The Starting Line
“Everything happens for a reason” is an expression a lot of
people use, especially if things are going poorly. I’ve heard it used by so
many people, in and out of athletics, that I’ve grown to almost hate it because
it disregards responsibility of a situation, making it seem like—“hey, my bad!”
or “Oh, well, what’ll happen will happen, I guess!” If you use that phrase,
don’t feel bad—I’m simply suggesting that, for me, I can’t use that expression
because I refuse to be anything but an active agent in my own life. In college,
multiple times, when my life wasn’t going the direction I wanted or felt it
should be going, I refused to be swept away in happenstance. This is the story
of how I decided to drop out of college and chase my dream of becoming an
Olympian.
When I was eight years old, I knew I wanted to be an
Olympian. We were at my grandparent’s house, watching the 2004 Summer Olympic
Games, because we didn’t have TV channels and they did. As I sat in a hand-crafted
chair my grandpa made, staring up at the TV, I vividly remember watching
Michael Phelps receive his gold medal on the podium. The American flag raised
and he had a couple of tears running down his face as the National Anthem
played. Even at eight years old, I recognized that the greatest honor that an
athlete can achieve is not only represent his or her country in the Olympic
Games, but to win a medal and to watch that flag wave and the anthem play for
something you worked so hard to earn. And, so, I chased the dream, telling
myself that I would do everything in my power to one day represent the United
States of America.
But the path to achieving that dream has never been smooth
or easy. Towards the beginning, I couldn’t decide which sport I wanted to do.
Because I grew up on a lake in a small town in Northern Minnesota, my two older
siblings and I learned to swim at very young ages—eventually, my sister joined
the swim team and then my brother and then me. It wasn’t until about 9th
grade that I started to feel split—my parents were successful runners at the
University of Minnesota, but I also wanted to be like my older brother, who is
still my hero to this day, who dedicated himself to swimming. I knew I couldn’t
do both sports because to be elite at one of them I was going to have to pick.
I ended up choosing running, graduating High School with a 9:07 3200 meter and
a 4:13 1600 meter and ended up signing with Southern Utah University to pursue
a collegiate running career.
Unfortunately, college athletics was nothing like I thought
it would be, which caused some serious bumps in the road. It started out well
enough—I ran a 23:54 8k time trial at 6,000 feet altitude—but after that, I
kept running into problems, such as coaches or failing to stay healthy. Instead
of accepting the path I was currently on, I decided to transfer to Iowa State
University and then to Montana State University. Neither of these schools ended
up working out for similar reasons: coaches, training. Even though I decided to
leave these schools in pursuit of something that could help me achieve my
dreams, I do believe—especially at Iowa State—I learned a lot from the coach in
terms of cultivating a professional athlete mindset, approach, and intensity
that is needed.
It was also at Montana State that I figured out I was
actually designed for the triathlon, which was a curve in the road I hadn’t
expected. I’d run a 4:07 mile indoors the first season at Montana, but due to
the 200 meter flat track I got hurt and was out for the outdoor season, which
forced me to get back into the pool and hop on the bike for cross training to
keep up my fitness. This is where everything started to change. Jake Turner, a
very close friend of mine and old teammate, was also hurt and was cross
training with me whenever he could. When we were training together he asked me
if I had ever considered getting into the triathlon and honestly I had never
even considered it. It is because of Jake that I’m where I am today: he helped
me get in touch with the USA triathlon for a camp in the summer to see if I had
what it took to get in the USA CRP Group (the USA Olympic development team). After
bouncing back and forth with the idea, I eventually decided to go to the camp
where things went pretty well, but since I had a whole three years of college
left, they wanted to see how fast I could get in running before I got into triathlons.
When I started the fall semester at Montana, I had every
intention of seeing it through, but the team was no longer a fit for me value-wise,
so I decided to drop out—despite my 3.6 GPA—and go full time in athletics. Most
people looked at me like I was crazy for even considering dropping out of
college, but the way I see it, opportunity calls— after I’ve achieved my
athletic dreams, college will be there for me to finish. I moved back home to
Minnesota, contacted the US Development group, told them what had happened, and
they set up time standards that I had to meet, which I did.
Now I am a part of the group training full time in Scottsdale, Arizona using everyday as an opportunity to get one step closer to representing
my country. Its crazy to think where life can take you, if one has a true
passion for something. You will get there one way or another. I never thought I
would be a triathlete but it all started with this one idea. This one obsession
of becoming an Olympian.
