Standing at the starting line of his 30th triathlon, Julian Becker was afraid of one thing: alligators in the water. The athlete faced a 0.6-mile swim through Larry and Penny's lake in Miami, and like almost every swamp, it was infested with gators.
The 24-year-old UF management master’s student said he spotted “No Swimming” signs near the lake he would be racing in and began to worry about who – or what – he would be swimming with.
“I was, first of all, thinking about not getting eaten by the alligator,” he said.
On Nov. 17, Becker traveled with UF’s triathlon club team, the Trigators, to Zoo Miami to compete in the Miami Man Triathlon, an international distance race. Participants began by swimming 0.6 miles in a buoy-marked lake, biking for 20 miles and finishing with a 6.2-mile run. The UF team took home first, second and third place in the men’s division and first, second and fourth in the women’s division.
Becker, the race’s male winner, said he was focused on all the Gators in the water — not just the ones with scales.
Becker was mostly afraid of Lara Hernandez-Tome, the team’s strongest swimmer. The 25-year-old UF Hispanic linguistics master’s student was the first competitor to finish the swimming portion.
“The second thing I was thinking was that [I hope] she [Hernandez-Tome] doesn’t drop me because she was swimming really, really fast,” Becker said.
Hernandez-Tome said she finds her footing in the water. As a triathlete with a background in competitive swimming, she didn’t share Becker’s fears of other swimmers. Hernandez-Tome was the gator the other competitors were afraid of.
Hernandez-Tome said she was surprised at the start line with an adjustment to the course. Just before the race began, the athletes were informed of a change to the 1.2-mile swim, only one lap as opposed to the usual two.
“So obviously, that was a bummer for me,” she said.
The race was held at Zoo Miami, with athletes running through the exhibits in the third segment of the triathlon, which featured lions, elephants and hippos, among other animals.
Jess Aldrich, a 28-year-old UF biomedical engineering doctoral student, said the race was uniquely suited for fun, featuring more than six miles of running, or according to her, searching for animals.
“Everybody else saw the lions, but I didn’t. I just forgot to look,” the team’s fourth-place finisher said.
As much as Aldrich loved the race location, she said her favorite part of competing was the team she raced alongside. After recently defending her thesis, Aldrich decided to make the competition her send-off race, a way to celebrate how far she’s come with her team before her December graduation.
Aldrich said the team has options for members to practice every day, including Monday yoga at 7:30 a.m., Tuesday track practice at 6:30 a.m. and Thursday track practice at 6:30 a.m.; a workout that is concluded with pastries at the local bakery and pastry shop BakerBaker. The team has a GroupMe and an Instagram account.
Throughout Aldrich’s time at UF, the team has kept things fun, always cracking jokes – even in the middle of a transition, she said.
Kate Kennedy, a 23-year-old UF veterinary student and the race’s first-place finisher, said the Trigators team made her think positively and laugh. She chose to compete as a last-minute entry after a knee injury made her hesitant to sign up.
Kennedy said she was glad for the “positive peer pressure” she received. During the race’s bike-to-run transition, her teammates were cracking jokes the entire time.
“I could barely stay upright to put on my socks because I was laughing so hard,” she wrote in an email.
Kennedy’s primary jester was Addison Alsobrook, a 19-year-old UF statistics sophomore and the race’s second-place finisher. During the running portion, the two ran close together and were shocked when an elephant in a nearby enclosure looked at them, curled its trunk and promptly threw a stick right at them.
“So that was unexpected,” Alsobrook said.
Alsobrook said his experience running through the zoo was enough to justify missing the LSU and UF matchup Nov. 16, an obligation the team was forced to break in lieu of traveling to Miami. He said the team spent the night in a rented Airbnb watching the game and chanting the famous words, “It’s great to be a Florida Gator.”
Alsobrook hopes to work in sports after he graduates and was extra devastated at his lack of ability to be in two places at once, he said. Unfortunately, this was no consolation for his teammate, Kevin Childs, who finished third.
“I would’ve liked to beat Addison,” Childs said.
Childs, a 23-year-old UF computer science doctoral student, said Alsobrook is his good friend and his greatest rival. The two spent the race watching their backs, or protecting their lead, depending on the segment, and enjoyed laughing about their friendly competition. Childs said his secret in his pre-race routine is a cup of coffee, which is key to his success.
“You got to have that pre-race poop,” he said.
Trigators finished the race with five of six podium spots filled by UF competitors and proudly brought home the win. The Trigators team will return to Miami in March for their national competition.
Contact Rachel Mish at rmisch@alligator.org. Follow her on X @mish_rache62827.
Rachel Mish is a junior English and business major and the Fall 2024 Food Reporter for The Avenue. In her free time, she enjoys playing pick-up basketball or sewing a gameday outfit.
