Despite all the woes, it will be a season looked back on fairly fondly. Cates recalled the night before the race in Missouri at their “safari cabin” and eating pasta out on the porch listening to Laine talk about her own past. Odell’s favorite part of the season was open-water swimming out in the bay. 

    “It’s super cool being out there because I used to think those people that go open water swimming in the bay are kind of crazy,” Odell said. “And now we’re out there doing it. And it was really fun…but also kind of scary with the jellyfish.”

    Nationals will be a proving ground for the team, who are excited to hopefully flesh out a season with many ups and downs with a resounding success. 

    “I’m really excited for that opportunity,” Laine said. “We have competed against the toughest teams in the country for our last two races. Just the chance for them to shine and show what they’ve done, and just be really proud of how far they’ve come.”

  • Humboldt Triathlon team debuts

    Humboldt Triathlon team debuts

    by Dezmond Remington

    A grueling, painful, death march. Triathlon, in the minds of many people, can typically be summed up with adjectives like these. In this sport made up of three endurance events already immensely challenging on their own, competitors race in a 750 meter swim, a 20 kilometer bike ride, and a five kilometer run. The words “fun,” “supportive,” and “enjoyable” do not often come up. However, Head Cal Poly Humboldt Women’s Triathlon Coach Kinsey Laine hopes to build a team which embodies that positive energy.

    “My main goal for all of my athletes is that they enjoy their experience,” Laine said. “The way that they’re going to ultimately improve in the sport is by being excited to come to practice.”

    Laine has experience fostering these environments with her athletes. Before coming to Humboldt, Laine was a triathlon coach at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado, and before that she was the swim coach at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. While at Colorado Mesa in 2021, her team placed fourth at the National Championships in Tempe, Arizona, and had three All-American finishers. Laine has also raced long-course triathlon professionally, but that ended when the pandemic started and she started coaching at Colorado Mesa.

    This prior experience has prepared her to coach athletes like junior Elizabeth Odell and sophomore Emily Cates, who like triathlon as a way to avoid injury and seek new challenges. 

    When Odell first heard about the nascent triathlon team, she wasn’t too interested. However, the lower risk of crashing appealed to her, and she started learning how to swim and run this past spring. Though difficult, Odell said the process of picking up two new sports has been enjoyable. 

    “It’s been a good change. I’m not always comparing my times to how fast I was a year ago or something,” Odell said. “It’s just completely new. So all I’m seeing are gains and it’s just all pretty much getting better.”

    Getting away from the stress of injuries was also a motivating factor for Cates when she joined the triathlon team. From a running background, Cates had dealt with a spate of overuse injuries that had left her stressed and frustrated. Training for triathlon, where two out of the three disciplines are zero-impact, was attractive. 

    “I realized that running, just running, was not going to be sustainable for me,” Cates said. “And it’s a great opportunity to cross-train, and if I’m going to be cross-training that much on my own, I might as well race it and have another team atmosphere.”

    Cates has not quit running entirely; she is also on the cross country and track teams at Cal Poly Humboldt. Being a dual-sport athlete does have its challenges, Cates said, as it’s often tiring to train for two sports at once. Recently, she went straight from a swim workout directly to a mile repeat workout for cross country.  

    Hosting this unique sport puts CPH in a unique position– it is the only Division II school on the west coast to offer a women’s triathlon team. Only two other NCAA affiliated schools on the west coast have a team. Laine sees this fresh start as a great opportunity. 

    “I think in three to four years this team is going to be competitive at the national level for DII,” Laine said. “There are teams that have been around five or six seasons, but there is instability in those teams, so we’re not five to six years behind. I think we can come in, and then in a few short years be competitive against those schools.”

    Women’s triathlon in the NCAA is a new sport – the NCAA classified it as an “emerging sport” for women in 2014, and currently there are only 17 Division II schools that host triathlon. Triathlon is only available as a women’s sport in the NCAA. 

    The largest challenge facing the fledgling team is the late start– Laine was hired on a fairly short notice, and as such, there are only four races the team is scheduled for this season. 

    Recruiting is mainly coming from current students with a background in running or swimming or both. A few of the prospective athletes do have a past racing triathlon. The roster will be kept small, with the eventual goal of 9-12 athletes on the team.

    “[I want] a small, focused group of people that are very supportive of one another…but also really passionate about the sport,” Laine said. “As a coach, you can’t make them want to be better at triathlon–they have to provide that passion.”

    Odell agrees. She has a background in mountain biking, but when a bicycle crash in January fractured her neck and gave her a severe concussion, she had to re-evaluate how she wanted to compete. She had to drop out of most of her classes and move home, and could barely walk for two months. 

    “About two and a half months in, I was able to go for a two mile walk, and that was so exciting for me,” Odell said. “Just walking around the block my head would start pounding. It took me like five months to become a functional human being again.”

    The late start and injury-riddled pasts of many triathletes has not made getting the team off the ground easy. However, Cates said she couldn’t wait to race and see what her teammates can do. 

    “I’m excited to know them, to get to travel with them,” said Cates. “They seem like really awesome, dedicated people, and I think we’re going to make an awesome team this year.”