Timothy O’Donnell story – part 1
Timothy O’Donnell was the US Naval Academy athlete who ruled the US Military Triathlon Championships six straight times from 2003 through 2008. But his road from there to a 2009 streak of three wins at prestigious Ironman 70.3 events topped off by the 2009 ITU long course world championship was a tough one. His first drive was a quest to make the 2008 Olympic team, but the man who had a first pack swim and bike ran into a stone wall when he could not run with the likes of Hunter Kemper, Andy Potts, Matt Reed and Jarrod Shoemaker. But there was something stubborn and persevering in O’Donnell, honed by his exposure to military discipline that finally unlocked his world class talent. Part 1 of a 3 part series takes him from a slow-starting junior swimming talent to a budding triathlon career, Naval Academy graduation and a character defining encounter with a formidable Master Chief at a naval diving school.
When he was growing up, Tim O’Donnell and his sister and two brothers moved around the country wherever his father’s auto industry career took them. Good training for a military life. Tim says he liked the variety of experiences – but the one thing that linked the family’s time in Florida, California, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Oregon was junior swimming – his sport of choice. Those early days also set a pattern in which Tim started out behind his contemporaries and persevered against the early odds to prevail.
Slowtwitch: Tell us about your parents.
Timothy O’Donnell: My parents are both from Boston. My dad’s been in the automotive business since before I was born. My mom was a school teacher. She’s retired now. My dad’s job required him to move around a lot. Growing up we lived all over the country – in the Northeast, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan and California.
ST: Were your parents athletic?
Timothy: My mom wasn't much of a sports person. She was on the drill team at college. My dad was definitely an athlete. He played lacrosse and hockey. He went to Boston State, which no longer exists and was absorbed into the state college system. Boston State played the Boston Colleges and the well to do schools. They would never win but they’d always rough 'em up a lot. That's what they were known for.
ST: So who gave you your drive to succeed?
Timothy: My dad has great drive. He loved sports. We all four kids swam growing up and we swam year round. But my dad still always watching basketball and football. Wherever we moved, my dad would always put up a basketball hoop. So it was great bonding for the kids with him and also. He was competitive. So it was good for our drive.
ST: Sounds like you are a pretty kind and well mannered. Never seen your temper. Was your dad a little fiercer than you seem to be about things?
Timothy: Definitely. I definitely have his competitive drive. But I think I have a little bit of my mom’s diplomacy. My mom is the type that always likes to keep the peace. My dad is fiery and likes to be right. He is very set in the way he likes things done. Whenever we had chores, but no matter what we did, washing the floors or whatever, our dad would always go back and do it his way.
ST: He was the drill sergeant?
Timothy: Yeah he was. He was also traveling a lot. So really my mom ran the day to day operations. I dunno how she did it. Four kids born within four and a half years. When we were moving, there were times when my dad moved ahead and she was dragging four little kids to the airport by herself. I was traveling to a race about two years ago and I saw a mom in a similar situation and I called my mom right there and said “I don’t know how you did it.” She was pretty unbelievable.
ST: In some ways your life was that of a military brat. You all moved around a lot. How did it affect you?
Timothy: My sister Katie was the oldest and she had it the hardest — she went to three high schools. I personally loved it and my older brother Thomas, a fellow Naval Academy grad, loved it too. I think it fit my personality type. New environments. New chances to excel.
ST: Did you try many other sports as a kid?
I never really did sports other than swimming. I played basketball in fourth grade but that was about it. All the rest of my brothers played a little more basketball. My sister Katie was a great basketball player and she ran high school cross country when we lived in New Jersey.
ST: Did sports come easy to you?
Timothy: When I was really young I had some success, but it didn’t come easy. My brother Matthew is 11 months older than me and we would be in the same age group and the same squads many times. He would usually get the MVP for the team and I would usually get the coach’s award. LAUGHS That just kind of sums up my early career.
ST: What was your breakthrough?
