Lucy Smith, April 19th, 2012

Some people love to run, some people don’t,
And some people just don’t run.

Some run towards a point in their future, and some run away from a ghost in their past,
And some people look back while running forward.

Some people run to eat, some eat to run,
Some hardly eat at all.

Some runners choose to run barefoot, some choose to wear shoes,
And some have no choice.

Some people run for a cause, some run for themselves,
Some run…because they can.

Some people run to music, some people don’t,
And some people just sing when they run.

Some people see the view when they run and some people see only the path ahead,
And some runners can’t even see the forest for the trees.

Some run fast, some run slowly,
And some run on the spot.

Some people run to win, some run to achieve their dreams,
And for some, running is the win.

Some run solo, some run with friends,
And some runners simply draw a crowd.

Some runners lead, some follow,
And some run by your side.

Some run on the road, some run on the track,
And some will only run in the mountains.

Some runners embrace the discomfort, some hate the pain,
And some feel nothing at all.

Some days you feel like a runner, some days you don’t.
Every day there is a runner out there in all of us.

Lucy Smith, April 2012

This style of coping was honed in my days of European triathlon and duathlon racing, and the countless times I showed up at a foreign airport or train station, hulking bike box in hand and had to find a way to a hotel, and subsequently, a way to win.
I am a worker, committed to the plan of attack, and willing to bend and adapt to whatever situation arises: give me a wet day, and I will perform; give me a hot day, and I will perform there too. Give me a delayed 12 hour flight to another country, and I will cope with that and perform. Maybe not always the best performance, but a ‘try’ at any rate. Starting 12 years ago, I added 2 kids into the mix, and I just started shuffling things around and adapted to that too. A growing business? Throw that in and I’ll handle that as well. I am the ad hoc machine. I will create what’s necessary for every situation, as long as I can be part of the action.
So maybe that’s the real reason I keep on doing what I do. I don’t want to miss any of the magic. I want to be involved by doing. I want my actions to speak louder than my words (though I do love words!). I can’t think of a better way to show my kids about passion and purpose than to live it myself. I am inspired by everybody out there living their passion–whatever it is–and I need to fuel my own inspiration or I might fall asleep. We are all born inspired, I believe, but finding it and nurturing it takes some creative thinking and a whole lot of determination and courage.
When I was on the stage on International Women’s Day, in the company of amazing women: a 27 year old CEO, a successful entrepreneur, an Oncologist, a nurse who has worked in Africa and war torn countries, a world renowned artist, I had to perform a strong reality check. What does running fast really have to do with anything anyway?
Sitting in the wings waiting for my turn to speak, I prepared for yet another of my ad hoc life. What could I say that was relevant to International Women’s Day? That at 26, when I was living in Paris I was insulted, and outraged by the obsession Parisian culture had with objectifying women? Instead I spoke personally about what sport has given to me, to prevent me from flying off down some long and convoluted tangent about equality, sport and the confusion of messages about femininity that I had to deal with growing up. There simply was not time enough for that.
Why did I switch to triathlon at 26? Well, to be perfectly honest I saw it as an opportunity for adventure. I could see there was a challenge out there, and opportunity to embrace something that I had only been watching from the outside. It was an opportunity to include amazing people into my life, and to branch outside my comfort zone. I knew I had greater potential and I needed to find this. Isn’t this was being a woman is all about? It’s about giving ourselves the opportunity to reach our potential when no clear path is given. (The only `clear path` I saw was to shackle myself to a life of dieting, makeup and obsession with fashion and relationships. I rejected this outright).
I have moved from one opportunity to another, from running to duathlon, to triathlon, into motherhood, coaching and writing a book, creating my own ad hoc life committee with each event, with the only mandate being that I remain active in my own destiny and on the front line.

In the 3 million years since ‘Lucy’ that separate me and my community of runners today, a lot has happened. The one I find most interesting, because when I am not running or coaching, I am an avid digester of anthropology, social psychology and culture, is how our ancient necessity to evolve into superior endurance runners in order to survive the mammals that we both wanted to eat and who were chasing us, is all but gone. These days we run because we can. (Or have to, for our declining health).

For most of us lifelong runners, we run purely because it feels good. I am not running away from anything anymore. We all have used running to run away from our lives at times, to squash our fears ands struggles as humans. We use running to overcome obstacles and self doubts and bad days at the office. But this is only the metaphoric tiger lurking in the forest beside the trail.

So, if I’m not running away from anything, and I am not even running to something, why do I run? Sometimes I run towards a finish line, sometimes I run to catch my kid in a game of tag, but you know what I mean. It is not a matter of life or death, but for my current running ability I owe my ancestors of several million years ago: all those early humans who ran for several days just so they could eat some meat and survive to produce another generation of…well…runners. I would say that running today is very much an emotionally driven activity.

