Episode
142
Finding Fortitude in Faith: Lessons from Olympian Barb Lindquist
June 13, 2022

Today’s episode features Olympian and Triathlon Hall of Famer, Barb Lindquist. Host Andrew Harley and coach Elizabeth James interview Barb about her dominating career at the Olympic distance and her post-racing career specializing in developing Olympic hopefuls. Join us as Barb recalls pivotal moments from her racing career, including representing the USA at the Olympics, shares what motivated her as an athlete, and provides some coaching wisdom from her philosophy about balancing life and sport.

Huge thanks to deltaG for partnering with us on this episode.

To learn more about the performance boosting benefits of deltaG Ketones head to deltaGketones.com and use code TRIDOT20 for 20% off your order.

On their site you can:

1. Learn more about fueling with deltaG ketone products.

2. Make a standalone purchase, or subscribe for ongoing deltaG ketone deliveries.

3. Book a FREE 15 minute video consultation with Brian, an expert on exogenous ketones, and deltaG in particular, to discuss your individual goals and best choice of deltaG drink to exceed those goals.

Also a big thanks to UCAN for being a long time partner of the podcast! At TriDot we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. To experience UCAN’s LIVSTEADY products for yourself, head to their website UCAN.co! Use the code “TriDot” to save 20 percent on your entire order.

Transcript

TriDot Podcast .142

Finding Fortitude in Faith: Lessons from Olympian Barb Lindquist

Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and geneticprofile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence tooptimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewerinjuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talkall things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join theconversation and let’s improve together.

 

Andrew Harley: Hey, hey! Thanks for joining us for what Iexpect to be a top notch episode of the TriDot podcast. It’s always a privilegeto sit down and learn from a hall of famer in our sport and that is what wehave the chance to do today. TriDot founder and CEO, Jeff Booher, in particularexpressed to me how extra excited he is for this episode of the podcast. Todaywe are joined by Olympian and Hall of Famer, Barb Lindquist. Of her 134 procareer starts, she won 33 races. That’s 25%, one in four, times that shestarted a race she won. She stood on the podium 86 times and she had 114 topten finishes; that’s 85% of the time she raced she was in the top ten.Absolutely astounding. Her career covered all distances from sprint to Ironmanand she specialized in the Olympic distance where she was the number one rankedathlete in the world for two years in a row; 2003 and 2004. She representedteam USA in the 2004 Olympics in Athens placing 9th overall and in 2010 she wasinducted into the USAT Hall of Fame and in 2017 into the ITU Hall of Fame. Shedeveloped and led USAT’s collegiate recruitment program over ten years’ timestepping down from that role just three years ago. Barb, thanks so much forjoining the TriDot podcast for this episode.

 

Barb Lindquist: I’m so excited to get to talk with you Andrew.

 

Andrew: Also joining us for this conversation is protriathlete and Coach Elizabeth James. Elizabeth is a USAT Level II and IronmanU certified coach, who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDotfrom a beginner, to top age grouper, to a professional triathlete. She’s a Konaand Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since2014. Elizabeth, how are you doing today?

 

Elizabeth: I am doing really well and I’m also superexcited for this episode. So yeah, let’s kick it off.

 

Andrew: Let’s kick it off indeed. I'm Andrew theAverage 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 setconversation, and then wind things down with our cool down.

 

Before we get too deep into this show today Iwant to give a shout out to our good friends at UCAN. Here at TriDot we arehuge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. In the crowdedfield of nutrition companies what separates UCAN from the pack is the sciencebehind LIVESTEADY, the key ingredient in UCAN products. While most energypowders are filled with sugar or stimulants that cause a spike and crash, UCANEnergy Powders powered by LIVESTEADY deliver a steady release of complex carbsto give you stable blood sugar and provide long lasting energy. I personallyfuel my workouts with the orange flavored Edge Gel and the unflavored UCANEnergy. Between their Energy Mix, Energy Bars, Almond Butter, and more there isdefinitely a LIVESTEADY product that you will love. So head to their website,UCAN.co. That is UCAN.co and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entireorder. It used to be 10%, but the fine folks at UCAN have upped it to 20% offfor TriDot Nation. So once again, that’s UCAN.co promo code TRIDOT.

 

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

 

Andrew: Whether it’s your profession or your primaryhobby, triathlon can be a very consuming endeavor. We all know how much time wespend doing the training, thinking about the training, window shopping for thethings we need for the training all in an effort to support our multisport asour primary obsession or hobby. For our warm up question today, we turn asidefrom multisport to ask this. What is a hobby that you have outside of yourpassion for triathlon? Pro triathlete Elizabeth James, what is another hobbyyou have that is not triathlon related?

 

Elizabeth: This is a great question and I was trying tothink of like, man, you know as many episodes as we’ve done and as many storiesas I’ve shared about myself and Charles and I, what we’ve done, I don’t thinkwe’ve talked a lot about things that are hobbies outside of the sport.

 

Andrew: Yeah, right? Curveball.

 

Elizabeth: Yeah, like you said it’s a very time consumingendeavor and so I think this is a hobby that I’m going to share here that Ihaven’t done much in the past couple years, but it’s always been something Ilove, definitely will get back to it someday and it is charcoal drawings.

 

Andrew: Really!?

 

Elizabeth: Yes. I absolutely love to draw. I took a numberof art classes even in college if I had the extra time and kind of an extraopportunity. If I had a couple more credits that I could use, I actually spentthose credits on taking some art classes because I just enjoyed it so much.

 

Andrew: Oh wow.

 

Elizabeth: Actually in our house we have a couple of mycharcoal drawings. I even have one up in our guest bathroom from high school ofsome different roses and flowers and we’ve got some different landscapes. Iused to do that all the time as like family gifts. I mean my father-in-law hadthis picture of like some boats in the New England area and so I sketched thoseand drew those out for him one Christmas. So yeah, charcoal drawings. I don’tknow if anybody would have seen that one coming, but that’s why these are kindof fun. So we’ll throw that out there as my hobby outside of triathlon thatsomeday I will get back into.

 

Andrew: Yeah, I had no idea, Elizabeth, that that wouldbe your answer and what’s funny, before we started recording Barb you asked methat. You asked Elizabeth and I as well as we know each other now and as manypodcast episodes as we’ve done, would I know what her answer would be? Ithought Elizabeth, maybe you would go the golf direction because I know Charlesloves to golf and you’ve done that with him before. I know there’s some otherstuff in your sports background with soccer and pure running. I didn’t know ifyou might say something about that or something about rooting for Nebraskacollege football teams. I had no idea that charcoal drawing was a passion ofyours and a hobby of yours. I’m excited, Elizabeth, when we throw this questionout to our audience to hear what our audience has to say. Because our athletesare going to have answers that as well as we know some of our TriDotAmbassadors, we may not know things like that about them. So super fascinating.Thanks for opening up about that Elizabeth. Next time I’m at your house I’mgoing to be on the hunt for your charcoal drawings on the walls.

