Author Archives: Danelle Kabush

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About Danelle Kabush

I am certified mental performance consultant, a mom of two, avid athlete and lover of the outdoors

Motherhood motivation to keep moving!

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My most recent running interval session was hard 800m repeats with very little rest. Often during such tough workouts, I say to myself at least once, why am I still putting myself through training that hurts so much?! Then I remind myself to refocus and just get through it one interval at a time. I also think about how satisfying the nice leisurely paced cool down jog will be if I hit all my pace times or even better! When I have temporary moments of self-doubt about why I continue to train and race or on the days when others make me feel like an oddball and say, ‘when are you going to slow down?!’, I remind myself of all the reasons that keep me pushing the pace….

1. Life is too short! When I was twenty it felt like I had an eternity of years ahead of me to train and compete. As the years roll by faster and faster, especially since my children have come along, I take being healthy, injury-free and simply having the time and support to get out and train and enter races less and less for granted. I do it because I can! And I will continue to keep fitness a priority at some level as long as my body allows me too!

2. I really do love it (most of the time!) After 25 years of year round training and competing I can admit how much I truly enjoy the athletic lifestyle! With the odd time off from injury and breaks from hard training during pregnancy, I’ve realized that I do enjoy pushing hard and testing myself in competitive races! For me personally, just going easy all the time can’t compete with the endorphin-high following a hard training session or race! Also, nothing compares to those moments of total absorption I experience while riding sweet single track on a mountain bike, during a run that feels effortless, or a swim where I feel like everything clicks!

3. I like doing something that scares me at least once per week! Training and regularly pushing my mental and physical limits is thrilling and makes me feel more alive! Coach Cal regularly throws workouts at me that make me wonder how I’m going to get through them. I may fear the intensity level or the length of the workout, but once I break it down and get through them it feels amazing and they are always money in the confidence bank! The same goes for things like riding a scary technical trail on my mountain bike, open water swimming in new conditions, entering a new race, conquering a new race distance, or getting in shape again after a baby. Every new barrier that is pushed is a motivational growth-spurt! So just go for it, what is the worst that can happen?!

4. The social bonds of sweating together! Some of my best friendships have developed through running, cycling, and now “triathloning” together with others. There is something about running, cycling, skiing, or racing along side others that forges bonds of friendship quickly! As a busy mom, it also kills two birds with one stone – socializing and working out at the same time! While at least half of my training is done solo if I didn’t have at least a few social training sessions per week my motivation would drop pretty quickly!

5. The satisfaction of setting and meeting goals! Improving is always fun! Even though my speed and endurance will eventually diminish over time, I still get excited by working on improving my swim technique, technical skills on my bike, flexibility for running, and ways to train, eat, and recover better. I’m lucky to have a coach that is creative and keeps training fun with lots of variety and new ideas. For those of us that compete, time spent racing is only a small percentage of our time spent in any given sport. Enjoying the daily training performance victories are just as important as meeting race day goals for long term motivation!

6. Role modeling an active lifestyle to my kids. Being a role model is a bonus motivation for me to stay active. My husband and I want to be able to be active alongside our kids in whatever activities they enjoy growing up. I also admire my parents physical fitness levels now in their mid-sixties, an age where taking care of yourself over time really starts to pay big dividends! I love the fact that I can still go for a mountain bike ride with my dad now, and he really doesn’t slow me down much at all! All my favorite coaches have been people who compete themselves, have trained with their athletes and so have motivated me through their role modeling.