Running efficiency, bare foot running, minimalist footwear, and biomechanics are the current issues facing the multitudes of new runners. But history is also so important and so fascinating. It seems that 500 years of civilization, industrialization and leather shoes, have all but undone the millions of years of evolution that created the great runners out of humans.

While I didn’t have the good fortune to be born in the highlands of Ethiopia, I was lucky in that I born into the generation before Wal-Mart, cheap goods and really really cheap stiff as boards shoes. As a kid I was either in bare feet, tennis sneakers, or soft rubber soled Clarks. I really owe it my parents, for always putting me in flexible soled shoes when I was a kid and for letting me wander around the neighbourhood barefoot. Sure, I used to cut my feet on glass, step on nails and scrape them on barnacles, but I seemed to survive all this (with a few tetanus shots and a lot of wild smelling Dettol) and what’s more, I got the North American version of growing up barefoot.

As I grew older and my passion for running developed into a career, I had a program where I did a lot of barefoot running after run practices, doing drills, plyometrics and strides on the infield, and running in spikes a lot, which meant that I was essentially barefoot, but with more grip ability! Obviously there are few more factors I can be thankful for, like my mum’s interest in growing her own vegetables, feeding us whole food, and the budget that generally kept us out of fast food restaurants. But as far as developing into a good runner, the current research on barefoot running, human endurance, and efficiency I can’t help but think that all this barefoot running I did as a kid was a huge help, even if I didn’t have to run 10 miles to and from school every day, like those kids in Ethiopia did.

And now, providing us with the link between skeleton Lucy and her descendants, to our current obsession with running, is a new documentary coming out on CBC very soon called The Perfect Runner. If I needed any more fuel and inspiration for my obsession, it looks like I will soon receive it from award winning documentary director Dr. Niobe Thompson. On March 15th, this Anthropologist and film maker is going to give us a film to inspire, educate and awe. I have watched the trailers and the behind the scenes footage of running and runners and it’s amazing! Some of the slow motion footage of runners in action is the best I have ever seen.

Right on the eve of the Summer Olympics, in which we will be able to gawk for hours at the world’s best runners, not only in track and field events, but on the playing field, courts and in triathlon, The Perfect Runner draws upon current research in running evolution and applies it to both the high performance and age group running movement for all us runners who are passionate about the potential for running and human movement (and doing it injury free).

If there’s anything that gives me as much comfort as running, it’s CBC. I have been watching CBC and listening to CBC radio for as long as I can remember. I grew up with CBC television (The Muppets on Wednesdays/I love Lucy on Thursday), and every Saturday morning my mum listened to CBC radio, which got louder and louder as ‘Saturday Afternoon at the Opera’ competed with the sound of the Hoover, at which point I am sure I went outside to run around in the yard (barefoot). So, it gives me a warm feeling that The Perfect Runner is going to be aired on The Nature of Things, one of the longest running shows on Canadian television. I always feel proud of Canadian projects and love watching great films around running.

From the Website for the film:

The Perfect Runner celebrates the modern passion for running by exploring our evolution as a distance-running species. This is a big, ambitious documentary, with locations from Ethiopia to Arctic Russia to the Canadian Rockies, featuring some of Canada’s fastest athletes in extreme slow motion, one of the world’s most gruelling ultramarathons, and a slew of fascinating science from cutting-edge researchers. Dr. Daniel Lieberman, the father of the barefoot running movement, plays a major role, explaining his research on running biomechanics and the importance of the “natural running” technique.

You can see the trailer here: http://vimeo.com/36338816

The website, with behind-the-scenes clips, is here: www.theperfectrunner.com
A 1GB version of the film can be downloaded here: https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1384548572/1d925b91634b28618d3200c98eb2a65c

I think we Canadians are lucky to get to watch this show on television, and I love it that The Nature of Things has given space to it. So many of these films get limited engagements in small theatres in a few towns, but this will be accessible to a lot of people. People seem to love to run, for no reason other than that it feels good. I am sure that desire to run, is as much a vestigial part of our biology, as the mechanics.

The cornerstone of my running career has always been the 5000 and 10 000m distances. But when I was just starting out, and only had dreams about being the runner I wanted to become-and for some reason that I can’t fathom right now– Comrades Marathon in South Africa was the pinnacle of all running achievement. My Olympic dreams came after this point, when career development pathways started to form. But recently, I have started to become interested in the part of the sport that has always been outside my sphere of understanding: ultra running. I can’t wait to watch The Perfect Runner, and I love how life gives us these unexpected events, providing us with authentic connections that have been lurking just beneath our consciousness.

Run For Joy!

