Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Hey folks! Welcome to the show. Listen. Triathlons are hard. Things don’t always go our way. The weather, the course, and our body don’t always cooperate on race day and sometimes we just don’t finish the race. Today we’ll talk about navigating and moving past a DNF or did not finish result. Our first coach joining us today is Joanna Nami. Joanna is better known as coach Jo-Jo and has been coaching athletes with TriDot since 2012. She is a co-founder of Hissy Fit Racing, a third year member of the Betty Design Squad, and has 16 IRONMAN finishes on her accomplished triathlon resume. Coach Jo has qualified for two IRONMAN World Championships and will be racing both St. George and Kona in 2022. Coach Jo, are you excited for that double world championship season coming up?

Joanna Nami: Yes, I’m very excited and a little nervous about the work ahead of me. I’ve got a good coach so I should be good.

Andrew: I trust and believe you will be good as well. Also joining us is that coach, John Mayfield. John is a USAT Level II and IRONMAN U certified coach who leads TriDot’s athlete services, ambassador, and coaching programs. He has coached hundreds of athletes ranging from first-timers to Kona qualifiers and professional triathletes. John has been using TriDot since 2010 and coaching with TriDot since 2012. So John, I intentionally waited until all the North American IRONMAN races were done for the season before recording this episode. I just didn’t want to jinx anybody heading into their big A race. Was that a smart call or do you think that was unnecessary? What do you think?

John Mayfield: I’ll say if– 2020 taught us a lot and one thing I learned in 2020 is to not say that I feel like races are going to happen. So I think there’s definitely something to that. It seems like, “Oh yeah. I feel really good that this race in 2020 is going to happen.” Inevitably they all got canceled. So I think there’s something to what you’re talking about. So I think waiting until the season was done was probably a smart move.

Andrew: Well, I’m Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with the cool down.

Hey folk! TriDot is currently running the 2021 edition of our annual research project that we call the Preseason Project. We are looking for non-TriDot athletes who want to jump into the research project this year. Qualifying athletes get two free months of TriDot training. It’s literally two months of the best training available in exchange for TriDot getting to analyze the training data that comes in from all those sessions. I started training with TriDot during the 2018 Preseason Project and immediately took a liking to the structured training schedule and saw huge improvements in my swim, bike, and run. Even once the two month research project was over I committed fully to TriDot training and have used it for everything from local sprints to my very first IRONMAN. I’m fitter and faster than I’ve ever been and more importantly, I’m enjoying my races, the sport, and the triathlon community much more than before. I also have a podcast now, but that is a different story. If you already train with TriDot now is the best time to invite your tri friends to participate in the Preseason Project and if you are a podcast listener and have never given our training a try, head to TriDot.com/psp to see if you qualify.

Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: One of the many things every endurance sport has in common are porta potties and the more you race the more opportunities you have to do your business in a lovely, claustrophobia-inducing plastic box full of questionable smells. John, Jo, we’re all adults here. We’ve all visited our fair share of porta potties. So leaving bowel movements out of this because no one wants to hear about that, tell us all about a porta potty visit that was extra eventful. John.

John: So I think most folks porta potties start before the race. Mine is actually after the race. So…

Andrew: Okay.

John: Like many of these stories you were part of this. You and I had just crossed the finish line together at Challenge Daytona last year and gosh, I don’t know. It was maybe 30-60 minutes later. I don’t know if it was all the nutrition products and the nerves and adrenaline and all that, but my stomach just started to turn and I needed a porta potty immediately. So one of the things that we had suggested to Challenge Daytona was that perhaps a few more porta potties in the transition area–

Andrew: They did not have enough. Yeah.

John: So there were a lot of folks there. A lot of folks use those porta potties in the morning. So now after the race as everybody was pulling their bikes out of transition I needed to use it and I went to the first and there was no toilet paper, second none, third none, and I’m running out of porta potties very rapidly and I know this is going to be really bad if I can’t find a porta potty with some toilet paper in it. Fortunately, like a Disney movie, literally the very last porta potty I checked had a fresh full roll in it and we had that happy ending. But man, I was super nervous as I opened that last door.

Andrew: That would be the crappiest Disney movie if there’s a Disney movie about that. Pun fully intended there. My story actually is also from Challenge Daytona so I’ll go ahead and share it because– but mine John is from the front side of the race. Before the race we’re all standing in line and again that was a race that they just didn’t have enough porta potties there on site that year. The line was long and actually I was in transition in the porta potty line at the time that they were supposed to be closing transition. So a lot of athletes had already moved over to where the lake was for the swim start and were congregating over there. The announcer was kind of getting everybody out of transition and there was probably still a couple dozen of us in line for these five or six porta potties. And I was like, “Oh no! If they pull me from this porta potty line because they’re trying to clear transition and I’m not going to be able to do my thing and this is not going to be good.” And thankfully those of us that were in line, they let us stay in line. They let us take care of business. So long story short, I’m in the porta potty doing my thing, kind of just really up and close to the actual time of the race start. So I was in the porta potty when unbeknownst to any of us Challenge Daytona decided that before the race started they were going to launch fireworks into the morning sky. So I didn’t know this. They were just playing the National Anthem, I’m sitting in the porta potty, I’m doing my thing. It was a very patriotic porta potty visit and all of a sudden fireworks just start. These mini explosions just start going off in the sky above me and it was very startling. So that’s where I was as all the athletes were watching the sunrise over Daytona Motor Speedway and enjoying this patriotic atmosphere as they’re about to start their swim. I was in a porta potty listening to those little explosions and listening to those fireworks go off and that’s probably not quite what the race directors had in mind when they planned for a firework start, but that’s how I experienced them. So, Coach Jo, what is a porta potty story that you have?

Joanna: First of all I want to thank you all for the honor of being a part of ya’lls porta potty stories.

Andrew: Yes.