Athlete-Mom Interview: Tanis Banks-Tomlin

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I first met Tanis while racing the Canada Cup circuit on the mountain bike about 8-9 years ago. She is a rocket descender on the mountain bike. Two kids later she has still found time to compete and has caught the Xterra racing bug as well. She was recently the 2nd female at Xterra Alberta. Tanis lives in Cranbrook, B.C. with her husband Shawn, 5 year old daughter and 3 year old son. Here is what she shared about balancing her “racing bug” with a family….
1. Can you tell me a little about your athletic/competitive background before becoming a mom?
I think I was around 23 when I bought my first mountain bike, I remember feeling great out there biking, and from my first ride, I knew I wanted to race, and even though I wasn’t very good at first, it was fun, and I felt fast, and it gave me this confidence in myself that I had never felt before! Riding changed my life, the confidence I felt out riding carried over to every other aspect of the my life. It gave me confidence to try other things and get my life back on track :o)
I started mountain bike racing the following year, and loved it!! I was racing in the Pro-elite cateogory a short 2 years later! I would follow the BC Cup and Canada Cup series and placed within the top 10 at Nationals each year I competed (I think my placing was 7th at Nationals for 2 years)
2. What motivates you to keep setting athletic and/or competitive goals since becoming a mother? Is it different than pre-kids?
No matter what life brings, and what changes….I just can’t shake this racing bug!! After having my daughter Avery, now 5 years ago. I felt like myself again immediately! I was out racing (myself) 3 weeks later. I love the feeling of going hard, of going fast. I still wanted to be fast! Three years ago our son was born, life got busier, crazier, and I also owned a successful children’s store….and I still wanted to race!! I love the changes having children brought to my life, but I wanted to still race, to not have that part change. Looking back pre-kids, riding and racing was easy, now I go for a ride, and I just feel the need to be home….there always seems to be a rush to just get it done…..my kids still tend to have a hard time letting me go for a ride…more often than not, I leave crying children behind, and it breaks my heart.
My goals were a little bit vague during this time as well, but I knew there was something out there to train for. As there were not too many mtb races in the area during this time, I started some triathlon training. I was the cycling coach for the local tri-club and I loved the training groups and the added challenge of the swimming and running!
3. How do you balance training and/or racing with your family?
For me, it’s all about the early mornings (except during the summer). I get all my workouts done before my husband goes to work. This assures that my workouts won’t get missed. I have to be organized and creative…running with babies, I used to sit Avery in her car seat while I did spin classes and ran on the treadmill at the gym! I don’t travel very far for races anymore. I stay close to home and bring the family along, camping and exposing them to beautiful areas and fun places! The family comes first…even though I am doing this for myself.
4. Did you train during pregnancy? What was your approach?
I thought I would have the pregnancy thing nailed, figured I would breeze through it, feeling awesome and still being active, but it was the opposite. I felt terrible during both my pregnancies, and didn’t exercise at all!!! I ate terribly and just wanted to sleep!! I had tons of work to do after…but I enjoyed the challenge of getting it back!
5. Any advice you would give to other moms trying to stay active (or even competitive) while balancing kids?
I think we have to be creative, use the small bits of time we have to get what we need done! Try to enjoy getting yourself back, and enjoy your “you” time!  Be easy on yourself sometimes too, often we are left feeling pulled and torn between two worlds.
Next up, Tanis will be racing at the Xterra Canada Championship in Whistler on September 4th….

Xterra Alberta Race Report

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Today’s race was a fun anniversary race for me – it was exactly one year ago that I did my first full Xterra triathlon race back after baby number two, 3 months after Nico was born. So this morning I was hoping I would show my 3 month postpartum self how much farther I could come with another 12 months of work! And finishing today on almost the identical course, with the few muddy spots from last year nice and dry, I was able to take 23 minutes off my time, very satisfying! Here is how the day unfolded….

I feel like I’m sounding like a broken record in these race reports about Canmore, but once again it was a PERFECT and absolutely beautiful day to race out in the mountains! And with over 250 racers out (so I heard and so it seemed!) it felt like a big event with tons of spectators too, it was an awesome atmosphere!

At 9:15 it was the coolest sight watching the Sprint distance Xterra racers start the swim, while at the same time, the duathlon runners ran alongside Quarry lake beginning their 5km run! At 9:30 everyone doing the full distance dove in. I had great feet to draft all around me, but my zig zagging between trying to choose left me on my own in between, doh!! Luckily by the half way part of the 1000m swim I caught on to some fast feet to hang on to for lap two.

After that 15:33 splash in the lake and coming out in about 12th overall, it was a good long run down the green carpet to transition. Getting on the bike I was excited to race for the first time with some custom Mavic shoes with triathlon tops and mountain bike soles! They were easier to get on, and way faster getting off coming into T2 so I’m sure I shaved a few seconds there! Of course, the most comments I get on the bike are always, I love your shoes! 🙂

Thanks Mavic for the Xterra-made shoes!

With a nice road warm-up to the Nordic Centre, the climbing continued and I was feeling 100x better than last weekend on the same course! It was great to feel springy in the legs again, and with some places gained and lost I came off the bike in 1h27min with the 7th fastest bike split of the day, and a whopping 15minutes faster than a year ago, yeah!

JF missed me with the camera as usual but did catch Zoe ripping it up today!

Then it was on the identical and my most favourite Xterra run course! With only a few double track sections, the two-lap run course is full of rooty twisty, fun single track that takes so much focus to navigate that you can forget that you’re actually suffering at race pace. I ended the day with the 4th fastest run split (and knocking 7 minutes off of last years time), and 5th overall behind Mike Vine, Luke Way, Calvin Zaryski (my coach), and Mike Cabigon. Thanks again to race director Tony Smith for yet another “World Class Multisport Event in a Spectacular Location!”