 

Elizabeth: Yes! I’ll have to show you.

 

Andrew: Yeah. Coach Barb, what is this answer for you?

 

Barb: Well, I really respect people who are creative because I don’tnecessarily have that in me. So I’m going to take this opportunity because I’myour guest, I’m going to give two answers because I live in Wyoming and we kindof have two different worlds here; the winter world and then the rest of theworld. So in the summer where we’re just almost starting although it snowed acouple times last week, my hobby would be golf.

 

Andrew: Okay.

 

Barb: So about eight years ago we stuck our kids, who are now 15 our twinboys, in a first tee program at the golf course a couple miles down the road.So Loren and I said, well we might as well hit a bucket of balls with hisgrandfather’s clubs while they’re in that. Then the next year we upgraded tohis parent’s 20-year-old clubs. Then I stuck with those for another year and hegot some new ones. But that’s maybe where I let my competitive outlet shinenow. So I’ve been in women's league for a couple years and yeah. In the winterwe’ll take a week to go down to St. George and I’ve never brought a bike downthere. I’ve never swam in a pool down there or in a lake.

 

Andrew: But you bring your clubs.

 

Barb: We golf, yes for a couple weeks and then come back to the snow. Sothat’s my first answer and the second would be that I love to read and for thelast three years I’ve been home schooling my boys. So I’ve always loved toread. I love historical fiction, but the homeschooling curriculum that we use,it’s not online stuff. It’s all books based. So I’m learning along with themand reading along with them and I just love that we can be lifelong students,not just students of the sport, but students of history or relearning somethingabout science or– I’m learning Spanish this year when I took Latin—

 

Andrew: Alright.

 

Barb: So, yeah. All that.

 

Andrew: I love the mindset of just being a lifelonglearner in that way, right? You’re never too old to learn. Never too old tocrack open a book and discover a new world or a different faction of historyyou weren’t familiar with before. I actually, I’m a Kindle guy. I really likedigesting my books on Kindle and the book that I’m reading right now correlateswith my secondary hobby on the side of triathlon. I’m reading a book called“The Power of Pawns” because my secondary hobby is playing chess. I reallyenjoy playing chess. So when I was kid, actually, in elementary school andmiddle school, our school district had a chess league so I was ranked. Everymonth there was a tournament. You played against other kids from other schools.I was the top player, not to brag, but top player at my elementary schoolgrowing up. So it was just a childhood passion of mine. My grandfather taughtme how to play at a young age. As you get into high school and college you kindof move on from those things and when The Queen’s Gambet TV show came out, Iwatched that on Netflix and it kind of just revived that interest of mineagain. So I downloaded the chess app on my phone and it’s really cool becauseyou can play people from all over the world. You can go on there and start agame and make a couple moves each day. So at any given moment I might beplaying a game of chess with somebody from Australia and somebody from Indiaand I wake up first thing in the morning and they’ve made a move while I wasasleep. What’s really cool for me is my sister-in-law, so my wife’s sister,she’s been dating a guy that she met at Baylor University and he startedplaying chess around the same time I did and it actually works out that we areabout the same ability level. So in chess you have an elo rating. So our Elorating is within about 50 or 60 points of each other so we’re a very goodmatch, but that’s become my secondary hobby. It’s a great way to kind of passthe time. Again, like I said. Very curious to hear what our audience is goingto say here because we’re going to find out all sorts of things about y’all’spersonalities that we never– we know we’re all triathletes, we know we’re allobsessed with this sport, but I know there’s some other obsessions in yourlives that you’re about to unpack for us. So make sure you are a part of your IAM TriDot Facebook group. Every single Monday when a new show comes out we postthis question to you, the warm up question, asking you. Today it is what is ahobby you have outside of triathlon? Can’t wait to hear what you guys have tosay.

 

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

 

DELTAG KETONES:  Ketones are nature’s super fuel and the teamhere at TriDot has been learning from Oxford University professor KieranClarke, founder and CEO of TdeltaS Global about the benefits of drinking therevolutionary Oxford Ketone Ester. My new favorite way to start the day is witha ketone-boosted cup of coffee. It is a must on those days where I need to bedialed in for anything from a triathlon training session to podcast recordings.The team at DeltaG created the Delta Gold Coffee Booster after research showedjust how well ketones and caffeine work together. Delta Gold Coffee Boostertruly empowers you to start your day like there’s some extra watts firing toyour brain. The team at DeltaG even offers free 15 minute one-on-oneconsultations where you can learn more about fueling your workouts or juststarting your day with Delta Gold Coffee Booster. You can book a call quick andeasy at deltagketones.com. So head to their website, deltagketones.com to bookyour free 15 minute consultation. When you place an order use code TRIDOT20 toget 20% off your super fueled ketone drinks.

 

Andrew: It’s always an honor to hear from and learnfrom someone with as great of an impact on triathlon as Barb Lindquist. Todaywe’ll hear stories from her story career, get a sneak peak into the developmentof modern day Olympians, and hear some triathlon wisdom from Coach Barb that wecan apply to our own swimming, biking, and running. So Barb, before you evertouched a triathlon, you swam collegiately at Stanford University, you spenttime with Team USA Swimming, and then you made the transition to triathlon. Nowback then there wasn’t a college recruitment program like there is today, sowhat led you to become a triathlete and what was that transition like fromStanford swimmer to triathlete?

 

Barb: Well it was a very slow transition because I turned pro at 26.

 

Andrew: Oh wow.

 

Barb: So I finished up my swimming career at Stanford, graduated, and thatsummer I actually had qualified for my second Pan American Games which was inCuba. So this is 1991. So I went and swam the 200 free, 400 free, and 4 x 200relay and when I got out of the pool in my last event which was the 400 free itwas a race that I should have won, but I got second to another American and Ididn’t swim it the way that I should have. I swam it conservatively when Ishould have gone out hard and the reason I swam it conservatively was because Iwas afraid of what it would look like to go out hard and have somebody pass meat the end.

 

Andrew: Yeah.

 

Barb: And, just that looks like you’re dying. Right?

 

Andrew: Sure.

 

Barb: So I was swimming out of the fear of failure towards the end of myswimming career. So I got out of the pool and went to the corner of thenatatorium and I cried because I knew that I was done as an elite athlete, oras a high level athlete.

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Barb: In fact, I had qualified for Olympic Trials in 1992 which was sixmonths later, but I said to myself, “Why do I want to swim for six more monthsto compete in the most competitive meet that there is– it’s more competitivethan the Olympics, US Olympic Trials– when I don’t like to compete anymore?”It’s not fun. I love to swim. I still loved to swim at that point, but I saidto myself, “Why do I want to do that?”

