Team Mentality

Last night I got a message that I was not selected as one of the finalists for the 2012 Team Evotri spot. I was disappointed. Excessively so. 

It's really not about the free stuff that can come with being on a team.  I had considered joining a team where the "free stuff" was just being part of the team and I would have had to purchase my own kit.  I decided against it, hoping that I would make the cut for Team Evotri- the deadline for the other team overlapped the notification of the finalists by just a couple days. 

My great sense of disappointment caused me to think hard about why I want to be on a team so badly and wonder how I can create my own sense of team with the resources readily available to me. 

So why do I have such a strong desire to be on a team? 

I feel very much alone as a triathlete in my small town. I am (as far as I know) the ONLY triathlete in my town.  Why?  Well, not having a pool in town makes training a little difficult. I drive over 30 minutes to a pool. 

I have tried to spark some interest in a running group.  I know there are plenty of runners in town, I see them out all the time.  I got ONE person to say they were interested and another that said she would be if she weren't injured.  Now, I know every group has to start somewhere, but really?  Two people?  

I feel that I would benefit greatly from the support and knowledge of experienced triathletes.  I've been a runner for a long time, but triathlon is still very new to me.  I just finished my rookie season.  I love to soak up ideas about training, nutrition, racing, and race venues.  

It would give me credibility and a platform to influence others in endurance sports.  I'm not sure why I think I need a team for this, plenty of the women that influence me are not affiliated with any team.  I guess I just feel like I would be taken more seriously if I were attached to a team.  

What can I do to create a sense of team?

GOTRIbal: These women are amazing and supportive and really truly awesome. Nationally, GOTRIbal women are everywhere. They are elite athletes, newbies, and everyone in between.  On my trip to San Diego, I met three GOTRIbal women. Two of them took time out of their day just to hang out with me!  I need to look at ways that I can help bring a larger GOTRIbal presence to the Midwest as well as continuing to cultivate online relationships. 

Greater Mankato Multisport Club: It's hard for me to join in all of their group rides/runs since I live over an hour away, but I need to just get a sitter and make a commitment to go twice a month. 

Explore other avenues that will give me a credible platform. I have already been published on gotribalnow.com and espnW.com. I have been a featured Fitblogger. There are other ways for me to get involved and positively influence others in endurance sports than by being on a team. I need to seek them out. 

Engage local athletes. Let others know when I am going to run or ride and invite all comers to join me. If no one shows up, well, that shouldn't stop me from doing my planned workout that I would have been doing by myself anyway. I am also coordinating with our local community education to lead a Couch to 5k type program. (I present my proposal to the board tonight, wish me luck!)

So really, the name of this post comes from this: Being part of a team doesn't have to be a formal arrangement. It can be the way you view your relationships with others. It can be engaging other athletes in a positive way. This is the "team" that I am going to try, no, not try, that I WILL be a part of in 2012. 

How I got into triathlon

As part of an effort to encourage applicants for the new spot on Team Evotri, it's current members each wrote about how he or she got into triathlon. They consolidated all their stories here.  

They also encouraged others to write about their own triathlon story if they felt so inspired.  Apparently I have been inspired to do so, because here is my story:  

I've been a runner as long as I can remember. I've never been fast. Middle-of-the-pack when I'm well-trained, back-of-the-pack when I'm not.

I remember the first time I ever saw a triathlon was in high school, watching the Kona Ironman on television. I thought, "I think I could do that. Someday I will."   And that was all the more I thought about it for a long time. It would pop into my head now and again, but the resounding thought was "someday I will".  Emphasis on the "someday". 

Fast forward through the years where I had other priorities: boyfriends, friends, work, getting married, even owning a small business for a while. I continued to run on and off through these years, even fitting in my first couple marathons. But boy does training for a marathon take a lot of time, and I was only in my 20's, surely time was something I had plenty of, right?  

Well, life changes faster than you realize and I found myself a 34-year-old stay-at-home mom.  Wait a second, I thought, how old am I??? Already???  I knew it would realistically take a couple years (at least) for me to be ready for a full Ironman.  "Someday" was going to disappear if I didn't do something soon!  

Of course, I got my sister on board with me right away.  We set up a plan to do a half in 2011, and a full in 2013.  We searched for our half-distance tri based on location, time of year, and reviews, ultimately picking Chisago Lakes Half-Iron.  (In the end, my sister had not been able to fit in the training and backed out of the race.)