Men and Women’s top 3 overall. Congrats to Tanis Tomlin (2nd) and Kelly Geisheimer (3rd)

Practicing Mommy Mindfulness

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On a very busy day with kids everywhere at a downtown park the other day my “mommy GPS brain”, now apparently strengthened with improved wiring for sight, sound, and movement felt overloaded. I was trying to keep up with Nico, the escape artist, who likes to run off in any direction as fast as he can, and only laughs and runs away faster and farther when I call his name. The ever more sociable Zoe happily goes off and plays with whoever she can find at the park. Finally, I was also trying to keep an eye on our parked stroller and bags off in another direction.

The playground experience reminded me how tracking our children constantly is just one more skill women naturally aquire for our constantly multitasking brains! And perhaps the best way to prevent ourselves from experiencing multitasking meltdowns is to take time to practice mindfulness and turn perceived chaos into calm. I like the definition of mindfulness by John Kabat-Zinn, a famous teacher of mindfulness meditation and the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center:

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and
nonjudgmentally.”

I have tried to put the art of “keeping my consciousness alive to the present reality” (Thich Nhat Hanh) into practice not only in day to day tasks but also while training or competing. Here are some examples…

1. Mindfulness while exercising. For me, working on being mindful of what I’m doing comes most easily while training. With workouts planned and a coach to help set the training goals, the purpose behind each training session is already in place. Then I work on having something to focus on for each part of my workout with no more than one or two things at a time.  For example in the pool depending on the part of the workout I may be focusing on my stroke technique, my stroke turnover, or just going all out and not worrying about technique at all. Running intervals are still some of my toughest training sessions to get through. I might focus on staying relaxed, breathing deep, or turning my legs over fast, and just take it one interval distance at a time! While the high intensity and high quality workouts often take very specific and high mental focus to get through, I also try to be mindful of completely enjoying the easier workouts when I can just go with the flow. For example, on long easy runs or rides, I enjoying just go the pace my body wants to go without paying too much attention to gadget information like heart rate, pace, cadence, or watts.

2. Mindfulness with day-to-day work or tasks. About a year ago, I took a two-day workshop on meditation with a team I work with. We worked on breathing, sitting, staying in the moment, and just observing our thoughts and physical sensations without judgement for three hours each session. It was tough and very difficult not to let my mind wander to thinking about what I was going to do later or other distracting thoughts. Just like training your muscles for endurance or strength over weeks and months of physcial training, taking time to be mindful for even one hour, let alone 5 minutes, during a day takes practice! Some simple examples are eating a meal slowly and savoring every bite, being completely present in a conversation and really listening to what someone is saying to you, or just washing the dishes with complete awareness of washing the dishes.

3. Mindfulness with your children. In the age of constant communication it is hard not to become a “crackberry mom”, you know the moms who are constantly on their phone or blackberry while at the park, in the mall etc. I see them everywhere and the only reason I haven’t be prone to it is that my phone is so old school that I don’t even have a keyboard and hate texting….for now! I think as mothers these days we need to be displicined enough to realize that every e-mail, phone call, or text message does not need to be answered immediately. We don’t have to be available to the outside world 24-7. Often when I’m with my kids, especially in the house, I can get distracted by wanting to get a million things done. But I strive to be organized enough that when I have time to just hang out with my kids I can be fully present to read a story, get down on the ground and just play, or just go to a park and be fully engaged in having fun with them!

Athlete-Mom Interview: Amy Golumbia

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Amy grew up in Canmore, Alberta and now lives in Calgary, Alberta. She has a private nutritional consulting business called Jump Start Nutrition, and is raising 6 year old twin girls, Jasmine and Natlie (pictured here at their first triathlon!). She is a superstar trail runner and also rips it up on the road from time to time. The rare time our schedules fit, she makes a great training partner. Here’s what she had to say about balancing family, work, and her passion for running….

1. Can you tell me a little about your athletic/competitive background before becoming a mom?

I started running in high school for the cross country team.  That took me through to running for U of A and Mount Royal while I was there, which was a great experience all round.  It was hard to balance full time school with working and training though and I remember being pretty tired. Plus eating on a university budget and trying to compete at that level is always less than optimal but that’s the way it is!

2. What has motivated or motivates you to keep setting athletic and/or competitive goals since becoming a mother?

I’m not sure that it’s a choice anymore.  It’s just a part of who I am.  I like to change it up and I race so that I have goals in mind when I’m training otherwise I don’t know that I would get out of bed on those early morning runs in -20!  I guess to some extent it’s become part of who I am and I love the running community and the people I’ve come to know through it.