Lucy

Enter the double whammy: my last 2 races of 2011 were an invigorating mixture of everything I like about running and racing: first I had the National Cross Country Championships in Vancouver. Before this race, I calculated that this would be my 16th start in a 25 year span of racing Senior Nationals, since coming 5th in my first go around when I was 19. This year was the epitome of true cross country test: 7km of muddy track, puddles, hard corners, short hills, wind and rain. After the women took out the opening km in 3:05 or something equally crowd thinning, I found myself in 20th, after which I chiseled away for the next 3 laps, moving solidly up the field with my endurance, and moving into 11th at the end. Within minutes of the end of the race I was freezing, teeth chattering and hands shaking uncontrollably.

A week later I was in the warm and humid environment of Hawaii, to race the XTerra World Trail Running World Championships on Oahu. This was my first go at a trail race and what an invigorating introduction. I mean the hills were just so steep and long it was not like ‘normal’ running there were few areas to get into strong tempo but I soon learned to absorb the rhythm of the trail and to find efficiency as often as possible. The single track sections along the ridges were truly awesome and the downhill plummet through the jungle was insane and hilarious. I almost wiped out at least 5 times, just tripping and crashing and sliding: never felt so ungraceful as a runner! The crazy no holds barred free fall of running put me in 2nd overall, not a bad day in the jungle.

It was an awesome day as a family too: Maia ran her first 5k, and hardest race to date and finished 2nd in her age category, while Ross raced the kid’s run, got taken down by another excited competitor, but got up and kept running. The Kuola Ranch race site was magnificent and by early afternoon we were heading back to the North shore surf and I was ready to start my ‘off season”.

I know myself pretty well. I can bank on having trashed legs for at least a week after a half marathon, and I figured a hilly 21k would take even more out of my body and give me a good reason not to run for a week. I spent the next few days on island time, relaxing with my family, look at ‘Honu’ or turtles on the beach, building sand castles. I did two short little recovery runs, a little swimming (er, looking at coral and fish: that counts right?), but mainly took the opportunity to turn off the training clock.

Some athletes look to the off season with relief, fantasizing about the chance to leave the bike in the garage for a while, a break from the early morning swim workouts and a slacker schedule in which to catch up with non triathlete friends. Others look at the off season with a mix of dread and anxiety. The off season stretches ahead like one long rainy day; with no planned workouts, no races and a lack of structure, they worry about gaining weight, losing fitness, and losing their minds.

For both athlete mentalities, and everything in between these extremes, understanding the purpose of the off season helps in maintaining sanity and a sense of continuity in one’s training. Viewed in the context of the full season, the off season period or the rest phase is a necessary and important part of athlete development. The off season technically links one season to the next and theoretically provides a period of regeneration that allows the next season to be a build on the previous one. It is easier to maintain motivation and a sense of purpose throughout the off season if athletes are aware of the distinct and crucial purpose that it serves in their overall progression.

Without an off season there is no long sustained period of rest and over time, neither the body nor the mind will be able to recover from the rigors and stress of training and racing. The result is either burn out, injury or inexplicable feelings of fatigue and exhaustion, not unlike sleep deprivation. Every athlete has a varying tolerance for season duration, but very few athletes can continually perform well for periods of over ten months without some sort of off season or down time.

Since our racing season usually is slotted into spring, summer and fall racing, the winter is the natural time of year in which to take a break. A six to eight week period anywhere from November through early February, when the weather is also typically at the coldest and wettest (at least in northern US and most of Canada), and also coinciding with the winter holidays is the most obvious time. Taking your break when the kids get out of school for Christmas can be an easy way to do it. Whether you love or hate the off season period, the following pointers will help you make the most of the winter downtime and allow you to make a positive bridge from this season into next.

Commit yourself to the off season and to understanding why you are taking a break. Moving from competitive phase to rest phase is probably the most radical change between all the season’s macrocycles. Preparatory to pre-competition and pre-competition to competition are relatively flowing adjustments. Going from training for and completing Hawaii Ironman to lying on the couch watching some reality TV show based on extreme sports is a huge leap. If you are one of the athletes that find it hard to stop training and working hard, embrace the idea that you are being good to yourself by taking a break and reiterate to yourself often that your body needs the rest in order to absorb all the training and racing from the season. Often our minds repeat words and stories that are habitual and not even true, so if your story line goes something like this; “I am losing all my fitness. I am gaining weight. I am getting slow”, replace with the affirmative such as, “My body is resting and becoming stronger for next season. I am a smart athlete and I train smart too”. In repeating these new true phrases, you will start to believe them and will have developed a new skill at the same time: the power to change your thought process.

Understanding why we are doing what we are doing, in training as in all our work and life gives us a greater sense of purpose and ability to commit. It is good to remember that the end result of the off season is not to be fitter but to be fresh and excited to begin a new season.

