A university student has begun the process of organizing and starting up a triathlon club on campus.
“I started running marathons, and I began to get injuries to my knees,” said Robbie Kaelin, sophomore in communication studies. “I decided to try something new. I started really small triathlons and picked it up from there since I was enjoying it.”
The “Super Bowl” of triathlons is commonly referred to as the Ironman, a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run.
“There are only 17 Ironman events in the world, with six of them in North America, taking the first 2,000 entries,” Kaelin said.
Kaelin recently competed in an Ironman in Arizona last April that took over 16 hours to complete. Despite it being an enormous undertaking, Kaelin plans on competing once again in the spring.
“It took me about eight months to prepare for the Ironman,” Kaelin said. “I was doing swim workouts, bike workouts, run workouts and even mental sessions to sit down and focus. I was doing everything involved.”
For someone just starting out with no athletic background, he suggests perhaps two years would be wise in preparing for running a triathlon. He admits that he expedited the process a bit.
“The best thing about triathlon is that you aren’t as injury prone,” Kaelin said. “Training for three separate things makes you not use the same muscle groups. You end up being a lot more fit. It gets addictive after a while.”
Kaelin became interested in starting a triathlon club at UT when he read about all the clubs, organizations and competitions on the West Coast.
“I was seeing all the big colleges on the West Coast like the University of California-Berkeley having big triathlon clubs of a hundred or more and competing in things like the Collegiate National Triathlon Championship. I just thought, ‘Why can’t I get people at UT interested in that?’” Kaelin said. “People down here are interested in that. So, I brought the idea to get a club together.”
The new club would be put on probation for a semester so that the Rec-Sports Council can make sure everything runs smoothly and that people will stay interested. Kaelin hopes to start competing as early as next year.
There were actually two interest meetings last fall, but Kaelin said he had little time in between school and preparing for competition. Now, he feels enough time has passed with all the paperwork and getting it off the ground.
“Ten to 15 people have already expressed an interest,” Kaelin said. “We’d most likely meet once a week or so to discuss the races and condition ourselves. I’m working on establishing a whole season, competing with other regional schools like Vanderbilt University, University of Florida and University of Georgia in races.”
Similar to other clubs, Kaelin identifies it as an opportunity to meet other people of common interest and try something new and encouraging. Anyone interested in the new club can get information by contacting Robbie Kaelin through his e-mail at ckaelin@utk.edu.