3. How do you balance training and/or racing with raising twins?

I think I’ve had to learn to let go.  To accept that sometimes my house isn’t as clean as I want, that the grass didn’t get cut when it should have.  Plus you have to learn to multi task, as so many women do.  I usually remember to do my makeup as I’m pulling into the office.  A lot of my social time has become time with friends who run.  It was funny the other day I had breakfast with a running friend and I got really annoyed that I had to go for my run first and then meet up with him and that we couldn’t just do our visiting while running.  Yikes!  🙂  He had just done a 55k run the day before and needed a day off.
Now that the girls are in school it makes training a little easier but honestly I’ve used the chariot with them for most of their lives.  I just had to get more and more creative with the things I gave them to keep them busy once they wouldn’t nap in the chariot any more!  Now that they are a combined weight of 90lbs it’s a little less realistic to run with them but it still happens when I’m desperate!

4. Did you train during pregnancy? What was your approach?

I ran up until about 5 months and then when I popped I had to stop.  Shortly after that I was put on bed rest for 2 months and that’s when I took up swimming as I could do it as long as I was horizontal!  My approach was that I had always run and so why would I stop doing something that my body was already used to?  I figured if I could conceive twins then I could continue to exercise moderately as it made me feel good about myself.  I just had to slow down a bit.  I was hungry ALL the time though!

5. Any advice you would give to other moms trying to stay active (or even competitive) while balancing life with kids?

I guess if you’re competitive I would suggest that you treat it like a job, because it is.  It takes a lot of time and effort and planning and eating properly.  If I wanted to give other moms advice it would be that you deserve at least 1-2 hours to yourself a day and if running is the thing that makes you feel good, then do it.  And find other moms who understand you and that you can run with.  It has been really important for my kids to see that I have a passion that I am willing to dedicate my time to.  I always thank them for letting me go for a run and giving up mommy time.  It’s pretty hard some days but I always come back feeling better and that makes me a better mom!

6. You work as a holistic nutritionist, what does that mean?

A holistic nutritionist is trained in various holistic modalities.  Essentially it means that you treat the person as a whole package vs just analyzing their diet.  Food is never just about the food, especially for women.  There is always a story and because food is so integral to our lives, a choice we make every day at least three times a day, it carries a lot of meaning.  I work mainly with whole foods whenever possible, some supplements but I absolutely LOVE my job and in the past few years have really learned a lot more about auto-immune and chronic conditions and how to address them and alleviate some of the symptoms through balanced nutrition.  Nutrition is so foundational to health, even the docs tell me that.  But they figure everyone is too busy and just wants a pill.  Having been in nursing before, I would way rather empower individuals to take their health into their own hands than give their healing power away to a pill or a doctor.

7. Do you have any tricks to encourage your daughters to eat healthy?

I don’t know that there are tricks.  We talk about where food comes from.  We go to the store together and talk about what foods are on their level vs on mommy’s level.  It’s really about balance.  The Weston A Price foundation is a great resource for parents.  Kids actually need a lot of good fats and proteins to grow and develop properly so “healthy” is very different for kids than it is for adults.  If there is one “trick”… it would be that when kids prepare the food with you they just love to eat it.  Because they own it a little more.
But essentially, kids are attracted to foods with lots of flavor and nutritional value.  They tend to gravitate towards those foods.  So if you’re feeding them fruit and veg that has traveled thousands of miles, was grown in depleted soil, it won’t taste good.  To anyone.  It’s worth the investment to go organic and as local as possible.  And plant a garden.  I know we have a short growing season but it really connects kids to where food comes from!

8. What is the next big event you are training for?

I leave for Trans Rockies in just over a week.  That has been my goal race for the year.

(Note: The Trans Rockies Run is a six-day stage race taking place Aug 21-26 in Colorado. Runners race in teams of two and cover 119.5 miles (192.3km) with 20 800 feet of elevation gain! Find out more and follow the race at www. transrockies.com)

Xterra Enduro Race Report

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3 seconds over 3 days. That was the cumulative time difference between myself and second place overall, Roger Smith, at the end of a 3000m swim, 40km mountain bike, and 20km trail run over the weekend in Canmore. The Xterra Enduro is a new format and unique on the Xterra Canada calendar this season. With the options of doing it solo, entering single days, or doing it as a relay, it is a different challenge from your average one day Xterra race. Although I had just barely recovered from the half ironman in Calgary the weekend before, and had come down with a small head cold, I decided to do it anyway, as long as my cold didn’t get worse each day or go south into my chest. It was a fun “training race” to push a little bit and refamiliarize myself with the course for next weekend’s Alberta Xterra race. Anyway, here is the story….