Timothy: I remember my sister Katie and my brothers Thomas and Matthew swam with the senior squad of our club team while I swam with the younger kids because I wasn’t fast enough. On top of that, my friends also started to move up while I was left behind. But I really came along at the end of 8th grade and the beginning of my freshman year in high school. That year, the coaches tried to push me along. I remember a specific workout of 400 IMs where I started to hit my stride. I remember that day very vividly. That was a kind of turning point for success in my swimming career. After that I had a couple good swims and people said “Whoa!” My freshman year at Xavierian Brothers High School in Boston we won the state championship.
ST: Of the four O’Donnell kids, who had the most talent and greatest promise?
Timothy: Katie would have been a great triathlete. Unfortunately, we were in a car accident and she severely injured her ankle, had surgery and couldn’t run that well again. I was eight or nine and Katie was 15 and going into her sophomore year of high school.
ST: How did it happen?
Timothy: All the kids were in the car and my mom was driving when we got t-boned by an ambulance running a red light. We were very lucky. My mom and my brother were Medevac’d out. I came out unscratched and from first appearances, Katie seemed fine, too, but it turns out she had some serious nagging problems. Looking back I don't think I really comprehended how serious it was for her. Now I think a lot about it. She probably had more of the tools for this sport than any of the four of us. I wish I could have seen her develop. Now she lives in Connecticut and has two kids and she and her husband own a US club swimming team.
ST: In all those years of swimming, did coaches hone your technique?
Timothy: I have never been a technique kinda guy. When I was younger my coach called me a Weeble. That’s one of those little kids’ toys that had the motto: ‘Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.’ That’s because I’d keep popping along on energy but I was never smooth. Yeah, coaches bugged me about my stroke my whole career. And Dave Scott here in Boulder still bugs me. Cliff English is my coach but Dave just watches my hand entry and crossing over and things like that. I have utmost respect for Dave and y’know I want to try to improve but I started swimming in 1986 and it’s been 24 years…. it’s hard to undo your bad habits after so much time.
ST: You are quite strong in math and science and engineering. Does that give you an analytical approach to sport?
Timothy: I was great at math and sciences. My literary skills were so-so. I love history just because I find it fascinating, but my strengths were my analytical skills. So I am a guy who basically likes to follow a routine. And I try to streamline everything. I was a strong student, but I wasn't as naturally gifted as some other. It would take me a long time to get a concept. But once I got it down, it just runs through my head. While studying I would often just sit there staring at it to try to get it. But once it clicked, it just became an automatic part of my academic arsenal.
ST: You ever have a few wild episodes growing up?
Timothy: I was a good kid. I didn’t drink in high school. I didn’t sneak out. My brothers and my sister are the same way and we joke that out parents got off easy because all we did was swim and hang out with friends and do well in school. Our parents said, ‘Well, maybe we had something to do with it.’ CHUCKLES
ST: Did you swim all distances?
Timothy: I was a 1500 meter and a 1650 yard guy when I was younger. When we moved to Shavertown, swimming in northeast Pennsylvania isn’t very competitive. So I started to focus more on the 500 and the 400 meters. That's what I did in college. My best time I think I went 4:05 in the 400 meters my sophomore year at the Naval Academy.
ST: What sports did you do at the Naval Academy?
Timothy: I swam varsity for two years at Navy. But I also joined the triathlon team when I was a freshman, just because my brother Thomas was the captain and he forced me to try out. I rode his Kestrel Cam 40 Airfoil for the tryout. I hadn’t done any riding or running before. I just had a strong aerobic engine from swimming. Biking I picked up pretty quickly. But I was not a good runner. I think my first 10k race took me 47 minutes. My sophomore year I was still swimming, but a couple of the older guys on the triathlon team didn’t like the fact that I wasn't completely focused on that sport. So they made a new rule that you had to do two races in the Fall. So I did the West Point race in September, then I went to a race in Nashville. On Saturday morning, I did a 3 hour swim practice Annapolis, then got on a plane to Nashville, put my bike together that night and raced. I placed 9th and qualified for Collegiate Nationals which was at Wildflower that year. Everybody said ‘Oh what a fluke.’ So when I finished my swim season in the spring of 2001, I went with the team to Wildflower and was top finisher on our team and placed 13th overall, even though I dropped my chain coming up that big hill out of transition. Later I thought about it and came to realize: ‘You know what? I almost got in the top 10 of a national race and I don’t even know what I’m doing.’
