July 28, 2025
How Silence Shapes a Champion: Jennifer Comfort, Ironman Triathlete and USAT Coach, EP 284
Jennifer Comfort is a USAT-certified triathlon coach, Ironman triathlete, and open water swim observer whose approach to performance blends endurance, mindfulness, and a deep respect for inner stillness.
Jennifer didn’t start her journey as a seasoned pro. In fact, during her first triathlon 20 years ago, she basically dog paddled through the swim, terrified to put her face in the water. Today, she’s a multiple-time Ironman and 70.3 finisher, a Boston Marathon qualifier, and a respected coach guiding adult athletes at all levels. She leads open water swim workouts on the Columbia River and supports world-class endurance swims as an official observer.
What sets Jennifer apart, though, is how she’s embraced silence as part of her champion’s mindset. In a surprising turn, Jennifer shares how a 7-day silent meditation retreat completely changed her life—sharpening her focus, helping her manage anxiety and depression, and giving her a deeper edge as both a coach and an athlete.
Looking for a new challenge? Try silence. Whether you’re a Masters swimmer, a returning triathlete, or simply someone looking to reconnect with purpose and grit, this conversation offers insight, inspiration, and practical advice.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How Jennifer went from dog paddling her first triathlon to completing full Ironman races and coaching elite athletes
- What it means to be an open water swim observer, and why that role is vital in endurance swimming
- Why her weekly “Open Water Wednesday” swims are creating a strong local swim community
- What it’s really like to go completely silent for seven days—and the breakthroughs that can come from it
- Her advice for first-time triathletes, including mindset, gear, and how to start without feeling overwhelmed
- Practical tips for using breathwork, mindfulness, and internal awareness to enhance training and racing
- How to balance parenting, training, and business with grace and mental strength
Notable Quote:
"We're with ourselves 24/7… so we might as well learn to like ourselves a little bit." – Jennifer Comfort
This episode is for you if you:
- Are a swimmer curious about trying your first triathlon—or returning to the sport
- Want to bring more mindfulness and presence into your athletic routine
- Are intrigued by the idea of a silent retreat and what it might unlock in your life
- Appreciate hearing from women who lead, coach, compete, and rise through challenge
Jennifer’s story reminds us that becoming a champion doesn’t always start with winning. It starts with showing up, staying curious, and sometimes—even staying quiet long enough to hear what really matters.
Tune in to learn how silence, grit, and intention shape the journey of a true endurance athlete.
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
00:00 - Jennifer Comfort's Triathlon Journey
05:42 - Open Water Wednesdays in Columbia River
09:13 - Transitioning to Triathlon Coaching
13:56 - First Triathlon Experience and Growth
20:39 - Injury Setbacks and Recovery Strategies
25:49 - Seven-Day Silent Retreat Experience
33:41 - Mental Training and Personal Rituals
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Champions Mojo podcast, where we celebrate the grit, grace and growth of champion athletes and coaches, pushing their limits and living with purpose.
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I'm your host, kelly Pallas, and today I'm thrilled to welcome someone who embodies the spirit of transformation and tenacity.
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Jennifer Comfort is a USAT-certified triathlon coach, endurance athlete and open water swim observer whose story is both powerful and inspiring.
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She's competed in multiple Ironman and 70.3 races, qualified for the Boston Marathon and now guides athletes of all levels through the sport she loves.
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Based in the great Northwest Washington's Tri-Cities region, jennifer not only coaches open water groups in the Columbia River, but also serves as an official observer for some of the longest, most daring swims in the world.
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Her journey from struggle to strength is a masterclass in resilience and I can't wait for you to hear it, jennifer Comfort.
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Welcome to Champions Mojo.
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Kelly, thanks so much for having me today.
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Yes, I'm very excited because I know that a lot of our listeners are swimmers who do open water.
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They may have dabbled with the idea of doing a triathlon A for the first time or B, maybe doing it again.
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I'm one of those swimmer master swimmers who was a triathlete back in the day, I'll say, and I haven't done one in a while.
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So maybe I want to get back into that.
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But I want to talk with you about your triathlon coaching and I'm so interested in this open water swimming observer.
