An all-you-can-eat pasta buffet was where Lindsey Polinko realized her hidden talent.

Her high school cross-country coach — a man who outweighed her by nearly 160 pounds — challenged her to a one-on-one eating contest.

Soon, the empty bowls covered the table.

"The chefs couldn't keep up with us," Polinko said.

A competitive eater was born.

But toss aside the pasta, the hot dog-eating contest at a local fair and dessert with every meal — Polinko has another intense hobby: training for a triathlon.

She's a member of the MSU Triathlon Club, a team that has no coach or mandatory practices. But the club's 35 members are serious about competing, meeting 13 times a week to train.

The culmination of their yearlong training will come April 21 at the USAT Collegiate National Championship in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

There they'll undergo a rigorous two-and-a-half-hour, Olympic-sized triathlon course — a 1.5-km river swim, a 24.8-mile bike ride and 6.2-mile run — against nearly 900 other college athletes.

For more on this story, please see Wednesday's edition of The State News.