In addition to being a professional triathlete, I’m also a multisport coach, and so much of my job(s) are about plans – writing training plans and race plans, making season plans, travel plans. So many plans!
But one thing I’ve learned over the years—sometimes things just don’t go according to plan.
Before I picked up this crazy triathlon hobby, I was a big firm litigator in downtown Chicago. Upon graduating from law school, I had a plan. I was going to work my way up in the firm, devote my life to my career, make partner, start a family, move to the suburbs, and live happily ever after with my piles of wealth.
It’s safe to say that things haven’t exactly gone according to plan. Triathlon took me off course. In 2010, I signed up for a local half Ironman and a training group, looking solely for a social outlet. Then life took a crazy turn as I fell in love with triathlon and showed a little early promise. Over the next five years or so, I got more and more serious as an athlete, eventually deciding to temporarily set aside that legal career to pursue a career that provided more fulfillment and (much) less money – that as a professional triathlete. I did end up in the suburbs, but not in order to buy a big McMansion as once planned. Instead, it was to live in a cheaper apartment closer to training locales. And those “piles of wealth”—yeah, let’s not talk about that.
Much like my career in general, this year has not gone according to “plan”. 2017 is my second year as a professional triathlete. Last year, my debut season, went way better than I could have dreamt. I made a little prize money, raced right alongside the women I’d idolized for years, and motivated by unexpected success, started making plans for future greatness.
The plan for 2017 was simple- go all-in. Move to Boulder. Leave the legal career totally behind. Train like crazy. Make significant performance breakthroughs. And most of all, qualify to Worlds 70.3 (qualification as a pro is a based on ranking, so I needed a few strong races to accumulate enough points).
Well, that plan didn’t necessarily pan out. I did go all-in, I did move to Boulder, I did stop practicing law entirely, and I did train like a madwoman—far too much so, in hindsight. But those performance breakthroughs I thought would automatically follow? Not so much.
Instead, I floundered and struggled through the early 2017 races, overwhelmed by the new pressures I had placed on myself. The plan was for the St. George 70.3 to be my breakthrough race, where I could show off my new devotion. I trained so perfectly for that race, simulating every aspect of it in my training, arriving on sight 10 days early. I was dialed in. And then, the gun went off, and things almost immediately unraveled. A panic attack in the swim (it happens even to those of us who have been swimming since childhood!), nutritional issues, mental meltdowns—quite simply, I completely choked and had the worst result of my time as a triathlete. That wasn’t the plan!
OK then--- new plan! I quickly booked a last minute trip to Mexico for the Monterrey 70.3, a short 8 days later. This would be my redemption- my chance to really show off all my great training, to prove St. George was just a blip on the radar.
Yeah, that plan didn’t work so well either. A pre-race bike crash combined with a tired body and mind and my result wasn’t much better than St. George. I returned home after two poor performances demoralized, defeated, and honestly, questioning at times my entire decision to give pro racing a go.
What did I do then? I changed the plan, again- this time fairly drastically. After many hours of soul searching, I realized that in my efforts to go “all-in” as a professional triathlete, I’d left one very important piece of the puzzle behind – the fun! I needed to step back a bit from the grind and re-embrace those things I loved most about the sport – the simple act of swimming, biking and running; travel; training with friends. My new plan became less about results and more about re-finding the joy. That 70.3 Worlds goal? I threw it completely out. Maybe next year, I told myself. Chattanooga just wasn’t meant to be.
From May on, I embraced my new plan. I’d already signed up for two races in Denmark in June, Challenge Denmark and the Elsinore 70.3, with high hopes of big performances. I backed off the expectations and approached the trip with an eye more for making memories. I booked a stop-over stay in Iceland, riding my bike all over the beautiful volcanic terrain, enjoying the midnight sun, and swimming in a few of the hundred of geothermal pools that dot the nation. Then, I treated my Denmark trip like a family race-cation—we explored the country, drank a fair bit of wine, took lots of pictures. I still did my training, but the volume was way down and my goals were fairly modest. I just wanted to have fun with racing.
And, I did. Danish races have so much character – 70.3 miles squeezed into the smallest geographical footprint imaginable. The two races I did included things like running, four times, through the interior of a library, circling around the castle in which Hamlet was set, swimming around an active shipping harbor in a confusing zig-zag fashion the likes of which I’d never experienced, and cruising through the rolling Danish countryside. I smiled through almost every minute of those two races, just thankful for the opportunity. And then what do you know? With my new laid-back attitude and letting satisfaction be derived just from the ability to compete in such unique events, I had two of the best races of my pro career.
Upon arrival back stateside, I stuck with the new “relax and enjoy” plan. I moved myself back to the Midwest-- Chicago and Madison—there’s no better place in the summer. I took a nice little break from structured training and spent time catching up with the many people who’d supported me in this triathlon venture from the beginning. I swam, biked, ran when the urge hit me and with anyone and everyone who wanted to join me, and I just enjoyed being home. I fell back in love with the sport.
And then, in the midst of my mid-season break, I got some shocking news—despite those early results that had disappointed me so much, I’d qualified for 70.3 Worlds. Qualifying to Chattanooga was the original goal I’d been so serious about; the one I pursued so hard that I overdid things and forgot how to enjoy the sport, the one I’d completely thrown out the window. It’s pretty funny how life works out.
So, here we go. New plan! Worlds is in a bit less than 8 weeks, and I couldn’t be more happy to have the opportunity. I’m training hard, but I’m training hard in a way that works for me – with flexibility, often with friends, and in the locations where I ‘grew up’ as an athlete. I’m counting down the days until I leave for Chattanooga, but I look at the race not with fear but with excitement—I get to toe the line with the very, very best in the World, I get to see and meet dozens of my Wattie Ink teammates, I’ll be
there with friends and family. Maybe things haven’t gone according to plan, and maybe they never will—but in a crazy way, they always work out.
I have to give a huge, huge shout out to Wattie Ink and all of our team sponsors- Cannondale, Knight Composites, Pioneer, Blue Seventy, Herbalife 24, HOKA One One, Eternal Water. I’ve had my ups and downs but the team has continued to show so much support. I can’t wait to make my supporters proud come September 9!
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