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That's really cool and just generally how a champion like you, somebody that's doing, a successful someone that's a successful entrepreneur and really out there as an athlete.
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So just tell us, like right now, what is the top thing that you're doing in your life?
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Coaching and I train a little bit myself because I love training, but I am mostly coaching.
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I would say, what I'm loving right now so much is our weekly open water swims.
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I call them open water Wednesdays.
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I've wanted to do it for years and finally this year every Wednesday evening we have a group, I'm up on my paddleboard and we head out into the Columbia River.
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It's a very large river and each week I have different workouts for the athletes and last night actually, finally we got some calm waters.
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We've had lots.
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Down here in southeastern Washington it can get very windy.
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We've dealt with white caps, current, all of the wonderful open water swimming elements these athletes get exposed to every single week.
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That is great.
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What does an open water, river workout look like?
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Sure.
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So we've done everything from, for example, race takeouts, so starting out super fast, like we all do and often do in open water races, or even in pool swims too, racing in the pool, elevating the heart rate on purpose and then settling into it.
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We've also done drafting practice, where we'll pace line.
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We've done some technique work.
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I've even had the athletes do some drill practicing different types of breathing, whether it's unilateral or bilateral.
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We practice our sighting, which is a very important skill to have in the open water.
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I'm sure all your listeners that are open water swimmers know how easy it is to get off track without sighting very frequently.
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But again, it's a skill and so we practice those things.
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Yeah, so what is the range of athletes that's in that group things?
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Yeah.
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So what is the range of athletes that's in that group?
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We have everything from beginners.
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The first week we had a lady walk in get ready to swim and walked right back to the shore and just observed she was not ready that day.
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Two athletes that are they are.
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They could buy for world championships a lot in Chadwine.
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Wow, how do you manage that wide range of swimmer?
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Well, that's a good question.
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Actually, I have some.
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I just employed somebody else to come help me out.
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After a few weeks of managing it by myself, I was like, oh, I need some help.
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I think.
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We also have another thing I do which is so wonderful the area where we swim there's two different docks I call it the blue dock and the old dock and it's 100 meters in the river, and so we do what I call dock laps, swimming back and forth 100 meter repeat between these two docks, and so that's a good way to keep athletes together that are from different abilities and also get the open water exposure.
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So I love that this interview with you is coming on the heels of Matt Mosley, who his podcast.
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He's a river swimmer.
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He does.
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He swam the Colorado River.
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He does river conservation like he thinks it's so important that swimmers get in real water.
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I'm kind of a pool swimmer.
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I've done a lot of open water too, but tell us what you are seeing as someone that's in the river, that you're in the Columbia River.
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What is that river like these days?
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The clarity of it, the cleanliness of it, the temperature of it?
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Just kind of give us a river report.
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Oh, it's such a good question because it's so dynamic.
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When we started out, we were.
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The temperature, for example, was in the upper 50s 57, 58.
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It's in the upper 60s now 66, 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Everybody's wearing wetsuits oh, there's a couple of people that aren't wearing wetsuits, but the majority do wear full wetsuits and so that's just in a matter of a month and a half.
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It's a desert here, so it's warm enough.
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It's warm.
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It's hot here, so the river does warm up.
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We have wind, so the athletes are dealing with wind oftentimes.
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As far as the quality of the water, right now it's okay.
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We do have problems with toxic algae blooms, and so I'm on the health department website daily checking if there's any new updates so I can make sure that the swimmers are staying safe out there in the water.
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That toxic algae is very dangerous, especially for animals and smaller dogs that are on the shoreline, and you can pretty much see it.
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I don't know if I ever thought it would.
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Obviously we would call it a day and not go out, but because the river's flowing, so it's so dynamic and it changes every single day.
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What does a toxic algae bloom look like to you if you come upon it?
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It's green.
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It's shiny, it's at the surface of the water and it's usually more in black water.
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So where we swim, the water's flowing, so I have confidence that it's safe.
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And it's unmistakable yes absolutely.
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Okay, so so your day job is coaching.
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Full-time, yes.
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And how do you fit your own training in?