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Barb: So my mom had said– well, I grew up in Casper, Wyoming and when I wasten they built a second home in Jackson, Wyoming and so my mom had said, “Barb,you swam hard all these years, you studied hard all these years, why don’t youmove to Jackson, wait tables at night, ski all day, and live in the vacationhouse for a year while you’re trying to figure out what the next step is?”

 

Andrew: That’s a nice offer. That’s a nice propositionthere.

 

Barb: Yeah. It definitely didn’t take the Stanford degree to figure out thatwas the deal of the century. So a year turned into two and they started toraise the rent to get me to spread my wings and fly.

 

Andrew: Okay.

 

Barb: But Jackson at that time didn’t have an indoor pool, but a year laterthey had built an indoor pool. So I started to coach the club that was just asummer program, coach it into a year-round program and then we started a highschool program. So I started coaching and then in that time a friend was doinga triathlon so I’m like– when I moved to Jackson I bought a road bike becausethere’s all these great open roads to ride. I ran track in high school. I wasactually the Wyoming State Champion in the 2 mile.

 

Andrew: Ohhh. Awesome.

 

Barb: I know, that’s not saying too much. All off of swimming training, like Iran for two weeks after my spring nationals. So I’m running 16 miles on thetrails in Grand Teton National Park before I go in for my waiting tables atnight and so I’m like, “I can do this thing.” So I did well in this triathlonand I think once you do well in something, you want to continue. Fast forwardlike two years and on a cycling club ride, like most places we had a Tuesdaynight ride, and this guy Loren comes and rides up beside me. I knew who he wasbecause the town is small enough you kind of know who the athletes are and hehad dated my running partner a couple years prior. So when we’d go on theseruns I’d hear about this guy Loren. Anyway, he comes riding up and he says, youknow, “Do you race?” And of course I say, “Yeah I race triathlon.” You know,and roadies don’t have much respect for triathletes.

 

Andrew: Sure. Yeah.

 

Barb: But he wanted to continue the conversation and he said, “I think yourseat’s a little too high.” Later I said, “What were you doing looking at myseat?”

 

Andrew: That’s a great question.

 

Barb: It is, yeah. So he offered to give me a bike fit a couple days later soI went over to his house to get a bike fit. He made me dinner. He played theguitar and then on my way home that night there was a full moon out and so Icalled him when I got home and said, “Hey, you’ve got to look outside becausethe moon is beautiful. By the way I’m going to Vernal, Utah this weekend to doa triathlon. Do you want to come down and be my support crew?” So he says yesand we drive down there and I do the race and I place fourth, meaning threeguys beat me. I beat them all out of the water and Loren as a cyclist was outthere on the course and he said two of the guys were actually drafting andcheating, so really only one guy beat me and he had asked if I had ever thoughtof turning pro. That April I had done St. Anthony’s as an age grouper and mytime would have placed 13th in the pros. So I kind of had that as a reference.But anyway, we talk all the way home and he said he saw that weekend thispotential for me to be his wife and he saw this potential for me to be a protriathlete. I teasingly said, “I hope was in that order.” But, eight weekslater he proposed. So this is the fall of ‘95 and then in April of ‘96 we weremarried and on our honeymoon we did our first two pro races. I did St.Anthony’s and St. Crioux.

 

Elizabeth: Oh wow.

 

Barb: Yeah. Team Lindquist was born and he likes to say that not many peoplecan have their honeymoon as a tax deduction.

 

Andrew: Sure. For all the single athletes listening outthere, just make mental notes that a successful pickup line is “Hey, yourseat’s a little too high. Can I give you a free bike fit?” That’s a great wayto spark a relationship there apparently. Nice little cyclist flirtation.

 

Barb: But they also have to have those other skills of you know, guitar,cooking. They can’t just ask those questions.

 

Elizabeth: Yeah! I mean that was a whole evening there.

 

Barb: Umm-hmm.

 

Andrew: So once you were a pro triathlete, youspecialized in the Olympic distance which to me is kind of a nice foreshadowingto your career specializing in developing Olympic hopefuls. So in such acompetitive era of IT racing, what was it like coming up through those ranksand having such success at that distance?

 

Barb: Yeah, well it was much different than an athlete coming in now.

 

Andrew: Yeah.

 

Barb: First off, Loren was my coach and manager. So he was kind of the brainsbehind the operation and I was the brawn. But it took a while for my swimmer’sbody physique to kind of morph into a runner’s physique and even at the end ofmy career I was more of a strength runner, not one of these life runners thatare out there. But definitely at the beginning I was known as a swimmer andthen as a swimmer/cyclist and eventually kind of got that full package wherethe run came around. As far as USAT support goes, my first World ChampionshipsI made in ‘96 was in Cleveland and I for sure got a swimming suit. I for suregot a USA swimming suit. Maybe a t-shirt, but there was no team hotel. We hadno team meeting. I don’t remember meeting any of the other people on the teambeforehand. Actually, the qualification race for that Worlds, the Worlds wasdraft legal, but the qualification race was a non-drafting race.

 

Andrew: Okay. Wow.

 

Barb: So it was very, very new. You’re going to races without any support.Towards the end of my career when it became an Olympic sport you’d have a coachor team manager that would come to a race and a bike mechanic for some of thebigger ones and there was definitely more support. You stayed as a team. Youtalked about strategy, those sorts of things. Now when an athlete comes in it’seven grown in what USAT can do to provide for them. So it’s really been fun towatch over the last 20 - 25 years just how great the support is for athletescoming in.

 

Andrew: Yeah, and again at the Olympic distance, we saidit in your intro. You were the number one ranked athlete in the world in 2003and 2004 and your strategy, from what I’ve read, your race strategy you likedleading out from the front. Is that kind of because of what you learned at thePan America Games in your swim career, or is that just because it kind of fellnaturally that way because you were a strong swimmer? How did that kind ofbecome your race strategy to try to lead from the front and then stay there?

 

Barb: Yeah, well definitely with draft legal you have to play the cards thatare given you and I’m going to come out in the front pack or lead it out. So wecould turn– at points in my career– definitely we could turn a 20 second leadout of the swim into 3 minutes.

