A Talk With Another Champ

I haven't done a non-race report post in a while. Life has been hectic and busy work wise which means the little time I had remaining was either spent training or spending quality time with my girlfriend Amanda, my family or whatever friends I have left who have stuck with me.

But as I lay here, ice on legs and chugging down a protein recovery shake, I decided to write about a recent LA Tri Club event that I attended. The event was an opportunity to run and then sit and talk with Chrissie Wellington. For those that don't know, Chrissie is a 4 time Ironman World Champion (2007-2009, 2011) and is undefeated at the Ironman distance in her pro career. Basically, she's pretty epic and kind of a beast!

(photo credit: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3qjz81)

In fact, I googled her to read more and found this snapshot of her pro racing career just to show the awesomeness.

(photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrissie_Wellington)

In short, she's pretty damn fast and pretty damn good. So naturally, being able to hear her talk might be something worth attending, especially when it's free (thanks LATC!). And well, I wasn't disappointed.

The run itself wasn't much to write home about. There was a wide range of skills for this event, so the run was pretty slow and easy, almost like a shakeout/recovery run. Then we popped in for a quick yoga session to wait for non-runners to join the talk. So finally, we get to the talk.

In short, she mostly covered her motivations for triathlon and her subsequent motivations for stepping away. To summarize her motivations, my takeaway was that she was looking for a physical challenge when initially getting into the sport. She was a good runner, someone suggested she try out and she did well and got stuck with it early on. When she started doing a few more races and found out she was exceptionally good, she made the risky decision to pursue a pro career and the rest was history.

Her continued motivations as a pro seemed to revolve around pushing her limits, testing herself and trying to be the very best that she could at the sport she gave her life to. It's something obviously risky when you compare that to the security of a cookie cutter job. But she showed that with hard work, dedication and focused coaching/training/nutrition/etc, you really can be great when you put your mind and body into something.

Finally, she elaborated on why she stepped away. Part of her motivations were family and building on other parts of her life (like her desire to promote sport and international development), but also because she had completed her perfect race in regaining the Ironman World Champion title in 2011. But in this sense, her perfect race was not a race in which she had no challenges and was able to master every facet of racing. In fact, her "perfect race" was about how imperfect the race ended up being, but how she fought through those imperfections to bring out the very best in herself AND claim the title. There's a lot of articles on what exactly she dealt with, but she highlighted 3 main ones: a recent bike accident, some illnesses and a little bit of self doubt before and during the race. So for her, that was her idea of a perfect race and one she could probably never top. And so after a year of reflection and time away, she decided to retire and pursue other aspects of her life.

But a big takeaway was motivation. She didn't focus on telling us how we could be better triathletes or how we could ace our next race (some of the many things that Macca talked to us about a few years ago). For that, she said that the book, a coach and countless other articles could help with. But she wanted to talk with us about motivation and the why of triathlon. Ultimately, her takeaway is to pursue what makes you happy and pursue it with all of her being.

It was a message heard loud and clear by yours truly. As I lay here after my final long run before NYC Marathon (which is before IM 70.3 NOLA aka Battle in the Bayou), I definitely wonder how many more long distance races I'll do. The desire to go long is definitely not there. Marathon training for the last couple races has been tough. It wears on me. I only do it because I know the miles are necessary to cross the finish line. But I don't enjoy it. I do, however, enjoy the thrill of toeing the line, specifically at these big races. And maybe that's where my motivation lies. Maybe I need to hit a couple more milestone races (like Tokyo, Chicago, London, Paris) and then stick to the distances that I do love: the 70.3 distance and the half marathon distance. These are distances I can get excited about training for and I think that's where my future career will lie. But who knows, my motivation ebbs and flows just like everyone else. And maybe some bouts of FOMO will convince me to make many more appearances at the long distance stuff and someday even toe the line at another Ironman. Only time will tell...

Until then, the fun takeaway from the talk was that someone asked her what she thought about after crossing the line in 2011 as the Ironman World Champion once again. And her response was epic: "I just thought about beer and when can someone get me one!" Tons of laughs in the crowd and a response held very close to my heart, as well as some of my Honey Stinger Picnic family members haha

Not only did we get to meet her, but she signed her new book for us too. And while most folks wanted her to address their name with her signature, I asked her to just write a motivational message for me that I can look to whenever I open the book. And that's what she wrote:

"Never stop believing in all you can achieve"

Thanks so much Chrissie and thanks LATC and TriFit gym for hosting the event!