BY TRAVIS CRAM l AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

The triathlon is no easy event for any athlete.

Triathletes are faced with the challenge of taking three tough events through water and land and combining them for one grueling test.

And Saturday’s conditions at Buffalo Springs Lake would test the triathletes a little more, with an opening temperature of about 38 degrees at the beginning of the 2009 USA Triathlon Collegiate National Championships’ first event at 7 a.m. According to the USAT, the temperature of the water — where the event begins with a 500-meter swim for the Sprint Tri race and 1,500-meter swim for the Olympic event — was around 53.1 degrees.

“I think that number might be a little generous,” said Texas Tech triathlete John Barrandey, who finished with a time of 2:21:48 in the Olympic event. “It definitely had an effect on you when you got out of the water and began to transition to the bike portion. Your feet and arms are so numb, you couldn’t really feel your bare feet hitting the ground for a while.”

The course around Buffalo Springs Lake provided a solid challenge for the competitors in each event with the cool water and steep hills on the bike and running courses.

California’s John Dahlz nearly finished under two hours to win the male collegiate individual title, coming in with a time of 2 hours, 1 minute and 13 seconds.

The closest competitor to Dahlz was 20 seconds behind.

Barrandey said the Tech team, which is a club organization since the triathlon is not a NCAA sanctioned sport, has made strides over the last year since restarting the group in 2007 after disbanding in 2005.

“I think a lot of that is because of how much better our training has been with our coach,” Barrandey said. “I was hoping we might have a little more wind today to help give us an advantage on this course and pick up some time on the bike course. … You get low enough on your bike, you can usually see guys pick it up to 50 mph coming down that hill.”

But the wind stayed to a minimum until later in the afternoon and still had an effect on some competitors that tried to come up the first hill after exiting the transition area following the swim.
And while at least 20 triathletes were pulled out of the water to avoid hypothermia, some were helped off the trails before they could finish the 40k bike race and begin the 10k run.

And if anything, Saturday’s race provided good experience for all the racers — like Colorado’s Jessica Broderick, who won the women’s collegiate individual title with a time of 2:18:34. The race will return to Buffalo Springs Lake next year and go back to Tuscaloosa in 2011.

Sean Panchal, a staff member at Stanford who raced in the men’s Sprint Tri, said the course was a great challenge and he looks forward to doing it again next year.

But why do it again?

“I think it’s just the idea of a challenge,” he said. “These are things that people can do — swim, bike and run. But when you have to put it all together, it’s tougher and becomes something not the average person will do, so you want to do it even more.”

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