Joanna: It’s been really... I try to maintain my girly girl status even though I participate in grueling IRONMAN racing. So I’m going to have to say that I did use the porta potty in my first IRONMAN which was 2010 I believe in Coeur d'Alene out of exhaustion and I basically went in the porta potty and had I not been in an IRONMAN race or been racing for 14 hours I would have never sat down in a porta potty.

Andrew: Sure.

Joanna: But at that time I easily sat down in the porta potty and then proceeded to lay my head against the side of the wall and rest it for a while.

Andrew: Sure.

Joanna: So that’s kind of my porta potty story. I am proud to say that I have not used one during a race since then. So that’s a pretty good record to hold.

John: That’s amazing. That’s 15 IRONMANs later and 0, plus the 70.3s and all that in between. That’s– I’m confident. I’m going to go on record as saying that’s a record. I don’t know how it’s possible.

Joanna: Knock on wood.

Andrew: We should see if IRONMAN is interested in doing a feature with Jo talking about her incredible bowel fortitude. Yeah, what a streak to have certainly. Guys, we’re going to throw this question out to you, our TriDot audience. And again, leave your actual bowel movements out of this, but let us know what was a porta potty stop whether it was a pre-race conversation you had in line with another athlete or maybe it was just something extra special that happened while you were going through that process like fireworks going off. Whatever it is, let us know what your best race day porta potty story is.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

Andrew: John, Jo, you two have much more race experience than I do. From all the races you’ve started have you ever been forced to DNF or have you ever been tempted to do so mid race, but hung in there to the finish line?

John: So, I’ve lost count of how many races I’ve done; somewhere probably in the give or take 75 range and out of those I do have two DNF’s. One was I had a crash on the bike and so that was the end of my day there. Messed up my bike so even when I felt like I could maybe hop back on and go, my bike was messed up so that was the end of the day for me. Then kind of almost funny story. This was way back in the day. I had gotten my first nice triathlon bike. It was the P3 that everyone had back in like 2010 and trying to save a few grams I replaced the aluminum stem that came on the bike with a carbon stem and what I didn’t realize was that carbon stem was cracked. So that same week I had a race, was taking it out. You know, nothing new on race day fail. So I go out and actually going down a hill at a pretty good clip and all of a sudden my bars are just swinging loose because the stem has come loose and I was probably doing 30+ miles an hour downhill with no ability to steer which was quite scary. So I reached the bottom of that hill and called it a day. So those are the two races that I was not able to finish, but yeah. As far as those that have I’ve been tempted to pull out of, I’d say that’s definitely happened more frequently and in fact, just racing IRONMAN Florida recently. There were a lot of times where I wanted nothing more than to pull out and to quit and it started very early. It is a two loop swim. You swim out from the beach. You swim over a relatively short way and then swim back to complete that 1.2 mile loop and then you do it all over. There was a really strong current that was pulling the direction where we were swimming into so instead of having that stretch take me give or take 5 minutes it took me 15 minutes and it was tough. I was getting pounded in the face by chop. It wasn’t particularly wavy or swells, but the wind out of the north was creating a chop on the water so every time I turned to breathe I was getting a face full of water. There were jellyfish out there. There were a lot of folks that were struggling to swim straight so every time I’d get in somewhat of a groove it seemed like somebody would just be swimming perpendicular to me. It was tough. I mean, I pushed on. I made it and then I actually saw Jo there on the beach and she told me that even the pros were taking 20 minutes longer than expected and I’m really glad. That was a huge help to me just to– because at that point I thought it was just me. I’ve had those days where I’ve had a bad swim and it’s me, it’s not the conditions, it’s not everyone else. It’s only happening to me. So that made it that much harder to deal with when I thought it was just me, but then when she told me that. For the pros to go 20 minutes longer on a swim is just crazy, but that gave me some context and made me realize that everyone is going through this. It’s not just me. So I headed back out for that second loop. It sucked. It was slower than the first and there were thoughts again of like “This sucks. I’m not enjoying this. This is not what I had hoped for.” But the day kind of changed from there. Same thing, got on the bike and the same wind that was creating that chop and making the swim conditions difficult I was now riding into those as a head wind and a side wind for the first 70 miles of that race and same thing. I was significantly slower than what I had hoped for and what I needed to achieve my goal. And there were thoughts along the way there. You know, it’s one of those things like, certainly not proud to say it, but I wanted nothing more than to quit. I was like, “This is dumb. This is not what I signed up for. This is not why I came and did this. I came here to reach a time goal, to set a PR.” Inevitably I was 30 minutes longer on the swim and 30 minutes longer on the bike than the race I had done in IRONMAN Maryland just seven weeks prior. I was not less fit seven weeks later. It was just the conditions. So it was hard to continue on knowing that I wasn’t going to achieve my goal. So it became about managing expectations and even adjusting expectations and finding something to go for. In fact, my wife wasn’t able to make the trip, but I had told her the day before. I was like if I go over 12 I’ll be disappointed. So kind of even setting up that if I go under 12 I won’t be disappointed. So that became my goal and I knew in the last six miles as I made the final turn to head back to the finish I had a little less than an hour to make those final miles and that became my motivation. I made it with like three minutes to spare.

Andrew: Yeah you did.

John: But 15:50_______ and so in retrospect I’m proud of that, but yeah. There were a lot of times for a lot of hours where I wanted nothing more than to quit that race just because it was not what I had hoped for.

Andrew: So Coach Jo, my understanding is that you have used a porta potty at an IRONMAN more times than you have DNF’d an IRONMAN. So knowing that, have you ever though been out there on the race course, regardless of the distance, and had the urge to DNF?

Joanna: Every single time. Every single full. Every half. Probably Olympics. I hate running. I hate it.

Andrew: Sure, yeah.