Day 1: 3000m swim at Quarry Lake. On a blustery but warm Friday evening at Quarry Lake, a nice crowd of swimmers showed up for a swim race start at 7:00pm of 6 times a 500m lap with a short beach run in between each lap. After freezing in Ghost lake last weekend I thoroughly enjoyed the balmy 20 degree water temperature! Once we got going I stuck on my Coach Cal’s feet for a little bit before deciding he was swimming a little too crooked 🙂 After that I was trying to make gains on wetsuit-less Steve up in front of me but the naked arms only seemed to get a fraction closer by the end of the race. Superstar junior Madi Serpico, who was just out for swim portion out 10 seconds in front of me so after 48 minutes in the water I was second female for the night and glad that I’d felt okay being a little under the weather.

All suited up and ready to go with buddy Frank at swim start!

Day 2: 40km mountain bike at the Nordic Centre. For day two of perfect summer racing weather, race director Tony Smith gave us no mercy when it came to including plenty of climbing in the 10km mountain loop we were to do four times. We covered most of the vertical within the Nordic centre from near “the oven” at the top to the bottom of the coal chutes (watch out for big mama bear and cubs here) and plenty of up and down in between. 2h49min later I finished 7 minutes behind first place in second overall for the day. I felt alright during the race but my fatigue level felt doubled afterwards due to my cold. Luckily a fun night out with fellow racers and Calgary training partners at Kyle and Carrie’s place for a BBQ revived me a bit and Zoe thoroughly enjoyed the playmates and treehouse!

All smiles chilling at the finish after another fun day at the office on my Orbea 29er!

Day 3: 20km trail run at the Nordic Centre. By day three I was feeling really tired and was struggling to get myself up to run, let alone keep a good pace through 20km of steep up and down Nordic centre trails where most mortals never feel like they’re going anywhere fast. I learned I had a 17 minute lead on the overall going into the run so figured I would just have to run a good steady tempo to maintain it, but boy was I wrong and my body was not even up to much “tempo” pacing to finish things off! The race began and my body felt like a sack of bricks, oh well, one foot in front of the other let’s go and get it done! The front men’s pack took off like rockets and for most of the first lap I was going back and forth with strong running Cindy Koo. I finally got away on the last hill, and then was on my own for the next hour before finishing for a final sore legged plod of 1h57. Roger Smith of Golden, BC, finished off the weekend with a super strong run and brought my overall lead down to just 3 seconds, whew!!!  Gotta keep it exciting I guess! Now I think I’ll just sleep for a few days – oh wait, I have kids!

Pregnancy: Motivation to Exercise for Two!

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Although, I’m 99.9% sure I’m done with being pregnant, I’ve been asked quite often about training during pregnancy so I’ve been meaning to write a little about it while it is still somewhat fresh in my mind. If you are pregnant, or thinking of becoming pregnant and want to keep in shape, here are my top recommendations and motivational reasons to stay active over the nine months while you feel more and more like a beached whale 🙂

1. Read the book, “Exercising Through Your Pregnancy” by Dr James F. Clapp, M. D. He did some great studies of pregnant women from the non-active, recreational to the competitive and the book is packed full of great, solid research, and informational guidelines to follow. I’ve read it through 2-3 times, and some of my following points are based on the juicy details of studies you’ll find in this book. The book is an older one but I’ve found nothing recent that compares and most of the research and recommendations are timeless anyway.

2. Consider yourself in training for labour. You’ll increase your chances of a shorter, less complicated labour and chances of a quicker recovery. When you consider the average length of active labour is 2-4 hours, then a little extra stamina and endurance can only help! Getting to active labour isn’t always smooth sailing and pain free either! While predicting how any one labour will go or feel is about as reliable as your daily horoscope, like any unknown, the best you can do is prepare yourself as well as you can. Part of that is preparing your body physically for a possible ultramarathon painful intervals!

3. Keep moving because you’ll feel better. While I was lucky to never be physically sick for both pregnancies I did feel just plain “ugh” those first months and found that a workout always helped the feeling go away for a bit and helped me to sleep well a night. Swimming, which I did until the day of going in labour, felt so good for taking a load off while also keeping the circulation going!

4. You can increase your chances of delivering earlier at term. In the book mentioned above, 72% women in the “vigorous exercise group” who exercised an average of 71% of their prepregnancy levels of exercise before their due date versus 48% of “active control group” = rarely engaged in sustained exercise but occasionally played tennis, walked, gardened etc delivered earlier at term (later than 37 weeks). This rang true for me as Zoe came 5 days early and Nico came 7 days early. And those last couple of weeks are often the most tiresome!