During your off season, you will at first likely notice the lack of instant gratification that comes from twice daily training sessions. One of the most difficult aspects of rest, injury or pregnancy in sports, is this reduction in the almost clockwork feedback. The off season can initially come as a sense of let down or anti-climax to feelings of gratification we have received all season long from our most intense training sessions. In essence, athletes get ‘addicted’ to physical and emotional feedback: the feeling of well-being and accomplishment that accompanies working out. Removing that sensation leaves a void. Although it will seem difficult to deal with, remember that the inactivity shock will wear off and in seven to ten days or less you will have normalized to the current program of restful recovery training or sheer non-activity.

Inspiration can be a powerful motivator at this time of year. If you feel committed to and inspired by what you are doing, you are more likely to have a sense of purpose in your path. In the off season, without the continual feedback from workouts and coaches, you will have to develop an intrinsic sense of motivation that is derived from being inspired by your own life. Inspiration comes from a deep place in our soul, and is truly connected to who we believe ourselves to be and what we see ourselves doing in the future.

We can find inspiration everywhere and anywhere, so intrinsic is it to life. Films and sporting events, books and music can all carry inspiration. Inspirational speakers are different than motivational speakers in that they speak to a universal human trait that is part of our very souls. Motivational speakers, while also relevant to sport and business, speak to tactics and methods of achieving that greatness. Find ways to be inspired this winter: choose movies and books about greatness, about people doing amazing things, about people who have found ways to succeed under difficult circumstances. I can well remember the first time I saw “Chariots of Fire”. The music, the imagery, the message of passion spoke to many of us. Write a journal about how you achieved personal bests in your last season, about the goals you reached and the ways in which you found success in small ways. Be inspired by your own life and the lives of people around you and you will build a sense of motivation that will rise out of the winter skies come time to train again.

Here are four books that I have found inspiring at various times in my life:

The River Why, David James Duncan
No Shortcuts to the Top, Ed Viesturs
A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
In Pursuit of Excellence, Terry Orlick

Here are some things that help me come back from my winter holiday feeling fresh and rejuvenated, and ready to train again when the kids go back to school.

1. Eat well as a commitment to your health, not just your sport: appreciate the holiday treats in moderation and bask in the chance to eat without worrying about training on a full stomach, but still eat well.
2. Don’t just stop training, but take out the mental stress. Keep some minimal race pace simulation in swimming, cycling and running. Consider taking a yoga class over the winter to keep you strong and flexible while you are taking your rest. Yoga is rejuvenating and is refreshingly non-competitive. Most athletes gain tremendous benefit from the breathing and focusing techniques.
3. Do some research on equipment upgrades and what is new and cutting edge. Organizing this now allows you more time to focus on simply training later.
4. Review your last season’s goals (that you wrote down at the start of the season: remember?) and reflect on your progress. Don’t set your new goals just yet, but this will get your mind turning over with pertinent information for forming next season’s goals.
5. Stop and smell the roses. Have you ever really looked around while you are running? Go for your easy runs without the watch and enjoy the chance to just let go of having to run a certain pace. Let your mind wander (sometimes I write whole chapters of my imaginary memoirs on a 45 minute run). The point is to get in touch with the activity and the process, the sheer act of running or riding or swimming, or even hiking, skiing or skating, without the attachment to progress and outcome that the racing season brings.

Here’s to you being inspired and ready in 2012

Lucy

Sport was very much an emotional process for me: I am used to digging deep, going beyond the necessary effort and finding some true grit inside. Proving every time I went out the door that I had 110% to give…that seems to have been my mantra for many years. I once wrote in my journal “Transcendent moments in sport seem to be effortless, yet without years of diligent effort, they can’t happen.”

I wrote that apparently, after reading a quote by Ken Ravizza in Andrew Cooper’s book “Playing in the Zone”…”Transcendent moments in sport seem mystical and difficult to duplicate at will…you can only prepare the ground for it to happen. Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident prone.”

If that is the truth, then that’s probably why I still run and race. These small accidents of enlightenment keep on happening. And it’s not always an elegant process.

Recently I had go into this huge Rubbermaid bin, to haul out all my journals in order to find some fact verification about the 2001 World Duathlon Championships. This was a race that took place less than a week after the events of 9/11, and in fact Lance and I were in a jet, in the air over Italy and about to land in Bologna, when the twin towers were hit. The week’s events are a blur, not only because of the ensuing blanket of emotional grief and collective shock, but because of the jet lag and being up all night with an 18 month baby coupled with the concentrated nervousness of getting ready for a World Championships that was put on hold for 48 hours. Needless to say some of the facts of the week are a little fuzzy in my mind, even the part where I showed up in transition the morning of the race and the official noticed a crack in my helmet and told me I had to find a new one…one hour before the race was to start. I sort of remember running back to the little hotel, bursting into the breakfast room where the age groupers that had races the day before were relaxing over coffee and toast and asking very loudly if anybody could lend me a helmet. I found one, it fit ok. I was allowed into transition. Not elegant.

I actually haven’t found the journal of 2001 yet so I didn’t get to check these facts out, but it did get me to thinking about things I actually love, things that make my sport easier, better, more enjoyable. Concrete material objects. Yes, my journals are one thing.

