Kevin Collington » Other Races

First Coast Kids Triathlon…and on to Seoul!

Kev — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:22:27 +0000

I grabbed my first win of the season yesterday – at the First Coast Kids Triathlon in Jacksonville! Actually, since I was around in Florida for some sea level training and St. Anthony’s (kind of) before Seoul I made my way up to Jacksonville to help out and be a ‘celebrity big kid’ for the second year in a row. With more than 1000 kids racing the First Coast Kids Triathlon is the largest kids triathlon in the United States, and each age group gets assigned a few ‘big kids’ to help them out. The celebrities, as they call them, range from firefighters, police sergeants, or navel officers to Ironman finishers and myself, the professional triathlete. The kids look like they have a ton of fun and hopefully we make it a little better! Later on after all of the kids age groups finish all of the big kids race each other. As the only triathlete in the field who calls it his profession I was picked by most to take home the title.

I helped out the 11-12 age group this year.

In other news I am on my way to Seoul for the second round of the World Championship Series. Training is going well so I can’t wait to see what I can do!

Jarrod, Alicia and me on the early A.M. Orlando to San Fran flight.

All That Worry Was For Nothing!

Kev — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:04:38 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post I decided not to race in South America in the early season for the first time since 2007. What I didn’t mention, however, was the fact that my start positions for the first few races of the year were in imminent danger – several athletes were in range of passing me on the ITU points list, therefore taking my start spot (if they want it). My coach and I worked hard to come up with alternate race schedules so that I could still have a successful season and be racing World Cups and World Championship Series races by the time the Olympic qualifying period came around. However, I didn’t get passed so we are back to the original plan!

In other news it looks like the ITU points race in Salinas, Ecuador this past weekend didn’t disappoint in terms of South American tomfoolery. A few of my friends have race reports up. Check them out!

Barrett Brandon’s blog

Nick Vandam’s blog

Florida Fun

Kev — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:56:20 +0000

After St. Anthony’s I decided to spend a little bit of time in my home state visiting friends and family and generally having a ton of fun in Florida! Here is a little bit of what I did:

I stayed with my coach Jen Hutchison in St. Pete for a few days. She made me a pancake breakfast the day after the race – apparently I was on a diet.

I borrowed Jen’s sweet Jeep Grand Cherokee and drove to Orlando to visit my Mom and Dad. This is my Mom’s dog Cosmo – ferocious!

After a short stop in Gainesville to visit friends (and get some of my favorite pizza at Satchel’s) I made my way up to Jacksonville to help out at the YMCA First Coast Kid’s Triathlon. This is me hanging out with some future triathlon stars the day before the race.

Here are some of the “celebrity big kids” as we were known for the weekend. There were about 10 of us big kids and we were celebrities for various reasons. From left to right: Sophia Every from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville area fireman Raleigh Zike, Don Redman (completed 650+ triathlons in his lifetime), me (token professional triathlete!), Ty Dickenson (Jacksonville area policeman), Don Davey (ex-NFL football player), and Dustin Crawford, a Navy ensign.

I got to be the big kid for the 8 and under age group.

Here they are parading on over to the start.

We big kid’s had our own race and guess what, I won! Unofficially I completed the 100 yd swim, 3 mile bike and 1/2 mile run in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. Here I am with another of the big kids – Mark Woods, a journalist from the Florida Times-Union. He got third. Don Davey (the ex-NFL football player) got second. Pretty fast for the biggest guy in the field! He’s training for Ironman Austria.

Stuck in Colorado

Kev — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:47:32 +0000

I was going to fly back to Florida this week but not anymore (not that I’m complaining!). The only problem is that I’m racing the Chicago Triathlon this weekend and I was going home to get race wheels!

Tropical Storm Fay

So, in the mean time the Olympic Training Center was nice enough to give me a room for an extra week. Also, I got to watch both the men’s and women’s Olympic triathlons which ended up being aired on a 24 hour delay. Had I flown out on my original flight I wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Emma Snowsill won the women’s gold.

Jan Frodeno was the surprise winner of the men’s race.

Jan Frodeno was definitely a big surprise in the men’s race. It’s especially amazing since he doesn’t come from any particular sports background other than a late start to swimming and then lifeguarding competitions prior to his entry into the sport of triathlon (according to www.jan-frodeno.com). It’s downright encouraging!

While I was in Hamburg this year I was walking around with Ethan and Steve after the race and we saw Jan racing around the Hamburg bike course on a women’s cruiser bike. We couldn’t figure out what he was up to but we found this on Youtube later that night:

Olympic Triathlon!

Kev — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:52:10 +0000

Oh man, I’m excited. The women’s Olympic triathlon starts in 6 hours! That’s 10 AM local time in Beijing (it’s already tomorrow there), or 10 PM Eastern Standard Time (tonight!), and 8 PM here in Colorado Springs. The men’s race starts 24 hours after the women’s race. Here is the info on US TV coverage:

Olympic Triathlon TV Coverage

Junior Nats

Kev — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:02:50 +0000

In what was probably the most exciting thing to happen here in Colorado Springs since my arrival about a month ago, the Junior and Youth National Triathlon Championships took place yesterday over in Prospect Lake Park (a quick 15 minute walk from the training center). “Junior” in triathlon is defined as athletes aged 16-19 and “youth” is 13-15. I took some sweet pics. Check ‘em out! Click here to read about the race:

Junior and Youth National Champs Article

In the junior women’s race, Lauren Goldstein-Kral led the majority of the race after leading out the swim and riding the entire 20K bike by herself.

Kate Ross took the lead about 2K into the 5K run and went on to win.

Kate, about to win.

In the junior men’s race, Ben Kanute led the swim, rode away from everyone on the bike and cruised to a victory.

Ben Steavenson, my roommate at last year’s Hamburg World Champs, took second with the fastest run of the day.

Shayne Murphy and Nicolas Tautiva. Go USAT Florida!