US Military Triathlon Championships, Europe
Kaiserlautern, Germany, 1993

Our US Military Championships was being held within a major German race so the competition was pretty tough. You could tell us military types from the others if you knew what group of race numbers to look for. As an “Olympic Distance” race there was a 1 mile swim, 25 mile ride, and a 10km run. 

I was a triathlon early adopter, having started in 1985 after a couple years of running and then cycling intercollegiate. The school had a triathlon team, a buddy had dragged me in, and I really had a great time. I was an engineering student, so for me college wasn't so much a social experience as it was long nights doing homework. But since it took me eight years, there were opportunities to chase after a variety of other obsessions. The school's triathlon team got me out of my shell. The team would go to parties, link up each week on the beach for long swims and barbeques, and we had a tradition of going to a dance club for most the night prior to a race. It was really fun.

I got out of school in 1988 and joined the Army. There wasn't much cycling and no swimming until after Iraq1. By 1992 I was training hard again so by the time of the 1993 US Military Champs race, I was starting "Triathlon Come-back #1."

This was only my second triathlon in Germany, so there were a lot of unknowns. My German wasn't very good, so it was hard to get answers for questions. I worried about how well the ride and run courses would be marked, and how well the volunteers were briefed. A confused volunteer on the bike course can cause no end of havoc. Navigation isn't much of an issue when you suck because there's always people to follow. But the less you suck, the more dependent you become on volunteers pointing what direction you need to turn.

I did not know a single person, American or German, that also did triathlons, so there was no hanging out with acquaintances at the race.

The Time Machine. My big news was that I had bought a dedicated time trial bike, a fairly new idea at the time. I had mail-ordered it from the States and it had arrived in the nick of time. This time trial bike had small, very aerodynamic wheels, and was very light. Immediately upon arrival, I had spent the day assembling and adjusting it. I'd only ridden it a couple hundred yards. What really got my attention, in that test ride, was that it was so frighteningly skittish that if you just rotated your wrist to look at your watch, the bike would careen across the road. It was incredibly fast but it was a difficult bike to ride. I borrowed from HG Wells and named it "The Time Machine." I would never grow to love The Time Machine, it was just too hard to ride. But even in the World Cup races, very few bike splits were faster than me and The Time Machine.

The swim.
Triathlons always start with some pushing and shoving as the mob of competitors run into the water towards the first buoy. Today though, the swim seemed like as much wrestling, because the pushing and shoving never really ended. To swim fast your form has to be good, otherwise you're just churning water and barely moving. But it's hard to concentrate on reaching out for good glides and deep, deep breaths when your getting bumped into, crawled upon and kicked in the head.  Even when it's you that has kicked someone in the head, it still breaks your concentration. There were no honest-to-god disasters though, which for me means the swim went as well as I could hope for.  I finished behind the pack, as usual, yet ahead of the people who were drowning.  

Upon reaching the shore I stumbled and flailed to get out of the water, all perfectly standard. Then I ran, as best I could, for the transition area, and tried to remember where my gear was, among hundreds of other sets of gear.  

Nothing could be more different than the swim and the ride.  When swimming you are in your own universe (except when being kicked in the head) and you focus on feeling the water and being as efficient as possible. You can't really push hard, at least I can't, because as you tire, you'll lose efficiency. It's a 25 minute effort of trying to dance on the line of working hard, while being as efficient as possible. If you start sensing loss of efficiency, you have to back off the intensity and win back the efficiency. You have to be very calm and controlled.

Then I get on my bike and become an unhinged berserker.

When I am on the bike in a triathlon, I can see the other competitors and they are the ENEMY.  I ATTACK and I CRUSH them.  I CRUSH them on the climbs because they are WEAK. I CRUSH them on the flats because PAIN IS MY FRIEND, and I CRUSH them on the descents because I am a MADMAN.  If their women were present, I would hear their laments and see them rend their hair.


1993 US Military Triathlon Championships, Europe. Riding hard and crushing the opposition. Note the unusually small wheels on the purpose-built Time Trial bike

Because I was a lousy swimmer, once on the bike I always had lots of crushing that needed to be done.

It was certain that some Americans had beat me out of the water, so I absolutely had to catch them during the ride and pound...them...into...the...dirt.  I had to roar by them with such power that they would just let me go, and instead focus on the folks behind them.  

Due to the rocket-sled bike and the thousands of hard training miles, I reeled in a lot of competitors. The problem was that the focus of this race was the American Military Championships and none of the people I passed seemed to have the right race numbers to be Americans. I was doing pretty well against the Germans, but this day, they didn't matter.

Over and over again I pushed hard to get that "next guy" because I thought that he was probably an American. But every time the guy was wearing another European race #.  This only made me more desperate. I was halfway through the ride, riding harder and harder, desperately chasing unseen Americans that just HAD to be just around the next corner. "Damn!" I fretted, "if I couldn’t chase the Americans down in my strongest event, they must really be strong." So I rode harder and harder, reeling in European after European race number, but never an American.  

Just before I caught up to two more guys, the transition area was in sight. I jumped off of my bike and ran into the transition area on their heels.

The first couple of kilometers of the run is always brutal while your quads struggle to adjust to running, but I thought that one of those two had to be American so I charged after them. Also, I'd routinely trained to run hard immediately after jumping off of the bike, so I could usually pick up a few people in the several hundred meters after a transition area. Neither of the guys were American. Then I saw another guy 400 meters ahead.  It took me a while to reel him in though. He was pretty fast and I'd ridden so hard that I was slowing down. But he was another European. "Jesus christ," I thought. "Where are the goddamned Americans?!"  

In contrast to the calm and cool of the swim and the psychopath on the bike, I die a thousand deaths during the run.  I was thrashed worse then usual because the I'd been in almost a panic for the last half of the ride. On the trail through the woods, there were no sight lines long enough to see the next guy. Wherever he was, he had nothing to fear from me. I was falling apart.

After several miles I knew that I had to be approaching the turn-around. Finally I would see who was ahead of me, as they headed past me for the finish. I figured there'd be a dozen or so Germans fighting for their podium places, and at least one American behind them. I hit a long hill, and immediately fell to pieces. Running hills after a hard ride is particularly difficult. Back in 1985 after both running and cycling Intercollegiate, it still took a whole year of Ride-Run workouts before I could jump off my bike and run up a hill. Every week, after a hard ride, I ran hills. Yet I was barely moving and gasping for air. I'd gone too hard in the ride.

1993 US Military Triathlon Championships, Europe. Coming apart, but still able to maintain a decent pace.

Suddenly I saw someone running down the hill towards me. He was the first guy. Then I saw the second and third guys. As they got close, the numbers inked on their arms identified them all as Europeans. Then suddenly I could see the turn-around in front of me. NO AMERICANS!!!  NO AMERICANS!!! The last 5km were a coast. I'd won the US Military Triathlon Championships.

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