In Pursuit of Excellence, by Terry Orlick. I love this book, partly because Terry Orlick is a Canadian and a brilliant sport psychologist, and because it is so readable. This was the first sport psychology book I ever owned, and I am not sure where the original copy is because Lance and I loaned it out so many times. I have the new edition. I loved it as a young athlete: it really helped me organize and use my mental capabilities as an athlete to a great degree.

I have been sponsored by New Balance for a couple of year now, and have settled into my new favourite running shoes, hands down the 890 Barringer/REVlite. I love this shoe. It is lightweight enough to race in, and well, I race in it, run base in it, run tempo in it, run track in it, and wear it around with my jeans. The 890 is an awesome shoe if you are into a lightweight neutral shoe with a minimal but highly responsive cushioning and a great ground feel. I can’t describe it any other way, but I love a shoe that feels both a little cushioned (but not squishy) and well behaved in the movement department. The new REVlite midsole are responsible for the lack of heft; it’s sort of like wearing low profile tires on your feet. Just enough tread to get around corners super fast but with lots of room for feel. New Balance has produced the shoe in lots of awesome colours too, which is just plain fun. OK, so I do love the cross country spikes and racing flats too….

I also love my PowerBar sponsorship. I have been sponsored by PowerBar since 1996 which is a fairly long time in the world of sport and I think that it just goes to show that community and partnerships can be strengthened and built over time. I can’t imagine training and racing without PowerBar gels and sport bars. How many times have these little bursts of energy saved me, saved a training day or a race? And more importantly, I distinctly remember training before PowerBar came along. I would honestly die in the last hour of every single session, or I would be dizzy and lightheaded from lack of calories. It’s amazing really, how much that small package of nutrition has done for my training. PowerBar is as much a staple of my athletic lifestyle as my shoes and my bike.

Now, I know that not just a few runners and triathlete really like compression garments. I wear compression socks when I travel but they have never really done anything for me in training or racing. Maybe I am just too tame to be seen wearing long pink socks in a race, or my claves are too puny for it to make any difference. Back in my twenties, I used to wear the same pair of lucky underwear every time I raced so I can understand the psychological pull of compression socks.

But recently I did try a new compression garment. A company called Intelliskin asked me to try out their new sports bra: the IntelliSkin’s Empower PosturecueÔ Sports Bra.

Posture and efficiency are closely linked in distance running. Having the correct posture helps you run tall and with improved biomechanical efficiency: this reduces fatigue over the course of a long run. The longer you can run, well, the faster you will go and your chances of injury are reduced.

I am happy with this product for 2 reasons: it has great functionality as a posture supporter and for cueing me to running tall and well and it works great as a running bra. Not all sports bras make great running bras…running is a highly dynamic activity with lots of arm, torso and shoulder movement. You need a comfortable sport bra that fits well without binding, chafing or constricting.

What I really liked about it though was the support it offers for posture and keeping the shoulders back while running, thereby reducing neck strain and overall fatigue. Throughout my training runs I was reminded to run tall and relaxed, two cues that create optimal biomechanics for running fast. You can look at it here:

https://shop.intelliskin.net/EMPOWER-POSTURECUE-SPORTS-BRA_p_62.html

This garment would be a great support to wear while travelling or while working at the computer, helping cue to correct posture and reducing the fatigue of sitting.

Of course, now that I have started there are a gazillion other things–material and emotional–that I love about running and triathlon. My Blue bike, coffee, muffins, chocolate, finishing a hard session, funny posts from the athletic community on facebook, getting muddy and wet, having a shower after getting all muddy and wet, and the smell of grass, travelling, poetry.

For now, I will leave you with this other not-quite-a-poem I found in my journals when I didn’t find what I was looking for:

A journey taken spontaneously,

Started when there didn’t seem to be a choice to NOT run

Running found me, seeped into my bones one year

And spread itself up into my heart.

What’s on your list?

What I know is that I run because I feel at home with running and it has always been my form of meditation. When I run I am free and thoughts flash through my mind with delightful ease or they pass not at all in those rare moments when my mind is only engaged in the act of running. When those thoughts are not helpful, or when they are old stories meant to hook me in to old habits, I see them for what they are because the rest of my body is both moving, but still.

I rarely think of my runs as a means to an end, though sometime I might think of my goals in that way. Running gives me a chance to release that thought and see goals as moving targets to shoot for.

When I am running I am fully committed and there is no fence sitting. This is a breath of fresh air in a life of responsibility and minute by minute decision making about what to make for supper or what is the correct way to respond to a frustrated child.

Each run is an adventure, of appreciating the feel of the air, the look of the sunlight as it slants through the trees or the way the trails opens up to a pasture full of sheep.

Some runs take me to greater adventures than others, but they are all the same.