ST: So how did you pick up your game in triathlon?
Timothy: A buddy of mine, Nathan Stuhlmacher, introduced me to a man who became almost a second dad to me in the sport of triathlon. Alan Ley does a lot of coaching and worked for USAT at the time. Alan works for ITU now helping Libby Burrell run the coaching development program. Alan Ley got me on track. The next Fall, I started to win some local triathlons and that spring we won the USAT Collegiate Nationals. Nathan Stuhlmacher and Brian Skulin and I led the team and I was 5th or 6th overall and was top finisher for Navy.
ST: You continued to improve at the Naval Academy your senior year.
Timothy: We won USAT Collegiate Nationals again. I finished second overall in my senior year (2003) to a professional. That’s a rule I personally disagree with — allowing professionals to race collegiate nationals. And grad students were also eligible within a six months window after graduation. Eric Bean, who won my senior year, was a professional and finished his degree six months before nationals. So when I went to UC Berkeley for postgraduate study, they asked me to race nationals. But I didn’t because I didn’t think it was fair.
O’Donnell’s overall record at the Naval Academy was exemplary on many fronts. He excelled academically and exhibited exceptional leadership. In his senior year, he was selected as the 6th Battalion Commander and was responsible for over 700 members of the Brigade of Midshipman. His major was Naval Architecture and he was selected to Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society. He won an award for his senior project, the structural design of a harbor cruise ship. In May of 2003 he graduated the USNA with Honors and was commissioned an Ensign in the United States Navy.
ST: How much improvement did you make in triathlon by senior year and after graduation?
Timothy: In my senior year, I was on the collegiate resident team at the Us Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. That kind of got me in the door with USAT. Then I won the Under 23 national championships after I graduated from Navy in 2003. So that kept me going with USAT and I remained in the ITU-USAT program after I graduated.
ST: What were your Olympic distance splits at the time?
Timothy: In triathlon swimming my times ranged from 17:30 to 18:30 for 1500 meters, depending on the course. Biking was probably mid-50 minutes in a 40k time trial. Usually I’d get in the front pack. My run was in the 34 to 35:30 minute range, depending on the course.
ST: That is fine for a developing athlete. But your coaches at Colorado Springs must have been wondering – will he find the capacity to run a sub 32 minute 10k? Their mission is to find Olympic medalists, and no one in this era has a chance unless they can run that fast – or faster.
Timothy: Yep. As far as the USAT national team, there was serious gap at that point too in terms of talent. There was Hunter Kemper and Andy Potts and Matty Reed and then in my age group who was there? Honestly, I think Jarrod Shoemaker has been the only one to fill that gap. [Shoemaker won the Junior and Under 23 worlds and last year his 2009 ITU Duathlon Worlds was his first senior world title.] Yeah from 2006-2008 my run wasn't there but I was still winning Under 23 nationals.
ST: How frustrated were you?
Timothy: Alan Ley told me he didn’t know where my run could go. I don’t think Libby Burrell [the USAT high performance chief at the time] was a believer either. I still managed to stick in the program just because I was working hard and improving. And for some races I served as a domestíque for some early attempts at team tactics in the run-up for the Olympics.
ST: Were you aware of your shortcomings as a runner?
Timothy: Yes I was acutely aware of that gap between the great runners and myself. I was aware of it in training, too. I just wouldn’t run with guys like Mark Fretta and Seth Wealing at track sessions. Those guys can run and I was intimidated I guess. When people tell you that you can't run that fast you start to believe it.