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Barb: So there would be a couple Australians then later a couple Americanswho would get out of the water. We would work together like we were a cyclingteam and we would take turns and be vocal and we’d talk ahead of the races andour goal was three minutes. Like, that was our goal and we would see each lap,“Oh we’re turn 20, okay now it’s 30. Now it’s like 45. Now it’s 70. We’re goingto crack ‘em. We’re going to crack ‘em!” Because at some point they’re going togive up in the back and they know that we’re going to be racing. So we justknew if we kept on it, kept on it, they were going to crack and give up. Thenyou know, you get out on the run and it’s every man for himself. That’s the waymost races turn out, but there’s one race– well there’s more than one racewhere that didn’t turn out. But there was one race that’s actually my favoriterace that I did in Ishigaki and it was in the early 2000’s. I had spent allwinter in Australia and had won the Australian Series and was going fromAustralia up to Ishigaki, Japan in April. I was fit, I was ready, I’ve racedthere before, I love Japan, this was my race to win. So we get out. My littleswimmer group gets out of the swim and we start working together on the bikeand our bike group it just starts to disintegrate. People start falling off. Ifound out later one girl found out she was just pregnant, another one had beencoming off of illness, but the big chase pack came up and caught the group. SoI don’t know what lap it is, let’s say two or three out of eight laps, and I’min this big group going kind of having a little bit of a pity party. “Oh man!This was my race to win! What happened to those guys? Now I’m here witheverybody!” And it took about a half a lap of that and I– This is what goes tolike working on your mental skills because one of my affirmations “I rise tothe challenges that are set around me.” Then I said, “You know what, I havenever got off the bike fresh to run. I’ve always worked hard on the bike withmy group. We are working hard. I’ve never got off the bike fresh.”

 

Andrew: Okay. Yeah.

 

Barb: So I’m in the group. We’re rotating through. It is an easy bike. So weget out on the run and Laura Bennett goes out like a banshee and I’m just kindof running with some other people and my group kind of starts to fall apart andthen we start to reel in Laura. Then I’ve got the World Duathlon Champion,Michelle Dillon, in that group. I mean, there’s like some really great runnersand they start popping off and start popping off. With 1K to go it’s justmyself and this little Italian girl who’s 20 and I’m 30 something and I’ve onlywon a sprint finish once in my life and that was against Joanna Zyger and shetold me later she had an asthma attack. So I know I’m not going to leave thisto the end so with 1K to go I say “I’m going to go now.” to myself.

 

Andrew: See what happens.

 

Barb: Yeah. So I explain it that it’s kind of like taking a step off a cliffand God put his hand under me and carried me the rest of the way onto a win andI won a runner’s race.

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Barb: It was just– yeah. One of my favorites because I wasn’t called a runnereven though one of my affirmations was “I’m a runner. I’m a runner.” and I’dsay that over and over again to the rhythm of my stride on a 10K.

 

Andrew: How many athletes listening to this who Identifywith that and say, “Oh, maybe I’m a cyclist, maybe I’m a swimmer, but I’m not arunner. I just kind of hang on for dear life at the end of a triathlon.” So youwould tell yourself that, “I’m a runner. I’m a runner.” and you would believethat and it would start to sink in. So I want people to catch that. If that’syou and you don’t identify as a runner, you’re in this sport. You are a runnerand start telling yourself that because that positive affirmation will pay offat some point on a race course.

 

Elizabeth: Gosh, that’s so cool. I mean we’ve talked beforeon the podcast about those affirmations and so just to hear from you as wellthat, you know, that’s part of what was your mental game as you were racing isso huge and I feel like that’s something a lot of people are going to be ableto connect with. Just, oh! It like gave me goosebumps hearing you talk throughthe whole race and like the excitement of it. I’m like on the edge of my seatas we’re just even here recording, like, “Ooh what’s going to happen?” Soagain, that’s so cool. Another race that I would love for us to just kind ofdive in and get your perspective on is the Life Time Tri Equalizer.
As Andrew and I were kind of preparing for this interview and prepping for it,we had never heard of this event until we were doing a little research. Butwow! So cool and if I may, just take a moment and give a little backstory andkind of connection here. This equalizer event caught my attention for a numberof reasons. Now there is a St. Patrick’s Day running event that my husband andI did every year while we were living in Nebraska and it was called theLeprechaun Chase and it’s a 10K race and it has kind of this gender base raceto the finish line. So the race kicks off with the women in the first wave andthen it’s followed by the men 5-½ minutes later. So I mean, my husband and Iwould do our kind of head-to-head race because I would get to be in the firstwave and then 5-½ minutes later he’d be chasing me down and I mean we traded onand off with who got to the finish line first. So it was a kind of big deal forour household each spring with who was going to win that event. So, I mean, forthe men and the women, whoever wins is the person that crosses the finish linefirst and they get bragging rights for their gender. You know, they get thecash prize whether it’s a man or a woman and then since it’s a St. Patrick’sday event, it’s free green beer for either the men or the women depending onwho won. But like the Life Time Tri Equalizer, excuse me, is run in kind ofthat similar format. So the inaugural year for that event was 2002 and the raceput the pro women against the pro men in kind of that same idea of thisequalized format where the women would start 9 minutes and 30 seconds before themen would and then the first athlete to cross the finish line took kind of that“battle of the sexes” style crown and was the ultimate winner. And Barb, thatwas you. I mean you won that event so I would just love to dive into that storytoo a little bit more and tell us what was that event like?

 

Barb: Well, first of all a couple really cool things, I should have named oneof my children Lifetime because they were just so generous and they reallywanted– their commitment to the sport was amazing and it was $50,000 prize forthe first person was unprecedented. So obviously it was a key race for theseason. Two things that happened in the pro meeting the night before. The firstone, they didn’t tell us what our head start was going to be. They had thistiming clock that you’d see at the end of a track meet or something and theystarted at maybe 15 minutes and they just worked it backwards and worked itbackwards until they stopped at the time and the way they came up with our headstart was that they looked at, they have some numbers– geeky number people– wholooked at world records for 1500 for women and men in the pool and 40K bikesand 10K runs. They did that and then they looked at the triathlon scene nowwith times. So they plugged all these numbers into the computer and that’swhere they came up with the time. The distance for that race was just a littlebit shorter than an Olympic distance so it was just kind of a little bit of anodd distance just because of the way the course was. So we didn’t really, likeI didn’t really know, was that a good amount of time or wasn’t it?

 

Andrew: Yeah.

 

Barb: Just pick your hard on race day, right? That’s out of your control.You’ve just got to like go for it. The second thing they said in the briefingwas at the finish line there is going to be gates on the side that you’re goingto run through and there will be a balloon arch at the start of the chute, butthat’s not the timing mat. The timing mat is a little bit further. So I’m like“I’ve got that. Check.” That’s in the back of the brain.

 

Andrew: Don’t stop at the balloons.

 

Barb: Yep. Don’t stop at the balloons. So we get out and get on the swim andI actually did not feel very good on the swim. I think I remember saying tomyself, “Whoa this is going to be a long day.” Then I got out on the bike andfelt good. So again, another thing to remember is that triathlon, especiallylonger races and even Olympic distance, you don’t have to feel good in allthree. You can feel bad in one and still rock out the next ones. So yeah. I hada great bike. I was kind of going back and forth I think with Becky GibbsLavelle who is from that area. We’re out on the run and I’m in the lead andwe’re coming into the finish, last quarter mile, and I know that Becky isbehind me and that Craig Walton from Australia is behind her and it’s all prettyclose. So I go into the chute and what do I do? I’m like sprinting because Iknow if Craig is anywhere near, he’s a guy, he’s going to be sprinting fasterthan me. So I better like boogie on. So I get to the balloons and what do I do,Andrew?