Joanna: I really hate it. I love to swim. I deal with biking. I hate running. So out hitting the run the first mile I have the same fight with myself every single time and it’s literally the same thoughts. It’s why can’t I just be a normal woman? Why don’t I take up crocheting? I’m going to start making quilts. Everything that I can think of as far as a hobby outside of torturing myself in IRONMAN I think of, but– and I tell this to my athletes. Get through those first couple of miles. The mindset changes very quickly and a million times it changes throughout an IRONMAN race. So yes, I have those thoughts many, many times on the run usually, but I usually– if you can push through the pain just for a short period of time your mindset will usually change for the better.

Andrew: So what are probably the most common reasons that a triathlete would drop out without completing the race?

John: So there are several different things. I think it’s the majority when it comes to long course racing, especially IRONMAN, a lot of those are missing those cutoffs. So we know there are those intermediate cutoffs throughout the race. If you don’t complete a certain portion of the race in a certain amount of time they have to pull you off the course. You know, there are races like Florida where there was a significant amount of athletes, I think there were over 500 athletes that did not complete the swim in the allotted 2 hours and 20 minutes which is a very high percentage of the field and that’s one of those where sometimes depending on conditions and different things you’ll have different percentages.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: Also, a very common thing would be health conditions. The weather, so kind of like what happened in Florida, but also races like this year’s IRONMAN Coeur d'Alene where the temperatures were extremely high. Stories like mine where you had a gear failure, something like that. Then even as Jo and I eluded to there’s a huge mental component to it as well and sometimes, I think often times, the mind will give up before the body and that becomes that continual fight of continuing to really just override that sensation or that desire, sometimes overwhelmingly desire to quit because it’s just so much easier. It’s so much more comfortable. So it’s developing that and having that mental fortitude just to keep pushing to stay in it.

Joanna: Yeah I think– just adding to what John is saying, I talk about with my athletes this constant correction of staying present and what can I do right in the moment to make myself feel better, to be more comfortable, to stay focused. To focus on the mile at hand and not three miles down the road and all of those factors that John is talking about whether it’s weather, illness, injury, mechanical issue. All those things are pulling away from that present focus and you’ve got to do those self checks. Literally it can be down to every five minutes in an IRONMAN to say “Okay, how am I right now.” Only think about right now and that plays into that mental fortitude.

Andrew: Yeah, Jo that actually reminds me of earlier this week Elizabeth James and I did a podcast recording with Coach Bobby McGee, famous running coach. A lot of the pro triathletes on the circuit use Bobby McGee as a consultant for them and their running form. We were talking about when you’re on the race course and you hit a dark patch, what do you do? How do you handle that? And that’s exactly what he said. He said be present in that moment and ask yourself “What can I do to get through this moment right here, right now?” And then just do it. Identify those things that you can do to get through that moment and just do them. So really cool to hear you say that as well and for our athletes listening there will be a really, really good episode with Coach Bobby McGee coming out sometime soon. But yeah, I’ve certainly seen it, John, this year. Since I’ve been on staff with TriDot it’s a privilege really to get to travel to so many of the races with you and other team members; Coach Jo included was with us in Panama City for IRONMAN Florida. When we travel to these races we get to see what athletes are going through on course. We get to see what their experiences are and good golly! Like, it has made me so thankful for my IRONMAN finish. It’s made me thankful for my IRONMAN weather. We didn’t have easy weather, but we also didn’t have impossible weather because I’ve seen…There are certainly athletes that were at IRONMAN Florida this year that were fit enough and were fully prepared to become an IRONMAN that day and if it hadn’t been for just astronomically crazy swim conditions they probably would have finished and they didn’t get to. There were athletes at IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene this year that were primed and ready and fit enough to become an IRONMAN and their body just did not respond to the 102 degree heat on the day and they had to withdraw. They had to DNF. So in Panama City, actually I met an athlete at our hotel. Once we saw John Mayfield go through T1 and we saw John Mayfield go out onto the bike course, we went back up to our room at the condo to kind of have some breakfast, refresh, reset, and go back down to cheer athletes on on the run. When we were walking upstairs the athlete staying in the room next to ours at the condo, he had DNF’d because of a bike mechanical. He was just five miles into the bike ride and his chain snapped. Literally snapped. I’ve never heard of a chain snapping before. So John, can you imagine getting through that swim, getting out on the bike, being relieved to be on your bike, and then your chain snaps and you’re out of the race. And that was his story. So DNF’s definitely happen for all the reasons you guys outlined. So this might depend on the distance of the race or even the time of year and the weather and such, but how common is a DNF? How many athletes DNF at any given race?

John: Inevitably there will be some whether it’s a sprint to an IRONMAN or even longer. The rates I would assume would be largely correlated to the distance. So I think you’re going to have a relatively low DNF rate at a sprint race whereas you’re going to see your highest DNF rates at an IRONMAN simply because of everything that’s involved and there’s a lot of time and a lot of miles for stuff to go wrong like having a chain snap. You’ve got more odds of your chain snapping when you’re riding 112 miles versus 12 miles.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: So the rates will vary and yeah, the conditions certainly play a factor. Obviously Florida and Coeur d’Alene this year had very high, abnormal DNF rates because of those conditions that no one could control and no one could do anything about. So the race will vary and especially at IRONMAN inevitably there is a small percentage; and it is relatively small. It’s a single digit number. I think what I’ve seen historically is something like 2 to 3% of the field doesn’t finish the race. But you have these kind of abnormal occurrences where that rate is going to be higher. But DNF is actually something that TriDot tracks through the Preseason Project to see what is the implication and what is the correlation between training and DNF and there’s a lot that goes into it, but the athletes that don’t train with TriDot have almost a two times higher occurrence of DNF. So there’s certainly a component too there that does involve the training and preparation both from a fitness level as well as just execution and everything else that goes into the race execution.

Andrew: So many of those causes that you identified that might cause someone to DNF are out of our control; you know, where something forces you out of the race and there’s no doubt that you are done for the day. I mean, John, both of your DNF’s were that case with your bike mechanicals. But other times you’re racing and you can keep racing, but you get it in your head that it would be better to withdraw. What are some signs or scenarios that would lead us to believe that choosing to DNF and pull ourselves out of the race would be the right call?