ST: It must have been stressful?
Timothy: When it seemed that nobody would believe me, I thought Oh yeah? People told me I couldn’t be a good swimmer, too. It is not so much I enjoy proving people wrong. But I enjoy rising to the occasion. Surprising people is always fun.
ST: What did you do when you graduated? How did you maintain your triathlon training and career?
Timothy: I graduated from the Naval Academy and earned a spot in what they call the Immediate Graduate Education Program. The Naval Academy has 50 spots in each class for graduate school. If you get one of those 50 spots from the Academy — and you get a full scholarship from another university for the grad program — the Navy will let you go. So I enrolled in the Ocean Engineering program at UC Berkeley. Actually I just got a note from the Dean of Engineering at Cal congratulating me on the world championship. But that was a long way away at the time.
ST: Were you also eligible for some Navy elite athlete program?
Timothy: The Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps have pretty definitive sports programs. The Army has the World Class Athlete program in Colorado Springs, which has a solid 80 to 100 athletes and whole chain of command. The Navy doesn’t have a program like that. So when I was at Berkeley, I basically put together a media package seeking sponsorship to help support my athletic goals. In California I rode for Cycle Sport in Oakland and the owner was a director of the Health Net Cycling team. So he gave me some of their PR material to give me an idea of what to do. A family friend helped me design it and make it presentable. So I sent it to the Navy Sports Director in Millington, Tennessee (the site of Memphis in May Triathlon). which is a Navy Personnel headquarters. What they do there is assign people to different locations and different commands. Just so happens I was assigned to the EOD – Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group One in San Diego — which was my ultimate command. It just so happens that the head of special operations on the West Coast happened to walk by the Navy sports director's door the day that this package shows up. So the sports director says 'Sir, can you come here and look at this?’ And the commodore says 'Wow this is great.’ He said that we are a culture warrior culture here and this guy is showing everybody the quality of our personnel. So I reported to the San Diego command after I graduated and I was there for a couple months. Then they said ‘OK we are going to send you to the Olympic Training Center for the rest of the season. At that point, I was winning Armed Forces National Championships.
ST: Who were your military rivals?
Timothy: Mike Hagen and James Bales were the most notable name. But I had an advantage. By them Michael Hagen was in his late ‘30s and I was a young kid. Mike had ruled that race for a long time before I started winning. It was almost a changing of the guard.
ST: So how did you balance your triathlon ambitions with you Navy responsibilities?
Timothy: It was hard. The balancing act was trying to keep me on track with my naval career while still training. I look back now and realize you can’t spend eight months of the year training for an elite sport and four months doing military obligations and expect to hop back in. I experienced that I went to the Naval Diving Salvage School in Panama City Beach.
ST: Did you see the 2000 movie Men of Honor, starring Robert DeNiro and Cuba Gooding Jr. about Carl Brashear, the first African American and also the first amputee US Navy Diver, and the hard core officer who trained him? Did you have a Master Chief?
Timothy: Yes I did. That that was the hardest part of my Navy career. I reported to the diving school in November 2003. The Master Chief there was a mean dude – in the best sense – and they all knew I was coming. Here was this kid. I came right off of a 4th place at the Treasure Island Triathlon. So they knew this kid who was trying to make the Olympics was coming. I was one of only two officers in the class. I had just come out of Berkeley and had done my thesis on improving the officer pipeline for Special Operations in a human engineering course. So here they have this kid coming in who has done all this stuff – but he hasn’t done any of the hard core Navy training.
When I reported, they are all waiting for me. The Master Chief had played some professional football. And he was tough. And the first thing I did was quite embarrassing. We went out to do the initial PT test to prove you are fit. We get to the pull-up section. I have a 6-3 wingspan, abnormal for my size, and I am skinny. It is like Lance trying to do pull-ups. I had to do seven pull-ups and when I got off the bar, they told me five of them didn’t count because I didn’t clear the bar. ‘You failed!’ So wow. OK. At that point, I had 5 days to do another PT test. In that amount of time you’re not going to be able to improve how you do that exercise.