When I became pregnant, the first thing we bought was the baby backpack.  The second the jogging stroller, and the third the child bike trailer.  I knew that I wanted to raise my child in an active family and I began running as soon as I could after a c-section (a severely sprained ankle prevented me from running through most of my pregnancy).  The run really didn't worry me.  I had, after all, been a runner for almost 30 years.  I may not be fast, but I knew the distance was manageable, even if it meant walking.  The only part of the run that really worried me was how I'd feel after swimming and biking. 

I hadn't done any swimming since I took swimming lessons as a child.  I grew up in a small town with only an outdoor pool so we had no swim team.  I knew the basic movements of the strokes and could tread water for a LONG time, but my form was (and still is) terrible.  Swimming is by far my weakest sport in triathlon.  I joined the closest gym with a pool 30 miles away and hired a swim coach.  She and I were not a good fit and I struck out on my own (with a lot of help from Total Immersion videos and books!)  I was lucky to find a triathlon-specific swim clinic an hour away mid-March and just that day with them helped me a lot.  

My first open water swim and my first swim in a wetsuit were both my first triathlon on May 22, 2011.  This was a sprint distance tri, worked into my training schedule for the purpose of practice.  The week after, my (semi-)local multisport club started doing group open water swims.  After panicking in the cold water at my first tri, I attended every one I could.  

As far as the bike, I'd purchased a decent road bike a couple years before when my husband and I did RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Bike Ride Across Iowa) and learned how to ride with clipless pedals.  The challenge for me here was finding myself on a new bike one week before my goal race after hubby had forgotten it was on the top of the Jeep before pulling into a garage.  The new bike and I did not get along right away and I ended up driving more than 2 hours each way for a proper bike fit 6 days before my race.  Again, I knew I could get through the bike, barring any mechanical failure, it just might take me a while.  

On July 24, 2011, I completed my goal and finished my first half-iron distance triathlon.  I had some sort of issue in every leg of the race, but my only goal was to finish, so none of them caused too much frustration.  I am proud to say, that in a very athletic family, where all my uncles, cousins, etc. are athletes - some of them very good- I, the middle-to-back-of-the-packer, was the first to complete a half-ironman distance triathlon.  

The iron distance race goal has been moved back to 2013 for me.  After doing a half, I see how much more improvement I need to make.  I won't win my age group, or even be close.  The only medal I will get is the one that says "Finisher".  But I will get that medal, and then I will return for another.  

My Application For Team Evotri

As promised, here is my video application for Team Evotri:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjTyI7kokTc

I encourage you to check out Evotri on their website and Facebook page.  And if you're interested, submit your own application!

Wish me luck! 

Training Log Dec 4-10

I did a little better this week than last.  I didn't do as much as I should have, but I did okay.  

Sun, Mon: off

Tues: 5 miles on treadmill, 51:53, + walked .5 mile cooldown

Weds: Off

Thurs: 2.35 miles.  Planned 3, but I was running during Liam's nap and he woke up.

Fri: Off

Sat: 60 minutes worth of P90X Yoga.  I pushed the first part pretty hard and I was completely wiped out after 1 hour.  

I had two days that I ate enough fruits and veggies to count for HBBC points, bringing my HBBC total for Dec. 3-9 to 9.85 points.  Kinda thinking I was a little overambitious when I placed myself in the Advanced category!  But really, any other time of year I would be.  

Now that I have my 2012 race plan in place, I started working on my training plan.  I'm giving myself the rest of December to kind of play around with my schedule, then I'll start a more structured schedule.  

In the past, I have penciled out a whole training plan onto a calendar.  This works until I get off-plan and have to readjust.  This time I wrote each week on an index card, then on the calender just wrote which week of the training plan I should be on (i.e. marathon week ten, 70.3 week one).  This way, when I get off schedule, I don't have so much rewrite, I can just pull out the appropriate card.  (Can you say organizationally obsessed?)  

In other news, I am working on a video to submit to Team Evotri in their search for a new team member.  I'm hoping to finish and post it this week.  My technological devices have been conspiring against me so I'm ending up with a fancy slide show instead of actual video footage of myself.  I can't even get the microphone to work appropriately to narrate my slide show.  Thank goodness for royalty-free music!  I'll post a link to it once I submit it.  

Goals for this week are to get my homemade Christmas presents done, and get packed to head to the in-laws for an early Christmas celebration!  Looking forward to doing some running with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law!