Ironman Niche

What a day! Oh my. I spent so much of the day pacing around my house and obsessively checking IM Live and the Pele app for updates on my athletes racing AZ. It can be super stressful, you know, "watching" your athletes race from afar... At one point I called Krista (so glad she answered her phone!) and barked something like "GO FIND KELLY TELL HER SHE IS 2ND AND HAS A KONA SPOT IN HAND JUST KEEP RUNNING 9' MILES FOR 13 MORE MILES AND ITS HERS GO SCREAM AT HER!!!!!" Krista was a superstar cheerleader of course too (so I heard!) and was everywhere cheering for everyone so thanks to Krista for being there and doing something I would have loved to have done myself! :)

Anyway, not sure yet if Kelly got the Kona spot as she ended up 3rd 30-34... so... maybe!?! BUT check out that smile. Hard (smart) training and a well executed race earned her a PR of nearly an hour today.

My other 3 athletes in AZ had super days as well today... First timer Scott ripped off an 11:44 (amazing!!), Mary finally pedaled while on her bike (yes!) and ended up with a 30' PR (11:46!), and Keith negative split his marathon and ended up with an 80' PR (11:52!). I watched them all finish (so thankful for that live webcam of the finish line!) and then popped open a beer in celebration.

Today got me thinking about what an amazing year Team BSC has had. I did some math and this is what I came up with... 16 BSC athletes finished 19 Ironmans this year... 100% finisher rate!... with 12 of the 16 athletes achieving PRs at the distance (75% PR rate). Add one Kona qualifier (maybe 2??) and four Vegas qualifiers... I lost track of how many 70.3's and other races everyone did but of course there were tons of 70.3 and other distance PRs as well. Big congrats to ALL of Team BSC this year. Really. They all just trained so consistently and I could not be more proud.

So continuing the thinking thing... here's what I've come up with... Ironman is my thing. It's where my passion is and it's what I feel like I know and understand the best. I like Ironman, and I like coaching Ironman. And I'm good at it. :) So, going forward, I think I am going to try channelling my business in that direction. I do have a few athletes who are not interested in Ironman at the moment and that is fine- I will keep them on- but going forward I'll only be accepting new athletes who are geared toward Ironman. In good news, I don't have a boss or anything telling me how many athletes I can or can't work with each year so it's pretty much up to my own discretion when I think I'm full... I want to have enough time to give each athlete the attention he/she wants/deserves so I won't overbook myself, but that said, I think I have the capacity to handle a few more in 2013 so if you're interested in coming on board, let me know. We need at least 6 months of training to get an Ironman right so if you're planning an Ironman for next year, don't wait til the last minute and expect miracles. :)

So there you go! Funny aside... I was chatting with Mary about how her day went this afternoon and about how I was completely beside myself all afternoon watching it all unfold and she said something like "Did you even get anything done today?!?" My response... "Oh ya! I ran 20 miles." I love being able to do it all. :)