John: We always want to prioritize safety and health. So oftentimes athletes will dig themselves into a hole where they increase their risk of serious injury, serious health condition, even life threatening. I mean, unfortunately a reality of our sport is that there are a certain amount of fatalities every year and so obviously we want to do everything we can to be safe, to go home to our families and race another day regardless of what that means. If that means pulling out of the race, that’s obviously something that we want to do. So things like heat stroke where we’re getting too hot. Hyponatremia where we’re having issues with sodium levels. SIPE on the swim. There are a lot of very serious things that as athletes we can get ourselves into and really one of the scary things is oftentimes we get deep into these races and especially when we get into these depleted states where we may be experiencing something like heat stroke or hyponatremia. Our objective decision making is greatly eroded.

Andrew: Of course.

John: And it’s very difficult. You may think you’re fine. We’ve seen people out there on the course who say “Oh I’m fine. I’m good.” and they can’t walk straight. It’s almost like someone getting a drunk driving test. They say they’re fine. They’re good to drive and they can’t walk a straight line or touch their nose and those athletes in those severely depleted state, they may even think they’re fine. They may feel fine.

Joanna: Yeah, I think that we need reminders as athletes that there is medical staff there that often we are not, like John said, we don’t have the ability or mental awareness to make that decision on whether we can continue or not and that’s the role they play. It’s very important that often athletes get checked out and that decision is made for them. In contrast to that, I think recently we’ve witnessed some races that– I know I’ve been at a sprint and Olympic, even a full IRONMAN lately that swim conditions have been pretty atrocious and because of the lack of racing over the last year with pandemic I think there’s been a push to put athletes in the water.

Andrew: Yeah.

Joanna: Especially in a local sprint that I participated in, it was probably one of the most life threatening swims I’ve been in and even strong swimmers were terrified and cutting it short. Recently I had three athletes who are pretty experienced athletes and I was very confident in their abilities to complete an Olympic distance that was local here to Houston and they made the smart decision after entering the water to turn around and go back to shore and that was a proud moment as a coach because it was really a situation where no one should have been in the water and that decision wasn’t made by the race director. In those instances you’ve got to put your ego aside and make the right decision to either do not start or if you start and it becomes a really risky situation to remove yourself from that.

John: And that can play into another factor is how is that one event that you’re participating in; how is that going to impact future events? Especially if you’re racing a lower priority race with a higher priority race coming up. You know, you certainly don’t want to burn everything to the ground and sabotage that next race. So that can be a consideration as well. Is what is—This is something we see very frequently with professional athletes. The professional athletes will always have the highest DNF rate of any of the age groups so to speak simply because they’re not going to burn it to the ground if they don’t have to. If they’re out of contention and they have another opportunity to race in the coming weeks, they’re better off pulling out, staying fresh, not doing all that damage to their body so that they can race again in a couple weeks. It’s a different motivation. It’s a different intent, but everyone races a little bit differently. So for some it may be all about just completing the distance and finishing the race. Others may be more of a competitive outlook and so in that case, yeah. If you're Looking to be highly competitive and you’ve got another event coming up it may make sense to just pull the plug on today’s race so that you can race better in a couple weeks.

Andrew: So Jo, you and I were cheering for athletes at IRONMAN Florida while John was racing. He was there too. He was just out there on course doing his thing trying to talk himself into finishing, and it was like we said; just one of the most wild swims any of us had ever seen. We had several athletes that weren’t able to finish the swim. Either they didn’t make the cut off time or they made the decision themselves to get on a boat and withdraw. I mean, I was standing on the pier for a while watching the jet skis just bring people in that just were making the brave decision to pull themselves off the course and after that experience Jo, I watched you throughout the day kind of take phone calls with some of your athletes, meetup with some of your athletes in person, and really talk them through and shepherd them through really that moment of DNF’ing. What were you saying in those conversations with your athletes and what would you say to other athletes on how to handle those immediate emotions you face after dropping out of a race that meant a lot to you?

Joanna: I think there's a series of steps. As a coach in talking with an athlete that has just experienced a DNF or didn’t start for a certain reason, and in that there’s a first level of comfort and that probably goes back to parenting and motherhood and how I treat my athletes and I know John treats his athletes in that they’re emotions are extremely raw when something like this happens. It’s like any hard thing in life and they’re going to be experiencing a full array of emotions. So that first level is comfort and saying the right things in that moment or acknowledging their feelings and saying you’re feeling disappointment, you’re feeling sadness, you’re feeling anger, embarrassment, all of those things. That’s kind of the first step in acknowledging that, comforting them. My words always go to the same thing with my kids and with my athletes. The way that you are feeling right now, in this moment, it is temporary. You will feel differently tomorrow. You will feel differently next week. The main thing I try to emphasize with them is that they have to feel those emotions. There’s no getting around them. You have to go through them and you have to have grace for yourself and give yourself the time to go through that. In that moment as a coach or a friend or a teammate, if you are with someone or you’re by yourself, really the second priority is the physical needs. Getting an athlete changed. Getting them warm. If they had a medical reaction or an injury, getting them some medical care. That’s really number two. Do they need a drink? Do they need—and thirdly is when a little bit of time has passed, but even on scene, kind of going through what happened. Talk it through as far as the actual events that happened that led up to that. Talking about the circumstances. There was a lot of talking about the swim during that day at IRONMAN Florida with all types of athletes; ones that started and didn’t finish, ones that finished the swim, but their timing chip was taken. They all experienced different feelings according to what happened to them that day. So there was a lot of talking about it, explaining it so that they understood fully how tough that swim really was.

