Before she settled on attending the College, Aruzhan Abil CC’28 (she/her) weighed the typical factors in her decision, like academics and campus life. But she also considered one very specific detail.

“I was looking for schools with triathlon clubs,” Abil says. “There’s a training group in my hometown, so when I was applying to college, I wanted to find something similar.”

Abil, a sophomore from Astana, Kazakhstan, has been competing in triathlons since 2020, when the pandemic left her with an unexpected amount of free time. She had been running for as long as she could remember and belonged to a run club; she started adding swimming and biking to her routine when others in the group became interested in triathlons. Five years later, she’s now the VP of the Columbia Triathlon Club, which competes against other Northeast schools throughout the year.

“I loved it immediately,” she says. “With running, it’s really easy to get burned out or even injured since you’re doing the same thing over and over. Triathlon adds a lot of variety.”

Abil shared more about the club and what a typical week of training looks like.

Which leg of a triathlon is your favorite?

Cycling, definitely. This past summer I did a metric century (100 km) in Central Park. A lot of people don’t like going around the same loop over and over, but for me it’s kind of meditative. Route 9W is also a great place to ride. The cycling community in New York City is actually small, so you get to know everyone. Even though the city is huge, when we’re cycling on the highways we see people that we know and actually race each other as well.

What are your responsibilities as VP?

Our executive board is quite small, so we don’t have too many specific tasks to delineate. But I’m mainly responsible for planning our trip to Nationals near the end of the Spring semester — sort of like a race coordinator — and figuring out all the logistics. Last year, Nationals were in Miami, so flying with the bikes and arranging the transportation for that took quite a bit of time. I also run the club’s social media.

How busy is the training and racing schedule?

Our race calendar is definitely more active in the spring with races leading up to Nationals. But we’re doing a half-marathon in Central Park really soon, so we’re excited for that. Even though it’s cold outside, we keep training — we transition to a lot of indoor biking. And swimming is always indoors. We have five practices a week; almost all of them are in the morning. And we try to switch up the workouts. One of our running workouts is three to five loops of Harlem Hill in Central Park on Tuesdays. And then we swim for two hours on Sundays. Then the rest of the practices vary between cycling and running.

What do you like most about being in the club?

Triathlon always attracts very open-minded and adventurous people, and hearing about the races others have done is always interesting. It’s just such a diverse group, and everyone coming together is so amazing. I plan to keep doing triathlons for a long time –– I was telling a friend that triathlon will probably be the thing I’m still going to do in my 60s and 70s. I’ll be one of those cool grandmas at the races.

What’s been your favorite class at Columbia?

I’d say “Advanced Programming” with Professor Jae Lee CC’94, SEAS’12; I’m taking it this semester. The way the class is structured shows that a lot of thought has been put into it. And he really wants his students to learn; it’s very encouraging. It’s one of those computer science classes where I feel like I can’t miss a single lecture just because it’s so informative.

What’s your go-to restaurant in the city?

My favorite is Gorkhali, a Nepalese restaurant in Williamsburg. My triathlete friends and I went there after doing a cold plunge; it was just a perfect day with perfect flavors.

How have you taken advantage of being in NYC for college?

This past summer I joined the New York Cycling Club; it’s a really cool group. Every Friday, I log into the website and see so many people offering and leading unique rides. There was a ride with 20 Harlem Hill loops while listening to Taylor Swift, and another that was a double metric century around Central Park. I did a ride Upstate, at Bear Mountain, where the leader rented a bus and drove us to the top, and then we rode down, like, seven times. I don’t ever need roller coasters again after that.