Running just IS.

Lucy Smith

Taking kids overseas, now that is adventure unto itself. Giving them a chance to test their patience in long airport line ups and multiple security checks, to listen to other languages and eat unfamiliar foods, and to get by with what few toys they can carry in their carry on bag…it’s pretty fun to observe your kids negotiate their way around a foreign environment.

Our trip started with a half ironman triathlon, and ended with a stop at the California Pizza kitchen in downtown Manila, but in between those two experiences there were many extraordinary moments, first time events and mangoes.

All ready to Go!

We left Canada on the 10^th of August, at night, on an overnight flight to Manila. Four pieces of checked luggage and 2 Blue racing bikes makes for quite a load, but nothing compares to the days when the kids were young and we also had a car seats and a stroller to lug along!  Those overnight flights are quite something, 13 hours in the air but if you can sleep for 7 or 8 hours, watch a movie for 2, enjoy the in-flight meal for 1 hour, they don’t seem so long. And going west is easy. We went to bed at 11PM on the plane and landed 13 hours later at 4 in the morning. We were picked up by Alex, one of the Polo tri club members and by 5AM were on our way through the early morning streets of Manila for a nice breakfast before heading out to the Triathlon site at Cam Sur. Alex took us to the Peninsula for breakfast, one of the nicest more traditional hotels in Manila and before long we were seated in an elegant marble lobby with towering plants, blooming orchids and oversized tapestries hanging on the walls. It was grand, with the sophistication and formality of European influence. The kids feasted on waffles and mangos, my fruit plate was a heaping vitamin fest of mango, papaya, banana, melon and watermelon and there we enjoyed our first wonderful Philippine meal. We were alone in the lobby restaurant at 5 AM, save for one other table, occupied by a man and a woman who seemed to be consuming large quantities of beer and champagne. Hard to imagine how they were going to get through their day after that breakfast, but everybody has their own story.

Soon we were on our way to Camerines Sur for the Cobra Ironman 70.3 Philippines for three days of fun. As we landed Ross pointed out the window with joy…there was a band and dancers right outside the plane to welcome all the triathletes! It was loud and joyous and colourful, we were all given a traditional necklace made of Puka shells and it was a wonderful start to the weekend. Ironman events are always fun and boisterous.

The Grand Arrival in Cam Sur

There is a staggering amount of energy around a half or full Ironman and the Philippines race committee went full out. Between the athletes arriving with their blinged out racing bikes, to the extremely loud music that played constantly, to the smoking hot sun and humidity it was triathlon sensory overload. Going to triathlons is like going to a nightclub, without the night and the alcohol. It’s really just a big dance party of people showing up, showing off and having a ball. Can’t say I have been to a smoother run operation as far as checking in and getting ready to race goes, especially since we showed up only 2 days before the event and  I was unfamiliar with just about everything.

Race site was a Wake Board Park. A man made oval shaped lake with an island in the middle is surrounded by small cabins, and wake boarders can wait for a moving cable that runs overhead. You grab on to the rope as it goes by (sort of like the rope tow idea in skiing), hop off the launch pad and wake board around the lake. It was great fun to watch. The 70.3 had basically taken over the wake board park, setting up the pop up Ironman Village complete with restaurant, IM store and sponsors booths. Because of the heat, the restaurant tent had to be air conditioned, a feat accomplished by the aid of a WWll diesel engine that was constantly being tinkered with.

Power for the aircon came from this WW2 diesel engine.

The Wakeboard park and swim venue

My pre race ride was short and I only wanted to test my gears out, but there was no way I was going to venture out onto the zoo of a highway by myself anyway. Philippine traffic, while not aggressive or all that threatening, is mainly, congested, erratic and a crazy free for all, similar to driving in Italy, except for the sheer diversity of vehicles all trying to drive in the same space. Trucks, buses, vans, SUV’s, motorbikes, Jeepneys*, motorized tricycles, non motorized tricycles and bicycles all vie for a right of way, passing and going 2 or 3 abreast in what are mainly 2 lane roads. So my pre race ride was confined to several laps from transition to the highway and back.

We discovered an Iron kids race was being held the day before the half ironman and Maia decided she wanted to race, so Lance hunted down a bike for her to borrow and we got her signed up. She got her own official wrist band and race packet full of goodies, a race cap and even a timing chip that had to be attached to her ankle. It was all pretty exciting and she did an amazing job of getting herself ready. Even though she obviously has great resources to draw on, her motivation is all her own. It was her first open water mass start swim and she was very meticulous about going over the course, the transitions and figuring out exactly where she had to be.

On the Alaska Milk sign

Saturday morning we were woken up at 4:30AM with the sound of a downpour. Water streamed off the roof of our cabin, bounced off the deck outside the window. As she watched the rain she looked at me and said “They won’t cancel the race will they?”