 

Andrew: You stopped.

 

Barb: I stopped.

 

Elizabeth: Oh no!

 

Barb: I stopped and they’re yelling “No! No! No! No! Go!”

 

Andrew: Keep going!

 

Barb: And when you’re at a full sprint and you stop and then you have to getgoing again knowing that people are behind you it was like rigor mortis.Da-da-da-da. It’s not the prettiest thing. So when you see the pictures of thefinish of that, I am like– my eyes are bugged out and I am reaching for thetape and I fall over the line because I don’t know how much time I have lost inthis little balloon debacle. Yeah, so that was–

 

Andrew: But you still won. But you still got it done.

 

Barb: Yes. I still won and they gave me the big check. You know, I got thebig check like a fancy one.

 

Andrew: Yeah.

 

Barb: Then when I went back home to the guys I swim with I was almost alittle embarrassed to say how much I won because that’s a lot of money. Butthen–

 

Andrew: I think the overall price purse was $200K forthe whole field. So you’re winning of that was the $50K which it’s publicinformation. Everybody knows you just won $50K from this race.

 

Barb: That’s right, but I swim with a lawyer and a real estate agent, a CPA,and I started doing the math like hourly for a year and yeah, they’re stillmaking more money than I am. But the next year it was $250,000. I’m not sure ifyou saw that in your research.

 

Andrew: Ohh. And you won that year as well, right?

 

Barb: I won that year as well and it was me and then like eight guys and thenext woman. So it’s not like they got the equalizer time– They did really wellboth years, right? Because Craig was 15 seconds behind me the first year andthen the next year it was me and then all these guys and then the next woman.So it’s not like ten women in the top ten and they messed up.

 

Andrew: No absolutely. And what it reminds me of is it’sfunny that you refer to the math data geeks were the ones that set that number.You know, crunch a bunch of numbers and Elizabeth it reminds me of how now withremote racing– When Predictive Fitness puts on remote races you finish therace, you get your time, you get your time equalized to the race course, butthen you can also press the equalizer button and it equalizes for age andgender. So I remember the first remote race I did, it was the inaugural USATInaugural Remote Racing National Championships last year and I think overall Iwas like 10th or 14th or whatever and once I hit the equalizer it was not kindto me as a 33-year-old male. because I had all of these older athletes and somefemale athletes pass me because when you account for age and gender, theirperformance was superior to mine across the board. But just like you said, Barbthe data geeks and software engineers at TriDot are the ones that are crunchingthe numbers and have the algorithms that dictate whose performance was betterbetween a 33-year-old male and a 63-year-old female who ended up doing betterthan me in the equalized standings. It’s a fascinating thing in sports toexamine and I always love seeing it with remote racing. Anytime there’s a newremote race even if I don’t participate I always go look at the standings andlook at them pre-equalized and then equalize them and then look at them to seewho moved and who wasn’t in the top ten that is now in the top ten and vice versa.It’s really cool. It’s really cool to see that back in the day they used to dothat as a professional field race and I wonder how many people would watch it.I mean Elizabeth, I can imagine as a pro I mean would you want to participatein a modern day equalizer race with a pro field?

 

Elizabeth: I think that would be fantastic. Yeah. I mean Ilove the Leprechaun Chase that Charles and I did and so I’m like, “Man, theyhad that in triathlon for a bit? Let’s bring this back!”

 

Andrew: So Barb, earlier in your swim career you werepart of Team USA Swimming. You talked about competing at the Pan AmericanGames, but you never competed at the Olympics as an Olympic swimmer. So fastforward to the Athens Games in 2004. Triathlon became an Olympic sport so theAthens Games of ‘04 was the second time that triathlon was in the Olympics.What did it mean to you to get to represent the United States at the Athensgames as a triathlete?

 

Barb: You know, I think like maybe many of your athletes, I bleed red, white,and blue. In fact, now when we go to sporting events for my kids and they– Herewe have the American Flag always and the National Anthem, I still get teared upand chills and I think back to all the times that I’ve seen the American Flagraised for me around the world on the podium. So I just love our country and itwas just such an honor to represent and wear the USA on my chest. But kind ofbacking up, it was in the Olympics for the first time in 2000 and I was rankedthird in the world and had been the top American for a couple years and didn’tget to go to the big show. It was actually a blessing in 2000 and if you’llindulge me, can I tell you a reason why I can say that?

 

Andrew: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

 

Barb: Yeah, so when I didn’t make the Olympic team in 2000 it was kind of twoodd races; one I crashed on the bike and on the test event in Athens I actuallycrashed twice on the bike and still came out in the front pack on the run, feltamazing. I mean, felt so good I just said to myself, “No heroes Barb. You justhave to be the top American across the line.” And at about 7.5K I start to sayto myself, “Whoo I’m starting to lose focus here. Bring it back Barb. Bring itback Barb.” And I think by maybe 9K somebody passed me and then by the end Idid like a stumble fall, stumble fall, stumble fall across the line. I thinkwhat happened is that you know, when you crash your adrenaline goes straight upand I think that’s just why I felt so good going out on the run. I was runningconservative, but at some point it has to come down and that’s what I thinkhappened in that to crash twice with a pretty good dent in the helmet. Yeah.All that stuff. So the next race was in Dallas at the end of May. You guys knowwhat the temperature is like there right now.

 

Andrew: Yeah, sure do.

 

Barb: Yeah so I had struggled with some heat races before and Sheila Taorminaand myself came out of the water together and we had a 3-½ minute lead goinginto the run and you just had to be the top two Americans there. So I just saidto myself, “No heroes Barb.” It’s hot out here and it was a four loop courseand by the end of the third lap I can feel that I’m losing control of my legs,that they’re kind of hitting each other and a couple people passed me and thiswas the first race at that point that I had ever pulled out because I had heatstroke before and I was going down this path.

 

Andrew: Yeah.

 

Barb: So kind of like two really odd races where I feel like if God wouldhave wanted me, he could have changed adrenaline, He could have– You know. Ifeel like I was the best athlete at that time and I didn’t get to go and that’sjust the way sport is. So that’s 2000. So I continue on racing and I had mybest years of racing in 2002, ‘03, ‘04 including those races we talked about,Life Time. Like, best races financially. One of those years I won 13 of 17races.

 

Andrew: That’s awesome.

 

Barb: Then get to go do the Olympics in 2004, but I think; I really believethat if I had made the team in 2000 then I think some of my edge would havebeen off. I would have felt, especially after being to Olympic trials forswimming, and age 31, and my husband’s a little older. I don’t know if I wouldhave continued on racing much past that.