ST: Was it technique or strength?
Timothy: I think it was probably both. So I continued to get punished that first week. I am extremely beat up and I am trying to train to do extra pull-ups to prepare for the test. I do the retest and the same thing happens. I think I am fine and I get off the bar and they disallow most of them. So I go before a Navy board and I was dismissed from the class.
ST: How did this feel?
Timothy: So this for me is huge. My head is spinning. I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m going to go on a ship somewhere? I am a guy who doesn’t like to fail at things. It was shattering. I think the instructors were playing me hard.
ST: But you were expected to respond.
Timothy: I think they were kind of taken aback, too. So I got dismissed and returned to my command in San Diego. . My commander said this is ridiculous. Technically if you fail out you don't go back. But my commander said we are sending him back.
ST: How did you prepare for the next round?
Timothy: It was more a conditioning thing. An athlete at this level, their body will respond quickly to change. So I went out with one of the chiefs in my command in San Diego. They call ed him Big D. He wasn't tall, just ripped. We just banged out upper body stuff. All those muscles when I was a swimmer that I lost when I started to run seriously I was trying to get back. I returned to Diving School at the end of February. Now they are really waiting for me! They are foaming at the mouth. ‘O’Donnell’s back? I thought we got rid of you, O’Donnell!’
ST: Did this remind you of early days swimming?
Timothy: This was another example of me persevering. When people say you can’t do this, I am going to do this. So I got in there and bang out three times as many pull-ups as required. In proper form. They said: ‘OK.’ And walked away. The implication was ‘We are still going to punish you.’ CHUCKLES. So I got punished. I took a lot of heat and I just kept going.
ST: When did you get the seal of approval?
Timothy: Near the end they do a thing called sharking in the pool to get you ready for open water diving. Basically, you are swimming along the bottom of the pool in a square and the instructors come down. You don’t know when they’re coming but they come and they give you a soft hit and they pull your tank off. Pull your regulator off. Put knots in your regulator. Knock your mask off and you have to fix everything. You need X number of soft hits, and X number of hard hits. Those are the big ones where they put your tank on the other side of the pool. And you are getting a shot in the gut and all that good stuff.
ST: Was that tougher than getting to the first buoy in a World Cup?
Timothy: Yep. Exactly. CHUCKLES Well I was swimming around. They bring a message board they show you whether you’ve passed or not. And I see this board coming in front of my face with a message from the Master Chief. Normally the Master Chief doesn’t take part. But he went in there just to razz me. He wrote me a note something along the lines of ‘You’re never going to get this knot out, O’Donnell.’
I think ‘Oh man, I’m done.’ So I get a hard hit, and he ties up my regulator hose. And I don’t know what happened. Luckily, I got the knot out and afterward he wrote me a note: “You got lucky, O’Donnell.” LAUGHS. So I got my two hard hits and I think: ‘All right I’m done! Why am I still down here?’ One of my buddies is up top and he told me he was thinking: ‘All right O’Donnell, second hit. He’s good!’ But one of the other guys told him: ‘Ah no. Keep him down there. Let everybody else have a hit on him.’ So I was just down there getting hit by everyone who wanted to take a shot at me. But I didn’t get fired this time. I passed the class and I was the class leader and ended up winning the Honor Man Award for top graduate in the class.
ST: In some way, this was as big as your World Championship?
Timothy: Personally yeah. The perseverance aspect. Not only to come back and be able to say I did it. But to come back and be the top graduate was pretty awesome. Afterwards, my class leader and the Master Chief, they both sent me notes saying: ‘That was impressive. We are glad you made it through. We were impressed the way you stuck through it’ and all that. So it was great.
Then, on graduation day, a team from the United States Anti-Doping Agency shows up! LAUGHS. So the USADA guys sat and watched my dive school graduation. It was very cool.