Andrew: Yeah, so once we get through that day of our DNF, we didn’t get the finisher medal, we didn’t accomplish our goal, but we courageously faced the course. We courageously faced our DNF and we navigated the emotions of the day and got through it. The days and weeks to come, you know you said that we’re going to experience a bunch of different emotions and that those emotions are going to change and shift. What emotions should we expect to feel and how should we handle the aftermath of our DNF?

John: It’s a lot like the stages of grief and I think to a certain extent it is because you are grieving something that didn’t come to fruition and especially something like a long course triathlon. That’s often something that we set as a goal and something that we work for. We’re very emotionally invested in for long periods of time, and yeah. It’s really tough when that goal isn't realized. So you go through a lot of those same things. I mean, initially you're definitely going to have the disappointment. That disappointment is going to be again kind of contingent upon how vested you were in that one event. For some if this was you’re IRONMAN that was your A race and you didn’t get to race for the past two years because races were canceled, that can be pretty devastating. That’s a big deal and I think that’s something as IRONMAN athletes that we get is that it is devastating. It’s a big deal. Not everyone is going to understand that. Not everyone understands what we do or why we do it, how we do it. So kind of those outsiders may or may not be the best feedback, but yeah. It’s a big deal. So it’s legitimate. There can be regret especially for those that made a decision. It’s one thing if the decision is made for you, but if you make that decision to pull out you may be questioning that decision especially in the days and weeks to follow. You know, “Could I have done something different? Should I have pressed on?” But that can be so hard in the moment. So you know, it’s one of those things it’s done. There’s no sense in beating yourself up over it, but then at some point I think there’s always acceptance and that’s even kind of where I’m at with my race. It’s not the day that I wanted. I did not get the time I wanted. I didn’t achieve the goal, but in retrospect even these things we’ve talked about. It was a tough day and I’ve got some cool stories to share now which is always something that we as triathletes highly value. You know, so I can say “Oh you’ve had a rough swim? Oh yeah, well I was part of the 2021 IRONMAN Florida swim.” So, you know, there’s that. Then there’s always opportunity to move on from there and it’s what’s next. Fortunately there’s going to be another race. There’s going to be another opportunity. So it’s something to set your sights on and begin to pursue again.

Joanna: Yeah, and adding to that—I usually ask my athletes “What are you feeling” or “How are you feeling today?” And it always comes up as embarrassed.

Andrew: Yeah.

Joanna: I think with social media we constantly put out there these giant goals, these tough goals we have for ourselves and we’re adults, but just like kids if something doesn’t go our way that day, we DNF the race, there’s a lot of embarrassment about the hype that you put out there to complete this goal which leads to often a lot of self doubt and that “Can I do this again?” “Do I really have the ability?” “Am I as good as these other people?” and that self doubt can be debilitating which will lead into what we do as far as future planning for racing. And some of that is fear as well. It’s that fear oW or that anxiety surrounding “will I ever be good enough?” “Can I do this?” “Can I be an IRONMAN?” “Can I make the podium?” “Can I qualify?” All these things that every athlete experiences.

Andrew: So Jo, we have those emotions, we feel those emotions. Those emotions are normal and very valid to feel. Once we have those emotions, what do we do with them? What do we do with those feelings of embarrassment, anger, fear on the back end of DNF’ing?

Joanna: Again, I’m going to go back to in how I talk to my teenage sons about dealing with disappointment, anger, fear, anxiety all from a loss or something that’s disappointing in life is that recognizing the emotion. Saying it out loud. Saying this is what I’m feeling. This is a normal, normal, normal response to what has just occurred. What John was saying, that brings some acceptance to saying “It is completely normal to feel this way and If I let myself feel it, I walk through it, I’m going to come out and I’m going to feel better. I’m going to understand what happened, and I’m going to be able to move on.”

Andrew: So you’ve both coached athletes through big race weekends where they walked away with an unfortunate DNF. Obviously some from this year, some from past years as well. Once you move past the emotions, how can we best examine what happened out there that led to us DNF’ing and how can we fix it for next time?

John: I think key is the honest evaluation and reflection. It’s really getting down to being objective and to say, “What led to this?” and then identifying what are those things that are within our control and what are those things that were not within our control. So oftentimes medical issues are a big reason that athletes will DNF and sometimes those can be managed, but sometimes not. I had an athlete DNF at an IRONMAN race one time. You know, he fell off the tracker. I found him in the med tent and I was like, “So sorry man. What happened?” and he was like “Well, my blood sugar dropped and I just couldn’t get it back up.” Unfortunately this was the first conversation that we ever had the fact that he had blood sugar issues and I was like—in the moment I was kind of upset with him. I was like, “Man! Why did we never have this conversation? Why did you not tell me that you have this issue with blood sugar?” Because obviously that’s a huge component that has to be managed out there during an IRONMAN race and things like that. Sometimes you may or may not have that ability to control that blood sugar, or you know sometimes you do. So next time you know you have this blood sugar issue so what are those things that you need to do to maintain that. Then other times an unfortunate reality, especially with long course racing, is sometimes the fitness just isn’t there. There were a lot of people at IRONMAN Florida that simply were not able to complete that distance in those conditions in that amount of time. Now granted it was much more difficult than normal, but those that had a certain amount of fitness were able to complete it and those that didn’t unfortunately were not. So there certainly is a physical component to it. There’s a certain minimal fitness level that is required to complete the distances of any race. So you know, that can be—is it was I lacking in fitness? Was my training inconsistent? And then things like that. What was the issue and then set a course to correct it?

Joanna: You know, I think it’s really important to recognize—I would say not all athletes are coached. Not all of us have someone to go to after the race, after we have this traumatic race experience, but finding an outside perspective. You know, we’re all social in training and in racing and if you have a friend, a teammate, coach, family member, somebody that has watched your journey or somebody that’s a part of your journey to talk through what occurred, talk through the situation, get their perspective. What John talked about is kind of identifying what went wrong and in that you're often–when you can get somebody's outside perspective or a coach's perspective, you’re going to be able to change the routine. You’re going to be able to identify the mistake whether it was a variation from a nutrition plan, whether it was something new on race day, whether it was something completely out of your control and you just can't recognize that. You know, that outside perspective often allows you to make changes to your training plan so that that mistake isn’t repeated or another mechanical malfunction is avoided. So I would say finding someone outside of just yourself and trying to figure out where the mistakes were made.