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Barb: My edge would have been off. So I don’t know if I would have had thosegreat financial years and the reason I mention that is that when I retired inNovember, we got pregnant in April with twins, those years of racing and whatwe made financially allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom.

 

Andrew: That’s awesome.

 

Barb: It allowed me to choose to work as much as I wanted to. I mean I workedfor USAT. It was parttime and I got to do it, except for traveling for campsand races, all from home. So I was able to be there for my kids and you cantell the kids where their parents are there and you can tell the kids where theparents weren’t really there. So if you would have asked me as an athlete in2000 “Hey, you get a choice. You get to make an Olympic team or you can stay athome with your kids that maybe you’ll have someday.” I would have chosen theOlympic team in a second.

 

Andrew: Sure. Yeah.

 

Barb: So, I don’t know if that all makes sense to you…

 

Andrew: Oh absolutely.

 

Barb: …but in thinking past. You know, you have time to retrospect when yourcareer is all over and I just really think that God had a bigger picture for meand I’m going to tear up with it. Like a bigger picture for us than me gettingto race in Sydney. I mean I loved Australia. I spent eight winters there. Ijust knew that course, loved it. I mean I was probably a better athlete thenthan I was in Athens, but there’s more important things than that and Godknows.

 

Elizabeth: Goodness, you’re going to make me tear up too.Thank you for sharing that with us here on the recording and our audience. Imean, as we sit here I don’t know if you can see on my shirt, but I’ve got the“God is greater than the highs and lows.” And that’s a big thing for me. Sothat’s something that I’ve just always tried to keep in perspective too of likethe sport is great and wow, the opportunities that we have are fantastic andthere are so many exciting things and there are some lows with it, but justkeeping that like eternal perspective is cool. It almost makes me lose my wordsand I’m fumbling over them now because it’s just like that’s awesome to hear.So kind of to shift us here back I guess into the collegiate recruitmentprogram a little bit and maybe another plan that He had and kind of yourjourney here. I mean, that race in Athens was kind of your beginning of theimpact on Team USA Triathlon. I mean, from there you started and developed thecollegiate recruitment program that USA Triathlon uses to identify Olympictriathletes. So take us back a little bit on that part of the journey. What’skind of the origin story for the recruitment program and your involvement inthat?

 

Barb: Yeah, well when I had talked with our high performance director atUSAT, at the time when I was racing it was Libby Burrell, and we had beentalking towards my last year of racing which was the year after the Olympics Iraced one more year in 2005, about I wanted to help out and give back and sothey created this role called the elite development coach. So I mentoredcoaches and worked with some of the elites that were coming up through thepipeline. A couple years passed that, the new high performance director, hisname was Scott Schnitzspahn. When you’re part of a big corporation– I don’tthink you have this at TriDot, maybe not– you have to write up goals for theyear. Have you guys ever had to do that before? Goals for the year? So I wroteone of my goals was if somebody wanted to methodically recruit collegiaterunners and swimmers, how would you go about doing it? So I wrote up thislittle plan, these steps of how you would go and recruit people like myself tobe Olympians. Well Scott said, “How would you like to make that your job?”

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Barb: So, like, yeah! Cool! So it was all from the start. So you have tofigure out, well what type of athlete do we recruit? What are our timestandards? How fast of a runner do they have to be? When they’re a swimmer howfast of a runner do they have to be? When they’re a runner, like, you know howit is to teach adults how to swim. There has to be some sort of swim backgroundthere.

 

Andrew: Absolutely! Yeah.

 

Barb: Are you one of those Elizabeth?

 

Elizabeth: I might be one of those. I’m hiding my face herenow.

 

Barb: –when they’re young. Then how do we get the word out about this program?So I had to develop relationships with NCAA coaches and I went to NCAAchampionships and had a booth and gave out information. Then once we identifyathletes, what do we do with them? Do we– yeah, what do we do with them? So fora while I found local coaches, maybe like yourselves, where I would set them upwith the athlete so the athlete could stay where they were and then I wouldmentor the coach and the athlete as they’re kind of coming up through theranks. Then eventually we started a resident program at the Olympic TrainingCenter so we could take those best athletes and stick them with a coach andhave them fully supported. So Gwen, for example, Gwen Jorgensen, she stayed inWisconsin and had a local coach, Cindy Bannink, who brought her along throughthe first Olympics. Katie, we also at the very start, she had a local coach,but then she was in the first class that came to the Olympic Training Centerand got to train there for a while. Now there’s squads out there; there’sinternational squads where athletes can go too, but that was kind of theorigins of it. Yeah, this last Olympics that we had in Tokyo we had threecollegiate recruits on the team, Summer, Katie, and Morgan, and the other twoathletes came through our junior program that Steve Kelly– he was kind of myparallel compatriot with that– developed the junior athletes and after Tokyo wegot a lovely email from Rocky, the CEO at USAT to myself and Steve and Andy Schmitzwho was the high performance director after Scott, and then Bobby McGee,running guru, and Rocky said something like, “This was your Olympic team.”

 

Andrew: Yeah.

 

Barb: Because we had the CRP and the juniors and Bobby had worked with both ofthem and Andy had been amazing overseeing with it. Yeah. I mean, Rocky is asuper classy guy and I’m just so happy with his leadership there. Then youknow, with the CRP having both Scott and Andy were excellent. I mean they weremy boss because they were high performance director, but they never made mefeel like an underling by any means. They let me run with it, but they werethere to bounce off ideas and they were big picture and had great ideasthemselves because the program had to completely morph over all those yearsfrom the very beginning from our time standards to everything. It always had toevolve just like the sport of triathlon evolves.

 

Elizabeth: That’s really cool to hear just how that allkind of comes together and the different pieces of it. I know that our TriDotfounder and CEO, Jeff Booher, speaks very positively about his time workingwith you in Colorado Springs. I mean coaching Olympic hopefuls in that top 12program alongside with you and Bobby McGee. As we’re kind of talking about thatit made Andrew and I wonder, what do you remember about coaching alongside ourDot Father here, Jeff? Any funny stories that you can share with us about ourboss? Anything you would like to put out there from your times together?

 

Barb: Dot Father. That’s hilarious. I love that. Well, actually, Jeff was oneof the local coaches that I talked about that I set up with an athlete who wasa runner and he was living in Dallas. So that I think was the first time that Imet Jeff was through that relationship of getting to mentor him, although hehad plenty of goods to bring to the table with coaching this athlete. Butthat’s the first time I really got to know him as a person and just see how hecared for the athlete too. And our paths have crossed many times since andsometimes it’s just small conversations and sometimes conversations that havenothing to do with triathlon. But he’s a man of God and he has integrity andyou can see when he’s talking to you that he cares about you, just the way helooks at you. He obviously cares about you as a person first and then whateverthe purpose of the conversation that’s kind of secondary. So yeah. You guys arevery blessed to have him. I don’t have any funny stories. I’m so sorry aboutthat.

