The Triathlon Club, Cathedral Catholic’s newly-begun on-campus organization, was recently established by Speech and World History teacher Mr. Jeff Owen and a group of student athletes.
According to Mr. Owen, the students who started the club had either already been competing in triathlons, were interested in racing triathlons, or were competitive in the swim or cross country teams and eager to get involved in relay triathlons.
He said, “To my knowledge we are the first high school in the area to start a triathlon club.”
Mr. Owen encourages students who are eager for a challenge, self-motivated, and goal orientated to try out the Triathlon Club because it’s “a lot of fun.”
The club also welcomes students with no prior triathlon experience. “In fact,” Mr. Owen said, “the majority of athletes specialize in either swimming or cross country.”
Club members include athletes with a variety of different backgrounds, some including triathlon, cycling, swimming, or cross country. The club offers training sessions as well as meetings to discuss upcoming races.
“Our goal is to bring together like-minded individuals to race and discuss. It is also great to see top level athletes from swim, triathlon, and the cross country team coming together to train,” said Mr. Owen.
Mr. Owen has about ten years of triathlon experience. He began as a junior at UCSD where he competed in the Olympic distance, which is 1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run.
“After college,” he said, “I continued to race but decided to focus on longer distance races like the Half Ironman Distance (1.5mi swim, 56mi bike, and 13mi run) which is about double. I race between 1 to 3 Half Ironman Races a year; sometimes I’ll sneak in an Olympic distances race, and I usually do a couple half marathons each year.”
Plans for the Triathlon Club include competing in the UCSD Triton Man Triathlon in March, the Encinitas Sprint Triathlon in May and the Mission Bay Triathlon next year.
Mr. Owen is particularly excited for the UCSD Triton Man triathlon in February because senior Katarina Lajuenesse will be racing. Katarina has had a very successful year, as she won first female place at the Cal State San Marcos Cougar Sprint Triathlon a few weeks ago where she beat all the collegiate triathletes which included the UCLA, SDSU, and San Marcos teams.
Mr. Owens says he also looking forward to the Encinitas Sprint because, “…even though there will be individual racers, we are entering relay teams that will include members from the swim team doing the swim segment, cyclists doing the bike leg, and cross country runners doing the run portion.”
The Triathlon Club meets in Mr. Owen’s classroom AH – 111 every other week to discuss workouts, and holds three swim workouts every week at the pool from 6am to 7am.
“We encourage the athletes to continue to train with their specific sport but have the opportunity to receive swim training in the mornings,” says Mr. Owen.
The club’s first triathlon is the UCSD Triton Man on February 20th.