Andrew: You know an athlete goes through a race, they DNF, they get on the other side, when should they get back to their training again?

John: I would say as quickly as safely possible. So again, it’s going to be contingent upon why they DNF’d the race. For something like a mechanical, then you should be able to just hop back on and get back to training. If there were a medical related reason, obviously we want to address that whether it was in medical or an injury, that type of thing that prevented you from finishing the race. We certainly want to address that and not rush back in those situations, but I think for those that do have the ability to safely return to training, I think that that’s going to be therapeutic. It’s going to be good for the mind, good for the soul to get back at it, and again working towards whatever comes next.

Andrew: So there are for sure athletes who DNF a race and they already have their next few races on the calendar. So they just reset and they give it a go the next time. But for athletes that don’t have that next big race on the calendar, when should they look to get back to racing in the wake of a DNF?

John: So, again it’s going to depend on why they DNF’d, but for those that are able to I would say find a race as soon as possible. So I mentioned before, years ago I had a DNF at a sprint race. I crashed and I raced again two weeks later. I was able to—fortunately I didn’t have any major injuries from the crash. I was able to get my bike taken care of and I raced two weeks later and I actually was able to podium in that next race. So that was a great scramble to kind of get back at it. Yeah, I was frustrated with that DNF. I had literal wounds to lick and also those that—you know the disappointment of not being able to cross that finish line, but it felt really good to go and to race and to perform well thereafter. If there is the opportunity, you’ve got the fitness there in most cases, but so yeah—it’s use it if you've got it because unfortunately we are able to peak and we taper. We’re able to maintain that peak form for a relatively short period of time. So take advantage of it if you have the opportunity to do so, but if not, there’s not necessarily a rush. Evaluate the DNF, plan accordingly, and set that goal for whatever comes next.

Joanna: I can add that in what John was talking about as far as how do we—do we pick up training right away, do we put another race on the books? When it did result from a medical problem or an injury, that can be—you can go down a rabbit hole pretty quick. That can cause you to get depressed. You know, I’m going to just stop what I’m doing totally. It didn’t work out for me. I do encourage my athletes whether your routine now changes, whether the training picture looks different, whether we’re not sure when the next race will be to get moving. That can mean now I’m going to walk. Now I’m not going to run. That can mean yoga. That can mean at least getting out with teammates, friends, doing other exercise, keeping active, and sometimes we have to force ourselves to do that even when we don’t want to. But in the case that a DNF or DNS occurred because of an injury or we found out we had a medical condition, it is super important for ourselves to make ourselves and to encourage others that are experiencing it to get moving and maybe to modify their training plan in those instances.

Andrew: So I would imagine if a certain part of the race knocked you out last time—maybe you didn’t quite make that swim cut off or maybe you had a bike mechanical that you weren’t able to fix, maybe the heat caught up to you out on the run course—that would for sure be in my head the next time I reached that point in a race. Heading into your next race, how do you get past the hurdle that prevented you from finishing last time?

John: It’s about perspective. It’s taking that thing that took you down and doing everything within your power to take it down; to make sure that it doesn’t get you again. So now you have a huge source of motivation. So if you didn’t complete the swim or the swim didn’t go well, now every time you have a swim session come up that is your motivation. That is the one thing that is going to make you go to the pool on a cold morning and get in there and knock out your session. That becomes your nemesis and I think as the quintessential typical triathlete, we have that type A personality where oftentimes we almost need that adversity. We need that nemesis to compete with and so many times our top nemesis is ourselves or something within us that we are fighting and looking to overcome. So it’s one of those things where yeah it sucks, but it’s a great opportunity and a great thing for you now to focus on and to really turn that opportunity into something great where you’ve now identified—you paid a hefty price to identify that issue, now go and defeat it. Go and be better. Do what it takes to overcome that regardless of what it is. There’s always a solution. There’s always an opportunity to overcome whatever it was that took you down. So just go at with tenacity and just a fierce attack of it and turn that thing that brought you down into something that you absolutely crush. It’s something that took you down, but now it’s your strength. For example, if it’s the swim, a year later that swim may be your best discipline and you’re going to go attack that swim with all sorts of tenacity.

Joanna: I agree. And John, it’s super smart to say—you know we can define it the way we want to. We can say, “Okay, I was not a super strong swimmer. I struggled with breath control. I often felt like I couldn’t catch my breath in any open water swim or I had major panic attacks when I’m in the open water.” So this is my Achilles heel. I’m going to redefine it as my goal. This is going to be—like John said you’re going to focus on this, you’re going to conquer this. How do we do that? Get help. Number one sometimes that outside perspective, a swim coach or a teammate can help you analyze it, understand it, and then implement training practices aimed at that area that troubles you the most. Often  you're going to find some peace and some resolution with that issue and like John said, you’re going to come out as a stronger athlete overall. So you know, maybe it was good that it happened. Maybe you were able to identify that and in the long run that becomes a real strength of yours as a triathlete.

Andrew: So final thoughts here as we land the plane here on this DNF–as we finish this DNF main set. What would you tell an athlete who maybe is listening right now, maybe they experienced a DNF this season or last season and they’re still processing. They’re still trying to figure out what to do next season. What would you as a coach say to that athlete? And Jo, we’ll start with you.