 

Andrew: If you think of one just email Elizabeth and Iseparately. We’ll make sure that it gets told on the podcast. I trust in themiddle of the night one of these days you’ll wake up and be like, “Oh, I’ve gotone!”

 

Barb: You know as much as he knows about triathlon, he’s also got thatbusiness acumen. It’s kind of like you Elizabeth when you’ve got this creativeside. I really respect people who’s wheelhouse is not anywhere near mine onthings like that. So yeah, I respect that he loves triathlon and knows so muchabout it, but has a business model to be able to share that knowledge andfamily and all the positive things that triathlon has with other people.

 

Andrew: So Jeff was actually there at the Broadmoor inColorado Springs when you were inducted into the USAT Hall of Fame. In the sameceremony it was you, Mark Allen, and Hunter Kemper being honored as the hall offamers there. Amongst just all of your other career accomplishments, what doesthat particular honor mean to you?

 

Barb: Yeah, those are two legends to be inducted in with. Now that I’m on thehall of fame committee and get to look at the resumes of the people, people whoare in our sport, I mean we have some amazing people not who have just donethings– incredible accomplishments on the field of play, but they have given somuch back to the sport. The quality of people of triathletes out there is verydeep. So it was a real honor to get to share that. I felt like I was sharingthat honor with Loren because we are Team Lindquist and I couldn’t have beenthere without him, nor would I have wanted to. So I hope that he felt honoredon that night too. It was pretty amazing.

 

Andrew: So you had success, like we said, at alldistances in your pro career, but a specialty of yours was the Olympicdistance. It’s a popular distance for our audience. It’s so challenging, butit’s so fun to race an Olympic. What should our mindset be toeing the line atan Olympic rather than some of the other distances?

 

Barb: So I did a half. I did Wildflower back in the early 2000’s and I won.

 

Andrew: Nice.

 

Barb: In 2000 when I didn’t make the Olympic team I got a nice letter, likein the mail letter, from Lew Friedland who was the head of WTC at the time andhe said, “I’m so sorry you didn’t make the Olympic team. Would you like to comerace Hawaii this year?” So that would not happen now right, because the proshave all this poisure to get there.

 

Andrew: Sure.

 

Barb: But I went and raced Hawaii. I trained Olympic distance all year andthen just increased my long run and long ride. In fact I won LA Triathlon threeweeks before that and that was a $20,000 prize purse which I think was more, itmight have been more than third place at Hawaii that year.

 

Andrew: Wow.

 

Barb: Yeah, but anyway. But I love Olympic distance because you get to raceit. You get to push yourself to the redline whereas those longer races it's thedistance that pushes you to the redline and for most people you’re kind ofholding back all day long in one of the longer races. I mean you’ve got yourexceptions, pros and stuff like that.

 

Andrew: Sure.

 

Barb: But I love just getting to be aggressive and it’s short enough that youcan race more than a couple a year for sure and you can learn from each one. Itell my athletes, you don’t know where the redline is unless you go over it andI went over it a few times in my racing and had some heat stroke and stuff likethat.

 

Andrew: Some learning opportunities. Yeah.

 

Barb: Exactly. But you know you never know until you over it. So becauseOlympic distance is so short you can recover from it and race again in anothertwo or three weeks. I could say the same thing about the sprint now. That isjust a fun distance for sure.

 

Elizabeth: So a foundation of your coaching philosophy isthat you should fit triathlon into your life, not your life into triathlon. Nowin an arena where balance is often sacrificed at kind of the alter ofachievement I was just going to ask if you were able to follow that balancekind of yourself while competing?

 

Barb: Yeah, actually one of my prayers to God was, if this sport ever takesover #1 in my life, because it should be God, my husband, and triathlon like inthat order, I said wack me upside the head to make sure that it does. I thinkbecause Loren was– we did everything together, he was my coach manager. Hetraveled around. It was something– we didn’t have kids– like it was easy to notpush him aside and then really triathlon was the second chance at sport. Ireally feel like God had his hand on the sport with me. So it was– I won’t sayit was easy to keep in the forefront, but I always knew that this was hismission field and I was kind of along for the ride.

 

Elizabeth: Gosh that’s awesome. I am very fortunate to bein a women’s Bible study each Monday evening and all of us are athletes andthat’s kind of something that we make sure that we are calling each other outon and making sure that our priorities are in line.

 

Andrew: I love that. That’s great.

 

Elizabeth: It’s just– It’s neat. This kind of really goesinto the last thing that I was going to ask you about and we’ve touched on it anumber of times here today. The number one core value for TriDot as a companyis that we are founded in faith and focused on eternity and I’ve shared on thepodcast before and kind of brought it back up again today that that’s somethingthat I care very deeply about in my own racing journey. We’ve talked about howsport is great, triathlon is great, but none of that matters if we don’t keepour faith first and then really translate that into how we’re working withothers. So making sure that our athletes know that they matter deeply to us aspeople first and then as athletes second. I know that that’s a core value,Barb, that you would get behind. We’ve talked about that today and you’ve beensuch an important influence to so many athletes, both in the sport oftriathlon, but also an important influence beyond sport. I mean, talk about momcoach. There’s some things that you’ve been able to really pass along to yourathletes. Just to kind of wrap things up there, I’d love just to ask you this.What do you believe– What has been the impact that your faith has had on yourcareer and your coaching?

 

Barb: Well, I feel really blessed to have had really two athletic careers andboth as a Christian. So I was a Christian as a swimmer, but it wasn’t the same.You know, we were all at different growth spots on our walk. It wasn’t the sameas when I was a triathlete. So when I was in college, my sophomore year we wonNCAA’s at Stanford. My junior year, Janet Evans came into Stanford and she wasa distance swimmer. My coach, Richard Quick, who was at the University of Texasbefore he came to Stanford, Olympic team coach, thought that every distanceswimmer should swim as much as Janet did. So for the first time ever in mycareer I got overtrained and I was afraid to go into Richard’s office and tellhim that I was feeling overtrained because I thought that would be a sign ofweakness and I kind of put him up on a pedestal like that he was a God becauseof his coaching resume. So I finally got enough courage to go in to talk to himthree weeks before NCAA’s and said you know, “Richard, you’re burying me.” Butthat still was not enough time to come out of that hole, that downward spiralof overtraining, and when we got to NCAA’s I had a horrible meet and I scoredthree points for my team whereas the year before I had finaled in two eventsand consoled in another and we got second to the University of Texas that yearby nine points. That was like out of like 300 or 400 points. Not that I feltfrom anybody else this responsibility, but I took that on myself that that wasmy fault. So my senior year, I went in racing, as I mentioned in the verybeginning, about the fear of failure and I didn’t race with joy. I got on theblocks and just said, “Well, what happens if I die in this event? What will myparents think and my coaches think and my teammates think?” and it really justsapped the joy out of competing. Fast forward to Jackson and like that time ofwaiting tables and just kind of putting on weight and just kind of enjoyinglife, I did a Bible study in our church and that Bible study was all aboutgetting your identity in Christ which is Christianity 101, not on ourperformance, but on Jesus’ performance at the cross. And that was a freedom tome and God used– He used that to give me back the desire to compete again and Iwould never, never have thought that could happen. So triathlon really from thebeginning was this second chance to do sport right. It was, like, a gift fromHim and so I really wanted to honor God with that and so I knew that he coulduse losses as much as he could use wins for His glory. So I had some parentsafter I didn’t make the team in 2000, I got letters in the mail, again oldschool letters in the mail saying how you reacted to your disappointment hasbeen an inspiration to my kids. So, I just feel like God was able to use that.Then when I retired I thought, “Well, that’s done. God’s done using me in thissport.” I’m like, how short sighted was that of me on how great God is.

