By snoadmin
With one of the largest turnouts in recent years, the Long Beach State Triathlon Team hosted its annual Backwards Triathlon Sunday morning over a 15.75-mile course around campus.
The course consisted of a 3.5-mile run, 12-mile bike and 400-meter swim. More than 200 participants and about 100 spectators showed up for the event, ranging from children to alumni. Last year’s race had about 175 athletes.
There was also large collegiate turnout from teams from UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly Pomona, Stanford and USC.
“We were especially surprised by all the colleges that were represented today,” said LBSU Triathlon Team President Gena McKeown. “UCLA and Stanford brought the most athletes.”
UCLA and Stanford battled throughout the entirety of the event. Three of UCLA’s athletes were in the top six, with one Stanford athlete in sixth during the majority of the race.
However, after a UCLA athlete was disqualified for bypassing a lap during the bike race, his teammate, David Quiros, finished first overall at 1:01:56.5. Not far behind, the first woman to finish was Agoura’s Brianna Blanchard at 1:11:01.5.
“I feel great,” Blanchard said after the race. “I’d do it again.”
LBSU’s team of about 15 athletes helped run the event. Though members of the LBSU team were unable to compete, one representative found a last-minute opportunity to jump in the race. Senior Al Herrera decided to compete within minutes of the start.
“I wasn’t planning on competing,” Herrera said. “I kind of just decided about 10 minutes before it started that I was going to do it. I didn’t warm up or anything.”
Herrera averaged six-minute miles on the run, and a 19-minute bike. His overall time was about 1:21:16.
“I’m not the best swimmer, so that was probably the hardest part of the whole race,” Herrera said.
Though the race took place on what one competitor described as “one of the hottest days of the year,” many athletes appreciated the backwards event that ended in the pool.
“I love coming to this event because the athletes don’t seem to stumble across the finish line,” said Marian Herrill, a UCLA supporter. “If I were competing I’d want to jump in a pool after all that hard work, too.”
In addition, the triathlon was more up to date this year with its timing system.
“[LBSU] gave us $2,000 for a chip timing system,” McKeown said. “The chips help us to get more accurate times for the athletes because it is computerized, as opposed to hand time.”
McKeown said the LBSU triathlon team was happy with how the event took place.
“It was very stressful on me, but now that it’s over I’m doing better,” McKeown said. “We are all proud of what we did today.”