5. You’ll stimulate better than average placental growth and funcational capacity. For exercising women the placenta grows almost a third faster by midpregnancy and has 15 percent more vessels and surface area at term – this also explains why stopping exercise in midpregnancy produces a bigger baby! Even just exercising 3 times per week for 20 minutes moderately hard to hard perceived exertion throughout midpregnancy is enough to see this difference.

6. Your baby can benefit. Babies of exercising women tolerate the stresses of late pregnancy, labor, and delivery better. Babies born of exercising women did better on a standard intelligence test at one year of age, and again at 5 years of age as well as remaining lean and scoring higher on oral language skills (when matched for mother’s physical activity after the birth and working outside the home, as well as sex, birth order, general health, breast-feeding, estimated caloric intake, family recreation profile, and type of childcare).

7. You have a better chance of having a lighter, “lean and mean” baby. Average birth weight for babies in exercise group in the book above was 14 ounces lighter (7 pounds 2 ounces versus 8 pounds). Exercising moms had babies who grew their brains, organs, muscles, and bones at same rate as non-exercising moms but babies didn’t get as fat in the process. In other words they were born lean and mean! The amount of exercise a woman did in late pregnancy increased the lean and mean effect so don’t slow down too much at the end! My babes were 8 and 9 pounds so they weren’t lighter, but they definitely weren’t too chubby!

8. You’ll gain less weight and deposit less fat. Pregnancy is definitely not a time to count calories or go on diets but exercise can help lessen the chances of excess weight gain. It also allows you to use that, “I’m eating for two” excuse more often 🙂 Continuing to exercise towards the end of pregnancy also can give you a great appreciation for what carrying extra weight can feel like and not take your regular weight for granted!

9. You may give yourself a postpartum competitive edge. Although highly variable between women, the thermal and cardovascular changes of pregnancy persist afterwards to a significant degree. The improved ability to dissipate heat along with higher stroke volume may account for some athletes improved performances after childbirth. For example, I read that during pregnancy blood plasma volume increases by 40-50%, red cell mass increases by 20-30%, cardiac output increases 30-40%, and the size of the heart increases by about 12%!! Lots of great advantages for an active mom and baby to make the most of!!

10. Let your body be your training guide! Finally, as a reminder of the importance of changing your training expectations in pregnancy here is an excerpt from a blog on our Luna Chix website that I wrote at 7 months pregnant with Nico:

“Currently I go out for a run that feels more like a plodding fast shuffle. Walking up stairs is as much of a workout as running up them used to be. I no longer even look at my swim splits in the pool. I feel the same tiredness after an hour of cycling that I normally would after three hours on the bike. Even bending over, putting on socks, and picking up my two and half year old daughter takes way more effort. But I don’t mind, it feels so good just to get out and get moving whenever I have the chance. While I originally had visions of keeping up my regular training program to high degree, I’ve relearned how much energy growing a baby actually takes and to readjust my “training” expectations.”

Mountain biking at 7 months pregnant with Zoe

Calgary 70.3 Race Report

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Although it is super nice to have a major race at home the logistics of the Calgary 70.3 are a bit crazy. Since it is a point to point race, all bikes are required to be racked at T1 the day before out at Ghost Lake, which is a good half hour west of the city. Race morning began with a 3:00am wakeup, a short taxi ride to the host hotel downtown where I got body marked before hopping on the 4:00am shuttle bus for a 45 minute ride out to the start. It was finally getting reasonably light about 25 minutes before our Pro wave start at 6:10. When I first arrived I was amused to see several Pros in transition wearing head lamps, these guys know what they’re doing!!

The water was brrrr, cold, but I decided I would do a short warm-up to avoid absolute shock when the gun went off. As we started I went after feet in front of me but was promptly dropped into no mans land with a few trailing behind me. It was tougher having to sight the whole way and even tougher once I could barely feel my hands and feet anymore and my coordination went out the window, even my face never really warmed up which was weird and rare for any open water swimming I’ve done. Thirty-two minutes later I was out of the water in fourth place, and very grateful to the volunteer wetsuit strippers out there today otherwise there was no way I would have got my wetsuit undone with how numb I was!

Although the weather eventually heated up nice and hot by the end of the run, going out for a fast ride on a time trial bike in a tri suit with no socks or gloves on isn’t exactly toasty at before 7:00am in this climate. For the first 30-40km of the bike I was seeing cross-eyed and riding rather wobbly before I eventually warmed up enough for my hands to get their circulation back and properly grab my gels and water bottles! So that’s when the race started to get a little more fun. The course is a bit long at 94km and other than a few signifiicant sustained uphills it is fast, rolling smooth and fun most of the way to T2 at the Glenmore reservoir, southwest of downtown Calgary. I really had no idea how I was doing until I passed my coach at the second aid station who told me I was 2:30 back of third place, and I thought, hey cool! I continued as strong as I could into T2, and headed out onto the run in 5th position after 2:32:55 on the bike, the third fastest split.

I moved into 4th after the first few km, and worked on keeping a steady even rythmn on the out and back run course along the paved bike path, thankfully a good amount was in the shade too. I have bad memories of the same race two years ago when I ended up in the med tent for an hour afterwards with super low blood pressure and a high heart rate. But by 8km in I realized I was feeling pretty good, and pushed on to end with the fastest run split of the day for 1:28:06 and just 24 seconds short of catching third.

Well, it wasn’t faster overall from my attempt at almost the same course two years ago, but I at least feel fitter to go the distance now, and that is a big thanks to Coach Cal who helps me maximize the quality out of the training hours I have to work with. I also have to give a HUGE thanks to my friend Luke Way for helping me get through this race feeling much better on my Orbea Ordu time trial bike. After Wildflower in April I was so sore, I could barely straighten my left leg, let alone walk the next day! So recently Luke, a professional SICI bike fitter, helped me out. After some measurements, flexibility testing, body marking, filming, dartfishing, spinning, and lazering, Luke repositioned my cleats, adjusted my saddle position, flipped my stem, and moved back my bars a little. Secondly, he is also a master mechanic and when I realized my derailleur was majorly messed up when I dropped it at T1 yesterday, he went out there in the evening, busted through the security, put in a new cable, and adjusted my derailleur so that it was shifting beautifully again for today! Merci Luke!!!

Thanks to everyone who cheered out there today, and congrats to everyone I know who raced today! Half-ironmans are tough!!!! I’m in awe of people who are motivated to race these more often and then double the distance for an Ironman! Three dunks in the cool river, and an ice bath later I’m still hobbling around, in a good way this time though 😉

Pro Women Top 5 left to right: Tenille Hoogland, Sara Gross (congrats on one of her first races back after having a baby girl 8 months ago), Mackenzie Madison, Moi and Lisa Ribes

Emotional toughness training?

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You never know what each morning will bring! Although most of the time Zoe acts like the “big sister” she is, this morning was one of her regressions into “I want mommy!” (as she’s clinging to me and can’t possibly get any more plastered onto me), “Carry me!” (no, you’re a big girl and are perfectly capable of walking downstairs by yourself), “I’m too tired, waaaaaah, collapsing on the floor full out crying” (well, you’ll have to stay upstairs then and come down when you’re ready to be calm). After about an hour of whining, crying, snivelling and being carried back upstairs a few times by me she was downstairs as calm as could be happily eating her breakfast, and chatting like nothing had happened!

Meanwhile, I’m working hard at staying cool and calm myself as mornings like this put my goal of consistent parenting performance in the emotional control department to the test. As Zoe’s emotions fly out of control now and then as they naturally should at her age, it made me realize that I’ve actually honed my emotional management skills a little over the years too. As I’m always connecting dots between work, racing, and motherhood in many of these posts, I’ve realized that bringing out your best emotional toughness is great for racing, and your best emotional softness is best for parenting but they both take the same kind of work. Vicarious observation, personal experience, and parenting have taught me that…

1. If you feel the need to shed some tears let it go as fast as a terrible two forgets about a tantrum! I remember when Zoe first started the lovely tantrum stage sometime around two years old, I used to feel myself tense up and feel pretty stressed until she finally calmed down. It took some work, and still does not to just snap sometimes, but with some practice and strategies in place I’ve become a lot better and staying calm, physically, emotionally, and verbally. Just because she is spewing emotions, doesn’t mean I have to too! Sometimes I would find myself staying angry at her behavior after it was all finished. But just as she lets it go faster than you can blink, I’ve tried to practice doing the same.

Zoe at 2 years

2. Managing the emotional highs and lows of racing avoids burnout! In sport, the practice of letting go quickly is just as important. I learned this really well in my work with short track speed skating. They often race two distances in one day with 3-4 rounds per distance. If they spend too much emotion either being overly excited or disappointed after each race, they will end up twice as fatigued by the end of day, and then they have to do the same thing all over again the next day! There is a reason the best athletes in any sport don’t get overly excited after a victory and don’t get overly down after a sub-par performance. Top athletes often have to race back to back in one day, over a weekend or weekly depending on the sport. Good emotional management and perspective is key to pacing the season and avoiding sheer exhaustion by the end.

