Jason Fanning is a member of the Fighting Illini Triathlon club whose members train together and participate in triathlons locally and across the country. I spoke to him about the club and the popular sport.
Katie: “Could you start out by telling me a little about triathlons and how you got involved?”
Jason: “Yeah. Well, I guess I’d been running for awhile and then I picked up biking a few years ago, just kind of as an alternative to running. I started getting kind of burned out on just doing those and started looking at triathlons in my area and they actually had some really cool little sprint triathlons, which are real short, they take like an hour to do the whole thing. I did one of those and it was just kind of the vibe that comes with it, the people that are out there, it was just a really fun experience. So I did a couple of those. And when I got here, my cousin and her fiancée are really big into doing them, so they kind of brought me out and showed me the (Fighting Illini Triathlon) club. Since then, it’s just kind of exploded. It’s been a fun time.”
K: “Can you talk a little bit more about the experience of actually doing one? Walk me through the day sort of?”
J: “I think that probably depends most on the person. I typically get pretty nervous on race day stuff in general. Typically you have to travel to get to them you know so you get up pretty early. And usually you get to the whole check in area in the morning. You know, you’ve got your bike and your bags and all that stuff like that and you check in. Depending on how big it is, sometimes they give you a little computer chip and your packet and all the information like that. And then you go into the big bike corral. They’ve got hundreds or thousands of bikes in there and you set up a little towel with all your different transition equipment there and everything like that and set your bike up. That’s always really fun, but that’s when the nerves really start to get going and stuff like that. Again, depending on how big it is, sometimes they’ll line everybody up. Just kind of you have to sit there and wait to get in the water and that’s when your heart really gets pounding. We did one, earlier this year, it was a little bit less formal, but it was a guy, actually it was his bachelor party he put it on. For that one they just had everybody on the beach and then they were like, ‘alright, go.’ Nobody knew what was going on. But a lot of times they’ll stagger it, so one group will go and then another and then another. You get there and you’re freaking out, and as soon as they blow the whistle and you jump in the water, everything kind of evens out and you’re in it, you’re in the zone, which is really fun. The first couple times I did it the swim was a really big shock. You always swim when you’re by yourself and then you get in there and there’s feet everywhere and people are kicking and punching and stuff, so that was kind of fun. But it’s a really fun time. Once you’re out there and you’re competing with people, if you’re a competitive person, everything comes out. There’s a lot of people that go too and they just go and have fun.”
K: “Wow. So does it always start with the swimming then?”
J: “Yeah, it’s always swimming, and then biking, and then running.”
K: “Ok. Where are most of them that you have competed in?”
J: “Actually, if you look into it deep enough, they have one in every major town pretty much. We’re putting one on here this summer through the triathlon club, so Champaign will have one. They have a little mini one every year. If you look online, places like active.com will tell you where other races are.”
K: “That’s cool. So what would you say is your least favorite part?”
J: “The wait! Standing on the beach or on the water whatever, when they’re about to blow it you’re just sitting there like ready to go, you know. All the possible bad things are going through your head. That whole wait, once it starts going, everything from there on is just golden, but that wait in the beginning is so hard.”
K: “Yeah, I’m sure. How long before a race do you start training or preparing or are you pretty much constantly training?”
J: “I think that depends on what kind of race it is. I mean, if you’re in pretty good shape in general, I think anybody could pretty much jump in with maybe a couple months training. But like you could even just go and do a sprint race, shorter races like that aren’t so bad. And then after that I think it depends on how competitive you want to be, you know. I mean you could do it for years. We have one coming up in April that we just kind of buckled down for right now, so usually like a few months, half a year, something like that. Depending on how competitive you want to be. That’s a middle distance one. The majority of the races are like Olympic distance, which is about almost a mile swim, like 1500 yards, and then 25 miles on the bike, which is like 40 kilometers, and then like a 10 kilometer run. So that’s like kind of the average distance.”
K: “Wow. How long does that usually take?”
J: “I would probably put it about, two to three hours, somewhere in that area. You can swim it in twenty, like somewhere about two hours or more.”
K: “Oh, ok. If you could do a triathlon any place in the world, where would you want to go?”
J: “Probably the mountains in Italy I think would be really cool. I think especially the running and biking, I think that would be such a cool atmosphere to do it in. I’m not one really for temperatures or anything like that, so I think the mountains in Europe somewhere.”
K: “So it’s pretty much a worldwide phenomenon then?”
J: “Absolutely. It’s the fastest growing sport, I don’t know if it’s in the world or in the country. But so they’re popping up everywhere. I know especially in America there everywhere.”
K: “Cool. Where is your favorite place you’ve competed so far?”
J: “You know, honestly, the very first race I did was my favorite. It was so relaxed. The race itself was, I had gotten all nervous for it and hyped up and stuff and then the race itself. That was in Naperville, Ill. That was a little sprint triathlon.”
K: “Have you done mostly Illinois or does the group that’s here travel?”
J: “I mean I’m probably one of the newer members to the triathlon club, I’ve only done a couple of races. The club, we go to collegiate nationals, which is in Texas this year, so that will be really fun. People here go all over the world. Two of our really active members have done Iron Man competitions, one of them in Illinois, one of them in Wisconsin. Yeah, yeah people travel all over for them.”
K: “Is there a personal goal you have for participating in this sport?”J: “Yeah, I mean somewhere down the line I would like to be able to work up to doing an Iron Man. That’s a very, very intense race, so I’m not sure how long it’s going to take. Those can go for like 12 hours, so I’m not doing it right now, but somewhere down the line I’d like to work up to that. If I can get competitive, they have one of the most sought-after races is in Kona, Hawaii. But you have to qualify for that one, so if I could ever work up to it that would be fun.”
K: “Yeah, definitely. And then could you just talk a little about how you train for these? I mean in Illinois, it’s kind of hard to train outside, especially with the weather.”
J: “People say that and I really like it actually. Right now, we’re still kind of building, so we don’t have a whole ton of rigorous schedule. I mean some people take it to an extreme. But usually we try to swim three or four times a week, depending on times, and run. The swimming is in the pool facilities, and running, a lot of us run outside all year, it’s just easier for everybody. And then a lot of people have those indoor trainers for their bikes. So you can take your road bike you have set up for everything else and put it on a trainer and it functions kind of like a stationary bike, so you get kind of the same thing with your own bike. So you can train for that ride three or four times a week. Usually you end up having like three days of some kind of workouts and then a couple days of one or the other. Again, it’s not really intense right now, most people aren’t putting more than like two hours a day in on anything.”
K: “And then is there anything you think people should know about a triathlon or competing?”
J: “I think the biggest misconception is a lot of people think it’s really, really difficult. A lot of people look at triathlon as the same light as doing a marathon or doing any kind of super endurance event, but there’s so many of all calibers. You can do shorter races. I mean, there’s a lot of people who go out there just to have fun. It might take a long time to do it, but it is a really good time. Especially the environment, the people who get involved with it are always so relaxed and so accepting of people. I think that’s probably the biggest thing. Just get involved with it, it’s really easy to do.”
K: “Great. Thank you so much for meeting with me."
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