Going the distance: USC triathletes find community support on competitive club team

For many people, the idea of waking up at the crack of dawn to swim, bike and run for many miles seems ridiculous.

But take it from Sarah Soutoul, the vice president of USC’s club triathlon team: It’s as daunting as you would expect when you first start doing it, but it gets easier under the right circumstances.

“I never thought I would wake up at 4 a.m. to go work out, but my determination grew,” said Soutoul, a senior majoring in journalism, sitting in the stands at Cromwell Field as her teammates wrapped up their final practice of the season. “But triathlon is a mindset, and it has really helped me evolve on a personal level.”

The triathlon team was founded in 2002 by six students. Since then, the team has expanded to average between 70 and 100 members per year, seeing more growth particularly in the last five years.

And with growth comes improved competitive ability. The club is part of the West Coast Collegiate Triathlon Conference, currently ranking in the middle of the pack in one of the best collegiate triathlon conferences in the United States. The club travels to scenic spots across California to compete, and had just returned from the USA Triathlon National Championship in Tempe, Ariz., where it finished 23rd out of over 100 teams. The team also competes in full-distance triathlons around the world and has earned sponsorships from companies like Clif Bar and InCycle.

The members competing in Nationals were selected for their commitment: Only those who showed up to practice time after time got the nod. But there’s something special about this club that makes people want to force themselves to wake up early, pack into crowded cars for hours on end and push their bodies through one of the most physically draining sports.

Balancing fun and competition

The team is far from a competitive, cutthroat environment. Anyone with experience in running, swimming or biking can join and is welcome to push as hard as they want.

The team also functions as a social club with a familial atmosphere and regular team social events, including its annual fall retreat to locations such as Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead.

“We pick places where we can train but also have fun,” Soutoul said. “We get to do something other than training: bonding, cooking, talking about our lives. It gives us a chance to get to know each other personally.”

However, there are high expectations for effort level when training and competing; the social aspect can be a way to fight through the pain.

“Our approach is to give 100% at the workouts and races,” said public relations chair Prithviraj Prabhu, a graduate student studying electrical engineering. “But we chill and bond right before and after.”

Team members said this relentless drive to improve doesn’t hamper team morale, however.

“The difficulty of the sport forces you to get motivation from the people around you,” Prabhu said. “It’s special to be a part of this group.”

In a sport as taxing as triathlon, Soutoul said it is important to stay positive to keep team morale high.

“It’s a painful sport, but the team makes it fun and easy to do,” she said. “Seeing the team have fun helps.”

Of course, with the fun comes the less exciting realities of maintaining a team. The club receives little funding from the University, so it holds fundraising events with the help of its sponsors. The club requires a lot of organization, which explains the 13-member executive board with responsibilities ranging from handling merchandise to philanthropy events.

“We’re entirely student-run so we use volunteers and get a high level of activity,” said team president Calum Rickard, a fourth-year doctoral student studying applied math. “We need manpower, so we have a lot of positions.”

With the end of the semester and triathlon season quickly approaching, many of the team’s senior leaders, such as Rickard and Soutoul, will be departing soon. That leaves the future of the team’s leadership in flux. However, Soutoul said the team’s executive board is trying to set a good example for the team’s aspiring leaders.

“It’s important to be on top of everything not only to make new members more comfortable, but to make them want to be leaders later,” she said.

A diverse array of students

It can be hard for international students to feel comfortable at U.S. colleges. The triathlon team, however, is home to myriad international students, all the way up to its executive board.

Rickard, Soutoul and Prabhu are all international students who got involved with the club as a way to meet people.

“I didn’t know anyone when I got here, but triathlon was how I met my friends,” Rickard said. “Now one of my roommates is a triathlete that I met here. It goes beyond the sport.”

Soutoul, who is from Cannes, France, said she was able to connect with the other members of the club because she found people like her.

“As a transfer student, I used my interest in sports to meet people, and I felt really welcome at my first practice,” she said. “I just found people like me. Most of my best friends are from the team, and I spend most of my time with them.”

Prabhu, a native of Chennai, India, said the the team’s under-the-radar status makes it more inviting to international students.

“It’s not like football recruiters who go out and find the players,” he said. “[The club] can be a place for international students to find their own home.”

The opportunity to meet a diverse set of people goes beyond nationality, Soutoul said. According to Soutoul, a fair amount of the team is made up of STEM majors.

“I met Ph.D. students as an undergrad and STEM students I wouldn’t have had the chance to meet otherwise,” she said. “Our team members are ambitious, and it’s cool to be around other driven people.”

Creating a family

Triathlon certainly isn’t a spectator sport; it takes a long time to travel to meets, and it is largely a solitary competition. That means all the support comes from within the team.

“We’re just a lot of friendly individuals who bond through triathlon,” Rickard said. “The time we spend with each other, it makes us a family.”

The long hours spent together inevitably leads to some pretty special memories.

“I got a bike four months after I joined the team, and two months after one of my good friends invited me on a really long bike ride,” Prabhu said. “I was expecting something 40, 50 miles maximum, but we went on a 70-mile ride. It was like a six-hour ride, and we were just strolling through the canyons just looking at all the views. That was really memorable for me.”

Soutoul remembers her last collegiate race at Nationals during the final leg of a mixed-gender relay mini-triathlon.

“I was last in our group, so as I was approaching the finish line everyone was lined up cheering,” Soutoul said. “It was a great feeling.”

The team certainly resembled a normal collegiate athletic club at Nationals; Rickard recalls the team doing the SoCal Spellout and singing the Fight Song. They even came dressed up for a motorbikers theme, sporting wifebeaters and leather jackets. But this type of camaraderie isn’t necessarily common throughout the sport.

“It’s a unique way of doing triathlon because it’s usually so individualistic,” Rickard said.

Despite the individualistic nature, the club has a team dynamic that pushes everyone to improve.

“Maybe you wouldn’t care about other people’s performances because you’re really competing against yourself,” Soutoul said. “But we give support, we’re not competitive with each other. This is something I will miss when I graduate, maybe the only thing. It’s going to be hard when I have to train on my own.”