Ross waiting for Maia

It’s always amazing, as a parent, to watch your children as they grow up, to support their activities as they gain independence. This was one of those moments. My role as mother and parent was being intertwined with that as spectator and fan. In the end, Maia’s race turned out to be an emotional mix of motherly love and fan appreciation.

Uncle Dan, Lance and Ross watch in T1

 The 300m swim was a huge challenge for her, and she switched to her fastest stroke, the breastroke half way through. While she rode, I waited at the start of the run course for her, while Ross played in the lake. I couldn’t get Ross out of the water—not that I can blame him, it was boiling hot already at 7AM and the water was nice—so I let Ross frolic, keeping one eye on him, and one eye out for Maia. Finally, I caught sight of Maia, and in that instant I knew something had happened. She had a look of distress and pain on her face. Her legs were covered in dirt; blood was caked in several places on her thighs and elbows. She had crashed and even though she was sobbing, she ran on.

Aftermath

On her second lap of the 2k ran, she was still running on, determined to finish and catch 2 girls up the path. She finished the race, after 2 crashes on the bike: one from being run into by an older kid and the second crash by hitting a spectator who walked across the course at the turn around. While in the medical tent getting her scrapes and bruises tended to, the older boy came and apologised, then a camera crew came over to interview her. She bravely told them about the race and her crashes then said that she would do the race again next year if she was there! Needless to say, Maia got lots of attention for the rest of the day for being so brave and tough after her crashes, and several athletes told her that she instilled a new sense of inspiration in them for their own race the next day. What a way to start the weekend!

I was very relaxed and excited about racing. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was racing age group not pro and it seemed to take the edge off somehow, which of course raised the question in my mind about whether racing pro could ever have that same sense of ‘fun’. Take out the money and the endorsements and the career on the line and it all changes. Or does it? Anyway, the main reason I didn’t race pro, is that at the start of the season, when I was suffering from pneumonia, I didn’t set any triathlon goals for the year, and in April, when my lungs were still healing,  I started riding my bike to gain strength, but racing triathlon wasn’t really on my radar screen. When I finished my first triathlon of the year in Victoria I had only set up my Blue time trial bike the week before, and swum 3 times (total since 2009 and that 3 times was all in the week before the race to see if I could survive the swim). After my second 10 day training camp, I was really starting to enjoy riding again, but at this point it occurred to me that all the pro rules had changed for 70.3 and Ironman events and I had missed the boat by several hundred miles had I wanted to race pro anyway this year. Hence, I asked for an age group spot in the Philippines, but decided beforehand that I was not going to take a spot to either 70.3 or Ironman worlds as an age grouper. So that is that back story to my relaxed and calm race demeanour.

I loved the race. I loved the experience of racing age group, and just being around so many other racers during the day. Getting up at 4AM was also a piece of cake and it was a nice treat, with the time change, to be wide awake and ready for action before the sun came up. I was organized and while I was a little nervous about the swim and the possibility of rain I was mainly excited. Because Lance was also racing I had to leave Maia and Ross with a nanny for the morning. Neither one was that excited about that, but our friend Kerri was also there with her daughter Kayla. Kayla is Maia’s age and helps out with Ross so I wasn’t too worried. They would survive just fine without me for a morning!

Maia gives her first sport interview.

Lance was in another wave, so I spent the last 20’ before the start by myself. I didn’t even really know anyone in my wave, so it was just me and several hundred swimmers, crowded in a holding pen by the beach. I saw Dan before the start. Dan was at the race coaching ad it was fun to have my brother out there. There weren’t that many women. A remote controlled helicopter camera hovered over the crowd, who all cheered and waved in excitement. I was in the third wave of swimmers, 5’ after the 30-49 age group for men. I just put myself second row and centre and got prepared for a washing machine. It was crazy fun. Usually I am in a wave of 10-20 women and it’s very quiet, especially for me as I usually swim alone. This was the opposite experience. I fit right in; in fact I was actually a better swimmer than most of the people around me for a change. It was great for my swim ego and I found myself right in the melee, doing fine, finding my space and my rhythm finding feet, swimming past people, getting bumped and jostled and swum over. I only got really whacked once. You always realize it later in the day, when you wonder why your brow hurts, then realize it’s the result of your goggles getting jammed into your face when someone hits your in the swim. The swim was very physical. Within several minutes I had swum up into the back of the wave in front and spent the rest of the swim negotiating my way past slower swimmers and people breaststroking along. After swimming around one small lake, we had to get out of the water and run over the second even smaller lake, the shallow wake boarding lake. Water so shallow and cloudy your couldn’t see your own arm pulling in front of your face. But the buoys were large and plentiful and I swam as hard as I could to finish. I came out in 35’, in a non wetsuit effort was instantly buoyed up by my smokin’ fast swim!

