Hey! It’s been a while since I posted on here, so what better way to get back at it than with some good news? This season my team of athletes are rockin it so far. We’re halfway through the year, and it just seems like one PR after another!
Personally, I’m still healing from my broken wrist (read about it here if you didn’t get the scoop), so I can’t race in any triathlons right now. Makes me sad, but that’s the great part about my job — I can support my athletes and be their cheerleader!
This past weekend I was a proud coach…
LAUREN. Starting with Lauren. Recently this collegiate studette dominated a double triathlon weekend (sprint and Oly) that even banked her some money! Then this past weekend, she competed in a 5k open water swim race, which was uncharted territory but she’s a go-getter kind of girl and I knew she would handle it well with smart training leading up. It was definitely just a “C” race, and more for the experience… and, of course, for some friendly competition with her friends. The thing we’d be most careful of would be ensuring that her form didn’t break down during the swim. Non-stop swimming for 5,000m is no joke. Speed goals came second to good form and technique! Well, she smashed the swim, finishing in 1:38 (folks, that’s a 1:48 per 100yd pace for more than 3 miles!!!), earning 2nd in her age group, and beating some of her training buddies (including those of the opposite sex with whom she had some pre-race friendly smack talk goin on, haha yessss).
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DAMON. Then there’s good ol’ D. He had a half-ironman this weekend; his third showing at Eagleman 70.3 where he claimed to have “unfinished business,” haha. I had yet to 
coach D for Eagleman, so I was excited to see what he’d do with my guidance vs. what he did pre-coach. Damon and I work closely on his training to maximize what he’s getting out of his swim-bike-run training on limited time as to not sacrifice the bigger, more important, things in life: being a great father and husband, working a demanding job, and just having a lot of life responsibilities.
D averages 8- to 10-hour training weeks, and occasionally gets in a 12- to 13-hour week, but those are rather rare. That’s not a lot of time to work with, especially when you’re a guy like D who has big goals for himself! But we manage it just fine. As with all my athletes, we are in touch countless times a week and the plan is always evolving on the day to day. Personally, I think D’s training this season has been the best I’ve seen since I started coaching him in 2011. It takes time to evolve as an athlete when you finally make the leap to “train right.” — physically and mentally. D is in the groove! So going into Eagleman, I had total confidence he’d execute not only a fast, but SMART race!
I was right. The guy laid down a 5:07, smashing his former Eagelman time of 5:56 (nearly 50 minutes faster for you non-math majors), and also smashing his overall half-iron PR by nearly 30 minutes (last year he did a 5:35 after a bike-heavy race season and minimal tri training).
On top of smart racing, D’s nutrition was excellent. For the first time in a race he used MAP (Master Amino Acid Pattern), which no doubt helped prevent fatigue and keep him strong. He also used the Skratch Labs Drink mix + rice cake combo, and was diligent about getting in enough calories on the bike especially!
What else is there to say? He killed it… his first words to me post-race? “I want to go sub-5″… I like it! He also said he’s never felt better after a long-distance triathlon, either. That is big.
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JOHN. Last but not least….
My boyfriend John utterly killed his first-ever Olympic distance triathlon this weekend. I don’t directly coach him, but I have a large influence on what he does — including his diet, being that I cook most his meals haha. He’s really dialed in this training this year, and it shows. I was there to be sherpa, and witness the high of a great race! He got 5th in his (tough) AG and nailed his goal times in all three sports and overall! John has suffered from cramping issues in the past, and we’ve worked hard on getting rid of that. One of the big things for him has been better nutrition: He now sticks to a strict routine of Skratch, Bonk Breaker, MAP and some water. We came to the conclusion that earlier he just wasn’t taking in enough calories, but now he is. Combined with better training, the cramping is gone! And heck, in this race the 40k bike had more than 2k elevation gain (a lot for that distance), and he still ran a ~45:xx 10k off the bike, which is close to his open 10k time… the guy is getting good this year!!!
And he looked good doing so in his Coach Tawnee kit! As you can see below, I was out cheering for him and all the other racers, and I was even able to sneak in a run on the (tough) course while they were on the bike, yay.
I had even more athletes out there doing amazing things this weekend, but it’s time for me to head out and meet an athlete for a session of hill repeats on the bike. Till next time!