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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2001
Two Kansas athletes discuss their varying devotions to the three-phase sport.
Story by Sarah Warren
Sara Brinkley is resurrecting part of her life one mile at a time.
Most days of the week, the Winfield senior ties up her tennis shoes and races out the door for a little run, short bike ride or a trip to the pool. And with each workout logged Brinkley is one step closer to her goal: competing in a triathlon.
A triathlon would be a difficult goal for almost anyone, as an Olympic-length triathlon is a 1-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bike ride and 10-kilometer run.
But, for Brinkley, the difficulty of achieving her goal is extra difficult because she's been there before.
Because she's been there before. After 13 years of training, five summers at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and 150 races, burn-out — both physical and mental — had taken its toll and Brinkley needed time away.
"I think mentally I just needed a break and took two years off," she said. "Right now I'm just trying to do some base-training conditioning."
Taking two years off from such a big part of her life left her refreshed, yet not prepared to dive right into competing competitively.
tively. "It's hard right now. I really want to race again but I've never been this out of shape before," Brinkley said. "So it'll be a long and hard transition."
Ironically, Brinkley's transition into a competitive athlete wasn't long or hard. She had the connections and the resources to excel at her sport before she hit the third grade.
Her success at a young age snowballed and at the age of 15, Brinkley was invited to the Olympic Training Center. Each summer she headed to Colorado to train and compete in races across the United States.
"My dad competes also, so when I was about seven years old he got me to compete in little kid races," she said. "I had a lot of success at a young age. And when you're a little kid and you have success like that, it makes you want to keep doing it."
When time for college came around, Brinkley was offered a cross country scholarship at the University of Kansas. She jumped at the chance and had an understanding with then-coach Gary Schwartz to run minimally during the indoor and outdoor track and field season so that she could use that time to focus on triathlons.
But at age 20, that no longer happened.
She stopped training for triathlons and quit the cross country team.
"I was very much burnt out. I just wanted to be a minority student," Brinkley said. "I'm almost done with school, and now I need to decide if I need to get on with my career or train."
And while Brinkley ponders delaying her entry into the work place to focus on training, Brian Hollenbeck uses his triathlon training as something to take his focus off of school.
giving him the focus on his studies. Hollenbeck, Leawood junior, uses his triathlon hobby for relaxation from pre-med classes. In the past two years, while Brinkley needed a break from training, Hollenbeck took up triathlons to replace the void he felt without high school sports.
A varsity cross country and track runner in high school, he walked
onto the Kansas cross country team as a freshman. But when he decided not to walk on a second time, he took up the sport his father, Larry, had competed in for the last two decades.
"I used to go watch him compete as a kid," said Hollenbeck, who, like Brinkley, did kiddie triathlons.
Grade-school participation aside, Hollenbeck had originally hesitated in picking up the sport and making it his own.
"I have an inner-ear problem, so I couldn't really swim until two years ago when I started training," Hollenbeck said. "I knew I had to learn before I could compete, so I just jumped in."
He's competed in seven races in the past two years, including one at the beginning of last summer with his father. Most recently, he finished the Olympic-distance course in the Lawrence Memorial Triathlon on Sept. 23 at Lonestar Lake.
Eventually, he found that ear plugs and a swim cap could keep him in a pool and he finally began to enter some races.
"I had been working up to doing an Olympic-distance course, so it was nice to get one done," he said. "I just wish it would have went better."
In triathlons, one minor problem can set someone back hours, and Hollenbeck had just that kind of setback.
Hollenbeck had just that kind of setback.
After finishing the swim, his admittedly weakest event, Hollenbeck got on his bike and pedaled swiftly through the woods and fields around the lake, trying to make up time. One "pop" ended his brisk ride.
ride. "Halfway through the bike ride, my back tire blew," he said. "They didn't have any trucks to haul me in, so I had to bike with the flat. I wanted to quit but I decided to do the run so that I could get the mind off the bike."
"Oh well, it was the last one of the season," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I'll do some more this summer, my got to go well."
His flat cost him 40 minutes
So now he, like Brinkley, will rebuild until the spring, one mile at a time.
Contact Warren at 864-485R
Left: Kevin Paladino,
Lenexa, charges up
the first hill of the
course after exiting
the water. The
triathlon at Lone Star
Lake was September
23.
Below: Triathletes warm up in 74 degree water before the start of competition. They competed in the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Triathlon last September.
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