By Andrew Doran
If you have ever gone for a long run or decided that you wanted to go for a swim, bike ride and a run all in the same day- you know what it is like to be a part of the Endurance Club at CI. Athletes have to push their bodies to the limit, desperately trying to beat students from other schools around the region.
The Endurance Club started in 2010 as track club. Of course, CI does not have a track to work out on, so the club naturally started to move towards being a cross country club. Now, the club focuses on both cross country runs as well as triathlons.
“Our triathlon team is the strongest right now,” said Daniel Ragel, senior business major and President of the club. “Our triathlon team has strong runners, which helps out with having a strong team.”
As the semester has gone on, CI has been able to represent themselves well at cross country and triathlon meets throughout California. At a recent community race, the Harvest Half, the men swept the podium, taking home the gold, silver and bronze medals. The women also got onto the podium, taking home the silver medal.
CI athletes are starting to gain recognition at meets as well.
“We had two students try to get recruited by other colleges, not realizing that we were representing CI. We had on different shoes and shorts, so we didn’t really look like a team,” said Ragel. “We had to decline because we obviously rep CI, but it was exciting to have other schools notice how good we are.”
Currently, the endurance club has 16 traveling members. These traveling members go to the different meets and represent CI. Outside of those traveling members, there is also a communal team. The communal team doesn’t
get to represent CI at meets but is able to work out with everyone here at CI. Monday through Friday, anyone is able to go to the front of the Rec Center at 7:00 a.m. and join in for workouts.
”We switch it up between running, circuit workouts and other workouts. We have a member of the endurance club who is helping us with training,” said Ragel. “Everyone is welcome to come and try out working out with us. We have a great group of people trying to get into better shape.”
As Ragel starts to wrap up his senior year, he is aiming for a single goal. He really wants at least one runner to make collegiate nationals.
“If we reduce our times to about 55 to 57 minutes for a sprint triathlon, we can qualify. It would put our name out there for the school, which would be really awesome.”