 

Andrew: Yeah.

 

Barb: So yeah, to get to share the stories with my own kids who are nowcompeting in different sports and share them with my athletes and other people.I mean, faith was a key part of all of that racing. I have athletes now who arebelievers that I’ve done Bible studies with and some that aren’t, but I am openand real and I hope relatable to them so that they can be open and real to meand we can have a relationship because that’s what coaching is about. But thatrelationship is what God wants also with us and for us to reach out to otherpeople.

 

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

 

Andrew: Like I say every single show during our warmup,every Monday when the show comes out we throw our warmup question out to you,our audience, on our Facebook chanel, the I AM TriDot Facebook group and it’salways fun for me to see the responses roll in. It’s funny because week toweek, just depending on the question, sometimes we get a few dozen responses tothat question, sometimes we get hundreds of responses to that question and it’salways interesting to me just to see which questions you guys think areinteresting to kick around and which ones get a lower response. Sometimes itsurprises me which ones get just a ton of responses and which ones don’t. Thisone that I’m going to talk about here on our cooldown here today it was fromepisode 139 of the podcast. We had the warm up question, “What is something inyour life that you have compared triathlon to?” and we got a ton of really,really, really interesting responses here. Some things that seem kind ofobvious. Some things that I wouldn’t have thought of that you guys thought tocompare triathlon to. So I’m going to close the show today by just reading afew of our favorites.

 

Straight off the bat, Andrea Winters said, “Acolonoscopy.” She’s comparing triathlon to a colonoscopy because “without ahealthy approach to training, crap happens.”

 

Really meaningful response here for our nextone. This is from Cheryl Roper. She said, “I’ve dealt with depression andsuicidal thoughts for years. When you’re feeling super tired in the middle of arace, making it all the way to the end can feel overwhelming and impossible,but I can always swim one more stroke, pedal one more time around, run one morestep, and eventually I reach the finish line and it’s incredible. Sometimesliving out my whole life feels overwhelming and impossible, but I can alwaystake one more breath and just sit one more minute no matter how painful it is.I haven’t reached life’s finish line yet thankfully, but eventually thedarkness and pain lift and I’m so grateful to still be here.” Cheryl,incredible response. We’re all grateful that you’re here as well. Can’t wait tocheer you on at your next race and a very interesting take on something tocompare triathlon to.

 

Jessica Qualls is comparing triathlon to apuppy. She said, “It sounds like a great idea and you are excited picking theperfect one, but the actual training of both is a bunch of hard work and canget messy, but looking back you forgot how awful it was and think about doingit again.”

 

Dave Bianco said that “Triathlon is likeplanting a vegetable garden. You spend a lot of time planting, watering, andweeding and you spend a lot of money on the soil, tools, gloves, fencing, hosesfor one day. Once you pick them and eat them and you’re done.”

 

Keri Burt, TriDot Ambassador, she said, “Nottriathlon per se, but I started calling rare things at work unicorns. I’m notsure if any of my co-workers get it or not, but still.” Keri, I absolutely lovethat. They probably don’t get it, but we here, your TriDot family, we get it.We’re for it.

 

We had multiple people answer some form of childbirth or pregnancy.

 

Lori Oakes she’s comparing triathlon to “gettingmy two kids to multiple sports practices while running a business. Transitionis the car with snacks.” Love that.

 

Thong Wing Yew said, “My wallet because when onegoes up the other goes down.” So he’s kind of pointing out an inverserelationship between the amount of money in his wallet to the amount oftriathlon toys that he has.

 

Kevin Coleman Jr said that he is comparingtriathlon to working as a teacher. “August through mid November is swimming andthe first half of the bike. Thanksgiving break is like the bike special needsbag. Christmas break is the transition area. Spring break is the run specialneeds bag and the last week of school is that red carpet.” And all of theteachers out there said “Amen and hallelujah!”

 

Emily Tromp, she said “my wedding day. Ifollowed the phrase nothing new on race day. I made sure I had the trialappointments. I had to pack a day bag with anything I could need including achange of shoes like a transition bag. I made sure to hydrate and eatthroughout the day, had a good pre wedding meal. Was prepared for theunexpected. I made sure to smile and soak it all in. Also got the best medal atthe end.”

 

April compared being a triathlete to joining themilitary saying that both require you to have integrity, perseverance,discipline, dedication, and grit. April thanks so much for your service. Ibelieve we’re Facebook friends and I believe you are training for IronmanAlaska. So keep the training going and good luck in that endevor. Rooting foryou.

 

We had a couple folks compare triathlon to beingan entrepreneur. Allyson Chisnall and Galen Nuttall both are those. I’m sureTriDot founder, Jeff Booher, who is a triathlete and an entrepreneur himselfwould agree with you.

 

Desiree Patton she said, “An infomercialbecause, wait, there’s more.”

 

And last but not least, Flaquita Campos, I lovethis one from her. She says that triathlon, “it really compares to nothing. Ilove it and hate it all at the same time.”

 

Andrew: Well that’s it for today folks. I want to thankOlympian Barb Lindquiset and pro triathlete Elizabeth James for joining ustoday. Huge thanks to DeltaG for partnering with us on today’s episode. Tolearn more about the performance boosting benefits of DeltaG ketones, head todeltagketones.com and use code TRIDOT20 for 20% off your order. Don’t forgetyou can book a free 15 minute video consultation with their team to learn moreabout how you can get the most out of your ketone drinks. Also a big thanks toUCAN for being a longtime partner of the podcast. At TriDot we are hugebelievers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. To experience UCAN’sLIVESTEADY products for yourself, head to their website UCAN.co. Use the codeTRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. We’ll have a new show coming your waysoon. Until then, Happy Training!

 

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

Enjoying the Episode? Share it on: