Following the recent race in Oceanside, though not primarily because of it, I decided to make a change that had been on my mind since going through what was my most disappointing year as a professional in 2013. In spite of two "acceptable" results - 4th at Ironman Melbourne and 2nd at Ironman Arizona, 2013 was a lost year. It was lost to overtraining, undertraining, injury, and just "general malaise," though not the sort that the genius possess and insane lament. Rather, it was a malaise of the kind of consistently subpar performances that drive you insane as an athlete. I was vaguely sick and/or injured for pretty much the whole year, which I mention not as an excuse for my subpar performances, but as a reckoning of just how poorly I managed myself. These things did not happen to me. I did these things to myself thanks to a variety of bad decisions and nondecisions that I made and didn't make.
Any discussion of a coaching change inevitably invites potential criticisms of the prior coach. Let me state explicitly that Michael Krueger is one of the very best coaches in the sport and that I have nothing but the utmost respect for him as both a coach and a person. He remains a friend, and I certainly intend that stays the case. In no way, shape, or form should the fact that I am changing coaches be interpreted as a reflection on Michael. We had enormous success together. As my life changed and career goals shifted, I was unable to make the sort of changes necessary in our relationship to enjoy continued success. It's on me. Really, all that needs to be said is that in five years together (our first race together as coach/athlete was Oceanside 2009, fittingly enough), I had five Ironman wins, an ITU Long Distance World Championship title, two Leadman Epic 250 wins, and - most amazingly - a comeback from a near fatal car-vs-bike accident. That last element is especially important, because I think it is part of why it was so hard to transform our relationship in 2013.
In 2009, no one expected much of me, and I surprised a lot of folks, including myself, with two Ironman wins, posting the 2nd fastest time in course history at Ironman Canada and a new course record at Ironman Arizona. But then that was all "reset" by my crash in 2010, and I was back to having no one - including me for a while - expect anything of me in 2011, which I think was a big part of why I was able to break through again, winning the Leadman Epic 250 in Vegas, Ironman Canada, and then the ITU Long Distance World Champs in Vegas. 2012 was a bit of a transitional year, where I was not originally going to go to Kona, but then thanks to some logistical breaks, I ended up racing Ironman Texas and the one-and-done Ironman US Championships in New York en route to a debut in Kona with a quick - and, in retrospect, somewhat foolish - stop at the Leadman 250 in Bend. And that's really when things started to come apart. I was tired in Kona. I had a terrible swim - not really surprising since my swimming after racing Leadman never was as good as it was before I tacked on all that fatigue. I faded on the bike. I faded on the run. Both totally atypical of the way I normally race. 13th was a disappointment. But I set myself up for it.
Racing Melbourne in 2013, where I was sick because I was an idiot in training was my fifth 8+ hour race in 10 months. I had expectations of myself - and I felt the weight, real or perceived, of others expectations on me - and lost the very things that had enabled me to be successful in the first place. I think, in general terms, I focused more on being a professional athlete than on a professional athlete. A good - but not great - performance in Arizona seemed like I had maybe grasped that and corrected it, but I think it was more an exception than the rule. A subpar performance in Oceanside to start 2014 basically confirmed (with some prodding from a wise friend) that something needed to change.
It was very hard to tell Michael that I felt that I needed to change coaches. But after almost five weeks of change since doing so, I know it was right. In closing out the retrospective part of this post, I'd like to tell a quick story that captures the essence of the successes I had with Michael and also the essence of what I need to get back to. Going into the last uphill section of the ITU Long Distance World Championships course, where - thanks to the TT style start, I needed to drop defending champion world champion Sylvain Sudrie of France, Michael said to me, simply, "you do it now for a world championship." And I did.
In thinking about what I was missing and how to get it back, I immediately thought of the coach that really started me on this crazy journey, when really nobody expected absolutely anything at all of me - Joel Filliol. Joel and I stopped working together in early 2009 when he took what seemed like a dream job as head coach of the Great British federation, where a very formal business environment meant there would be none of the casual acceptance of a crazy American long distance triathlete that the more casual Canadian federation had tolerated (mostly thanks to Simon Whitfield). Joel left had since left that job and returned to a less formal business environment, once again run by a casual Canadian - Joel himself. Joel now coaches a globe-trotting squad of ITU and short course athletes (and now, once again, a long course athlete) that I plan to join at key points throughout the year. But mostly what I am aiming to recapture is the high performance attitude that I grew up (as a triathlete) in under Joel (and also Simon).
The last blog post I wrote, about the race in St. George, was really a self-deprecating take on the relative absence of this attitude in my own racing, especially in the swim, though really applicable to the larger race against a world class field. I said before the race that I felt like - and said before that race - I had half of a fast Ironman in me, and that is - not surprisingly - what I executed. To some extent, that was the reality of training and physiology. I was not in a great place five weeks ago, and I am clearly in a much better place now. But looking at the swim, in spite of a full year of hard work, I exited the water in essentially the exact same place - relatively - as I did last year. The irony, of course, is that I actually did "feel" much better. I was much more comfortable. I was, in fact, too comfortable. I had the race that I believed I could have, which wasn't that much worse than the race I think I could have had. But worse is worse. And better is better. Always.