3. Sometimes it is wisest to save emotions for future spending! With all the above said, it doesn’t mean that emotions need to be suppressed or bottled up. But if we give them free rein at inappropriate times, things can backfire when it comes to performance. Think of yourself or an athlete with a lot of nervous energy in the week or two before an important competition. You can sit around twitching, worrying, and spending nervous energy over a performance that is out of your control because it is X days away, or you can use any passing twinges of pre-race anxiety to remind you to refocus on the present, and save those emotions for race day! Other examples are athletes who give in to emotions too soon and start to celebrate before the race is over, give up before the race is over, or spend unnecessary emotional energy getting angry at other competitors, race officials or competition circumstances before it is over (think John McEnroe in tennis). The ability to save the processing of strong emotions until its all said and done is also a piece of the pie in haivng your best competition.

4. When strong emotions come up we can CHOOSE our reaction! Finally, while it is okay and developmentally normal for children and babies, especially under the age of three, to let emotions rule their behavior, as adults hopefully most of us have realized and learned that we can be in the driver’s seat! As a parent, we can choose to stay calm and cool through tantrums and sibling squabbles. As athletes, we can choose the most productive responses to our own mistakes, competition conditions and circumstances, hard to get along with teammates or competitors, or bad calls. If it sometimes appears that a top athlete is acting like they “don’t care” under high stakes circumstances, it may well be that they are just well practiced, wise, and calculating in how they manage and fuel their emotions in order to perform their best!

Can “Selfish-Athlete” and “Guilt-Free Mom” Coexist?

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In the few short years that I’ve been a mom, I’ve come to the conclusion that reading too many books or articles on parenting can make you feel guilty in the same way that reading too many fashion magazines can make you feel ugly. I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of great advice, methods, and techniques out there to learn from but the bottom line is that you have to make anything your own and go with what works for your family and each individual child.

For example, I’ve read a lot about the importance of routines for children whether it be bedtime routines, nap routines, or meal time routines. Unfortunately for me if I followed all that routine advice I probably wouldn’t get out the door too often to train as I’d be constantly interupting a nap time, a bedtime routine, or a specific meal time. Am I being too much of a “selfish athlete” for not structuring my days more around consistent routines for my children’s ultimate security and happiness?

It is a continual balancing act to try and do what is best for the kids while also fitting in my job called training and racing to the best of my ability. I have basically been a “routine-less” mom up to this point. Some days I may train at the crack of dawn (rarely!), the middle of the day when I have a babysitter, and/or a night with my training group. My work as a mental performance consultant is also super variable with changing hours and days each week.

In my routine-less world, Zoe and Nico have adapted very well, and these are the few rules of thumb I’ve followed that help to keep the happy mom, happy kids, happy family ratio the highest….

1. As long as everyone is well rested and happy all is good!  This means most mornings I wake up in the middle of a Zoe-Nico sandwich. Although Zoe sleeps in her own bed, in the wee hours of the morning she often sneaks her way into our bed alongside me without me noticing until I roll into her when I wake up much later! Nico still sleeps happily in the middle of our king size bed and though we’ve had intentions to kick him out since he was about 6 months old, it hasn’t happened yet! We will eventually but are not fixing what isn’t broke yet! With a very busy travel schedule bedsharing is what has worked best for our family and getting kids to sleep is never an issue when on the road!

2. A nap on the go isn’t a bad thing! Zoe took the majority of her naps in the Chariot. Having done nothing differently with Nico he easily goes down for a nap in his crib, somedays two shorts ones, or one longer one. While a crib is likely more comfortable, occasional car, stroller or Chariot naps (especially with the added fresh air) while running, cycling, or cross-country skiing can leave kids just as rested and mom re-energized from a good workout!

3. It is important to be able to workout or go to work guilt-free! In the beginning with Zoe I struggled a lot more with feeling guilty spending time away from her while out training such as on a long bike ride or away for occasional overnight trips for racing or work. With some practice, I’ve become better at being fully present where I am when I’m away from the kids whether it be training or meeting with an athlete. They also do just fine with quality Papa time, grandparent time, or fun play time with our energetic babysitter. Breaks also leave me more excited to come home and play with them, while also strenghtening that muscle called “patience” that every parent learns to exercise the day a new baby comes home!

I know one day life might become more routine. In the meantime, as long as I get to spend quality time with my kids and husband every day, as long as they are thriving (e.g. happy, well fed, and rested), and that I get in my quality “selfish athlete” time, then we will continue our routine of “go with the flow”!