Transition was long and narrow, and my bike was at the end. I got out on the course and spent the first 35km filing up past other athletes. I was hard to pass sometimes as people were riding 2 abreast up the road and maybe with the language barrier, my shouts and pleas for “passing on your LEFT” went mainly unregarded. So I had to just go for it and pass up the centre line most of the way. I felt amazing. After the hilly 40k blast fest at the Sooke Olympic the weekend before, the flat constant effort was awesome. Although I was concentrating on riding well and staying aero, the course was interesting and fun. We kept going through small villages, that would be covered in race flags and banners and the street would be lined solid with people cheering. You would buzz by, get out in the open for a while and then hit another little town. To the left and right were mainly fields and pastures, those huge gray cattle standing out there silently amid the green.

The rain started around 35km. Light at first then tuned into an absolute downpour. I had removed my glasses, as I couldn’t see and then my eyes became flooded with rainwater. The rain came down in buckets, flooding the roads, you could see it bounding off the pavement in humungous drops, and it pelted my skin. The rain added to the sensory adventure of the day. It reminded me of racing boats in high wind and the constant spray that soaks you relentlessly. But it was also fun. I was laughing at how hard it was raining, what a crazy experience it was. After the half way mark, the numbers thinned out and the men who had been challenging me fell off the pace. I was alone for most of the way back to transition, just a few people way up to the road to key off.

As we rode through towns on the way home, the people were still there, standing in the downpour, some were holding broad green leaves over their heads, some were holding umbrellas and many just stood there, hair plastered against their heads, rain streaming down their faces. Cheerleaders with pompoms, bands playing, and dance troupes carried on in their vivid outfits. Soon I tuned into the laughter as I rode by. Little children would laugh at me as I passed. At first I thought they were laughing AT me; that I must look ridiculous to them, out there riding in a bathing suit in the rain. But then I realized that they were laughing at the fun of it all, that these triathletes buzzing by was just so fun they wanted to laugh out loud with joy. Their gleeful laughing and smiles reminded me to have fun with my day, not to take myself too seriously. That by being out there in my bike, I was taking part in some crazy fun adventure of sport. The children’s laughter continued on and on through the ride.

The usually fatigue started to set in close to the end of the ride. It was a flat course and I had pushed the same 2 or 3 gears for the whole ride. I had no guide for my effort, being out there on my own, except that I knew I wanted to ride close to 2.5 hours and since I had hit the turnaround at 1:15, I was on target. The perfect cone shape of Mayon Volcano was my guide back to transition. I hit T2 with that ingrained sense of urgency to get out on the run. Dismounting with much more grace than I did in Sooke the week before, and managing to keep hold of my bike this time, I took off with the intention of hitting a 1:30 half. Without doing any heat acclimation training for the humidity and heat, that was my goal for the day. AAAH. That lovely feeling of starting the run after the bike….my quads told me that yes, I had ridden hard. It was such an effort to run. It is such an amazing thing, to be both living the effort and almost beside yourself at how much effort it takes to run even 7 minute miles off the bike in that heat. After 15’ the effort becomes less of an issue as the legs adjust to the pace and your body finds some rhythm in the effort to propel yourself with efficiency. Alongside the triathlon pain, that run was a pure delight. It was hard and somewhat uncomfortable, but it was also beautiful. We ran out through the rice fields, along narrow roads that were lined with shacks and lean tos and all manner of put together dwellings. Chickens ran along the road in front of me, Van Halen’s “Jump” blared from a boom box from under a steel roof shack, a goat was tied up alongside the track. Children ran out from the fields along single track paths that divided the race paddies. Kids laughed and shouted at us, and slapped our hands as we ran through the villages. There was joy everywhere and the more you interacted with the people cheering, the louder and more boisterous they became. The run went by terribly fast. Over the slippery metal bridges I ran, Dan was out there, having run out from the transition to record in photographs and cheers on athletes from the Polo Triathlon team.

I so looked forward to finishing the race, to being able to stop and rest my weary legs, but at the same time I didn’t want the race to finish. I wanted it to carry on for a little while longer, I wanted to stay immersed in this wonderful day, like the time I did the NYC marathon and I didn’t want the last mile through Central Park to end.

In the end I did have to finish. I ran into the Ironman village, completely satisfied, tired and happy. After the race, I did stop. I stopped and chatted with pro Amanda Stevens about the day. And as we stood there, after a while I wasn’t sure I could move again. I was hungry but had no appetite yet. I saw the massage tent so I gravitated towards that and was guided into a mat on the floor, among a hundred athletes. I lay down with gratitude. The tent smelled nice, and there were little bright coloured paper balls hanging from the posts. A nice touch. I gave in to the ground and being able to rest and with the healing hands of a massage therapist rubbing my tired muscles, I had a space in which to feel appreciation for the experience I had just being given.

Lucy

To see Dan’s photos from the race go here:

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2011/08/photos/photos-ironman-70-3-philipines_36821