Joanna: Umm, you know I've had this conversation with a lot of athletes probably over the last ten years and I do tell them that it is okay. It is normal to feel disappointment. It’s normal to feel all the feelings and feel them for a long time. I do tell them one race, one day, one moment does not define them as a triathlete. Everyone’s journey whether it’s in triathlon, whether it's in life is unique. It’s going to have a million turns along the way and it’s going to have lots of ups and downs and that DNF may just be one of the downs, but that’s going to be super, super small when it comes to looking at your whole journey and all of the epic moments and memories you’re going to have. You know, I also tell them—and this is often faith based but—that day was planned out for them along time before they even knew it and when it is their time to have that epic moment, to have that IRONMAN finish, to make that podium, to qualify for Kona, their time is going to come.

Andrew: Yeah.

Joanna: It will come. If you do the work, if you believe in yourself, if you surround yourself with strong, positive people that support you, you’re going to have your day. You have to know that. In the words—I’m going to fangirl here for a minute. But in the words of Heather Jackson, you have to keep showing up. You have to keep showing up even when it’s really, really hard. That’s showing up to the pool, showing up to the track when you hate running. You have to keep showing up and you are going to have that day.

Andrew: And Heather Jackson a primary example. She won IRONMAN Florida and she admitted at the finish line. She said it’s been a season with some ups. It’s been a season with some downs, but she kept showing up and she showed up to IRONMAN Florida and she walked away with an IRONMAN victory. John for you, what are your final thoughts here for athletes listening?

John: So I jotted down that triathlon is hard and it's part of the reason why we do it. I was actually reminded of the JFK speech when they were talking about going to the moon. Why go to the moon? Not because it’s easy, but because it's hard. I really feel like there’s no good reason for us to do triathlon other than it's hard and that’s why we get such gratification from it. There’s such satisfaction. It’s there’s so many opportunities to set goals and to then set another goal and another goal and a bigger goal and inevitably because we are doing things that are hard, there will be failures along the way. Whether that's just a failed training session, whether it’s a failed race where we don’t make it to the finish line. It’s inevitably going to happen, but again if it were easy then one, we wouldn’t ever fail in it and two, if we did we wouldn’t care because we wouldn’t be emotionally invested in it. It goes back to I think that’s why we love triathlon because of what it does for us in that regard. It’s that satisfaction. It’s that pride. It’s that sense of accomplishment. It’s that testing of what we’re made of and what we’re capable of. I remember coaching one of my good friends who’s just a phenomenal athlete to his first IRONMAN and he was asked why do it? And he said it’s because he didn’t know if he could. Objectively looking at him I 100% emphatically knew he could, but he didn't know that.

Andrew: Wow.

John: He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t done it and despite all his numerous other even athletic accomplishments he didn’t know if he could finish this triathlon and that’s really what makes it worthwhile. So you know, keeping that perspective that triathlon is hard and we do it because it’s hard and as Jo alluded to, when your day comes it’s going to be that much sweeter.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Andrew: Joining me for our cool down today is TriDot Ambassador Jonathan Brooks. I first met Jonathan at Challenge Daytona at the tail end of 2020 and you will not find a nicer guy who is more enthusiastic about triathlon. In the time I’ve known Johnathan I’ve seen him crush Challenge Daytona, DNF IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene, and then succeed at IRONMAN Florida. So on our show talking about not letting a DNF result defeat you I instantly thought of Jonathan’s story as he certainly did not let his earlier season DNF defeat him. So Jonathan, thanks for coming on the show to share your 2021 IRONMAN experience.

Jonathan Brooks: Thank you Andrew! I’m very excited to be here. I’m a really big fan of the podcast and TriDot in general.

Andrew: I always love to hear that obviously. Always happy to hear that. So Jonathan, you got your first crack at IRONMAN doing IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene, June of 2021. You had experience at the 70.3 distance already. You know, you had put in the training for a full. Physically you were ready to become an IRONMAN and then you and many others DNF’d in the shocking Idaho heat. When did you realize during that race that it was slipping away from you and how did you feel as you were withdrawing yourself from the run course?

Jonathan: Well, to be honest during the end of the bike I started to get a little worried. I really–at the beginning of the race the swim went perfectly. I was right on my TriDot RaceX predictions for the swim and actually the first lap of the bike, it was a very hilly bike and I had never really—I train in Florida so I don’t train on those. I was very surprised at my split on the first half, the 56 miles of the bike and I thought I was keeping up on my hydration. I think near the end of the second lap I could tell I was getting dehydrated and maybe even the beginnings of heat exhaustion.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jonathan: So when I went into transition I felt already lightheaded and I had a plan just to rest for like ten minutes, hydrate, and I started to feel better. Stopped at the porta potties which was a good sign for me, but then when I tried to run I realized I had nothing left in the tank and this was right at the beginning of the run.

Andrew: Yeah and we saw you, it was a three loop run course and we saw you come around at the tail end of loop one and you were already saying that you were just—you know, your body stopped sweating and you just, you knew right, that you needed to withdraw.

Jonathan: That’s somewhat correct. My plan then was to just walk the first two miles, try to hydrate and try to recoup some energy. But I could never really get more than maybe a 15 to 20 second jog in and it was actually one of the volunteers I think probably like a mile before I saw you where I sat at the aid station and tried to hydrate again and she’s the one who looked at me and she said, “Are you sure you want to go on?” And I said, “Well, I’m feeling pretty bad.” And she said, “Yeah.” She said, “You are not sweating and that is a bad sign.”

Andrew: Yeah.

Jonathan: And she pointed it out to me. I don’t think I had even realized it.

Andrew: Okay.

Jonathan: And I mean, literally probably like a minute before that I had ran through a sprinkler that someone was sprinkling and I mean I had dried off in like 30 seconds.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jonathan: I mean, it was just so crazy hot.

Andrew: So from IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene in June, and your next crack at IRONMAN was IRONMAN Florida in November, you had five months in between there of training to think about what happened, process it as you geared up for your second crack at IRONMAN. What was going on in your head as you trained for IRONMAN Florida? Was that DNF in the back of your mind or was it just all eyes on Florida?

Jonathan: I think the DNF was in the back of my mind every week of training.

Andrew: Okay.

Jonathan: It was more that I was so determined to finish an IRONMAN that I said “I have to do this training to the T and follow it as prescribed.” Because I knew if I did that I was going to finish IRONMAN Florida.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jonathan: So I forgo some of my group bike rides that I used to substitute in training. I made sure that I followed the swim workouts which was very difficult because my pool only had a 45 minute limit at that time and so I had to double up illegally on pool days.

Andrew: Okay.

Jonathan: I was very determined and I had a lot of encouragement from a lot of my friends and from the TriDot community I think which really helped.

Andrew: No, that’s great to hear that. I know that Florida was hot. It wasn’t IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene hot, but it was still hot out there and so what did you do differently with your hydration and stuff knowing that that’s what took you out the first time in Coeur d’Alene?

Jonathan: I think a big thing that I realized that I did in Coeur d’Alene is that I didn’t stop at all the rest stops during the bike and didn’t concentrate on making sure I took in extra fluids. I also switched back to taking some solid nutrition on the bike specifically like a PBJ sandwich at about the halfway point.

Andrew: Okay.

Jonathan: Because I think I was lacking nutrition. I mean, I still had three hours to digest it. So I tried that in both of my race rehearsals.It really worked. I mean, it was more really making a concerted effort to make sure I hydrate and also stay within my own body; follow my power and my heart rate and keep it at an even keel so I had enough left on the run.

Andrew: Gotcha. So the day of IRONMAN Florida comes, you know and already on this episode coaches John Mayfield and Joanna Nami mentioned what a challenging day it was particularly with the swim. I mean, you went by me about mile one of the run course and you yelled, “I feel so much better than I did in Coeur d’Alene!” And I was thrilled to hear that because after being there in Coeur d’Alene and seeing you pull yourself off the course it was great to see you succeed. Tell me a little about your day in Panama City Beach and what was it like crossing that long awaited IRONMAN finish line.

Jonathan: Well, Panama City Beach is the best venue I’ve been in I think for any half IRONMAN or 70.3 and probably even Olympic distance race. It was just a great atmosphere, a great venue. You know, I had a really good swim practice with Coach Joanna and she actually gave the whole group some tips with open water swimming which really came in handy on race day because during the actual swim warm up the conditions were really good,

Andrew: Yes they were.

Jonathan: The rest of the day it was definitely rough and when I got out of my halfway point on the swim during IRONMAN Florida I looked at my watch and I was ten minutes slower than I was predicted, but I thought I had a really good swim and so I thought “Well, maybe I just took it too easy.” I didn’t even realize how the conditions were affecting me.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jonathan: But the second lap I kind of put a little more effort into it and came in—for me anyway, other than around the buoys where there was so much chop and current and everything—other than that the swim went really well. I came out of the swim feeling really invigorated and got on my bike and the first thing I said on the bike is “Stay within myself. Don’t let that adrenaline make myself push too hard.”

Andrew: That’s awesome.

Jonathan: And I think I followed the plan really well on the bike. Coach John gave great advice. He said if you can reach mile 70 because most of the first 70 miles is either a headwind or a crosswind. He said once you reach mile 70 it’s all tailwind home and so I was just saying, “Okay, stay within myself until you reach mile 70 and then ride the tailwind home.”

Andrew: That’s awesome.

Jonathan: And that’s pretty much what I did and I think that’s why I felt so good on that first mile of the run.

Andrew: No that’s great and you finally made it to the finish line. Mike Riley was the one calling everybody’s names and they had fireworks going off for certain athletes. What was that finish line like for you after working so hard for it all year long?

Jonathan: Yes, oh the finish line was just what I imagined it would be with Mike Riley. I think I really struggled the last six miles of the run. I had to walk a lot. My wife met me about a mile before the finish line and she kind of walked with me during that way which was really nice to have her just walking alongside and she was taking some photos. I said as, “As soon as I hit the finish chute, I’m going to start running again.” And you could hear Mike Riley’s voice getting louder and louder as he was calling out names which really gives you a lot of energy. So it was a great feeling. I looked around before I reached the end of the chute to make sure no one else was running by me just as I think I heard in one of the TriDot podcasts about finishing strong and I felt like as much energy as I have I reached with my fist which was about all the energy I had. I originally was going to plan to jump really high, but I had nothing left in my legs to jump. So it was a great feeling and hearing his voice and all the hard work I had put in for almost two years like yourself you know with the cancellations and such. But I think the DNF that I had in Coeur d'Alene really gave me more energy at the end I think to really finish.

Andrew: Oh, that’s great. So for any other athletes that are listening that experienced a hard DNF recently, there have been so many tough races this year; it ‘s just a reminder that every finish line is precious. Every finish line should be treasured. So maybe similar to you. Maybe there was somebody who it was supposed to be their first IRONMAN or maybe they were stepping up from the sprint orOlympic to a longer distance or maybe it was even a local sprint or Olympic that an athlete really wanted to go well and they just weren’t able to finish. Any DNF can be disappointing. So what would you say to other athletes listening today that are still looking for their DNF redemption?

Jonathan: I think the most important thing for me was learn from your mistakes, realize that you can’t control the conditions and you can’t control everything about race day and so DNF’s are going to happen. I think I’ve heard after the race from so many athletes, even experienced athletes who have raced 10 or 12 IRONMANs, that they have had DNF’s. So I think if it’s something you really want and you really worked hard for, you’re going to finish one.

Andrew: That’s it for today folks. I want to thank Coach John Mayfield and Coach Joanna Nami for talking us through dealing with a DNF result at a race. Big thanks to TriDot Ambassador Johnathan Brooks for sharing his experience with us as well. Shoutout to UCAN for partnering with us on today’s episode. Have any triathlon questions or topics you want to hear us talk about? Head to tridot.com/podcast and let us know what you’re thinking. We’ll have a new show coming your way soon. Until then, Happy Training!

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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