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It just kind of depends what I'm training for or if I'm training for anything.
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Right now, I'm really into strength training personally, so my strength training comes first.
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I am also going to be doing the 70.3 Ironman in our city in September the second year we're having it so I am doing quite a bit of running and biking and swimming as well.
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Myself I fitted in.
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I used to be a very.
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I know early mornings are the best, but and I did master swim for 15 years, waking up at 4.30, three to four times a week Once 2020 hit and the pools shut down, I haven't gone back to that routine.
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I found out that I like to sleep, so I do.
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Oftentimes I do noontide wins from where I work.
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There's a wonderful outdoor pool three minutes away from where I am, and then my bike rides and runs are usually in the afternoons or evenings.
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I just find that that works for me personally right now.
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So translate for us people who did triathlons back in the day.
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Now they call triathlon 70.3 or whatever.
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I think I knew them as Sprint International and Ironman.
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What are the distances?
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What does 70.3 mean to people that may not be?
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as hip.
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So for triathlon there's four different distances.
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There's what we call a sprint, an Olympic, a 70.3, which is a half Ironman, and then a 140.6, which is a full Ironman.
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So a 70.3, aka half Ironman, is a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike and then a half marathon, 13.1 miles.
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So isn't the Olympic swim a mile?
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0.9,.
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yes, so they only add 0.3 to the swim and then double the bike and double the run.
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You got it.
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I don't know why, but you're exactly right yeah.
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Yeah, so that's why I got out of triathlon.
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It's just, it's just not fair to the swimmer, Um so.
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So, in that vein, if we do have people that are just swimmers or or they're new, what is your avenue?
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What race would you tell them to get?
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And what would you tell someone that really wants to just try a triathlon?
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Sure, I would recommend first hiring a coach.
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That's what I did.
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I mean honestly, I don't say that just because I'm a coach.
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The very first triathlon I did, I thought I knew how to swim.
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I had grown up with backyard pools.
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I did not know how to swim for racing.
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I doggy paddled.
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I hired a swim coach the next week.
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That was 20 years ago.
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So I would recommend hiring a coach to get technique down.
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I would recommend, once you feel comfortable, getting into a master's program.
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And once you feel comfortable getting into a master's program, they're just invaluable on so many different levels, from progressing to being challenged and, as I'm sure all your listeners know, swimming with people that are faster than you make you faster, help make you faster, and just the cultural aspect of a master's community.
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I would also say definitely get in.
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You have to get into the open water because they're so like I mentioned before, it's so dynamic, it's so different from pool swimming.
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And then a sprint triathlon, which is the shortest distance, would be the place where I would start and just kind of get your toes wet no pun intended and see how you like it or what you learned from it, be curious about it.
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And what did you learn what?
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What scared you, what made you grow as an athlete?
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What did you do well and what would you maybe like to do differently the next time?
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swimming background or feel like their, their mind just says what is a master swimming program.
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They might not even know that.
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Um, but I I do agree, having being on the elite end of master swimming.
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Are you there?
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I'm here glitched second.
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It glitched here on my end.
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Gosh, I cannot stand this IBM Apple pop-up that comes.
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It's the first time it's done it.
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Oh no, that's the beauty of the edit.
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So being on the elite end of the master swimmer and having, when you go to a master swimming practice, just like you described in your river workout, you're going to have people that are elite, world record holding master swimmers, and then you're going to have people that are really new, and I love the master swimming program in Melbourne, florida, which I've been a member of for many years.
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We have guppies we call them the guppies and the mahisis, and the guppies love being called guppies.
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They're brand new and so sometimes the guppies come in and they really need, they need coaching.
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So I totally agree that swimming is the scariest part of a triathlon.
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We can all pretty much ride a bike or run and you can even walk, yes, so the swimming part is especially open water, the mass start.
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So I totally agree, get a swim coach and then get into a master's program if you have one near you, and then I would just I'd love your coaching and your ideas on if somebody is doing their first triathlon, do you just say just get through it.
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Like, what do you recommend on equipment?
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Because that is an overwhelming part of triathlon, I think for a lot of people absolutely tri gear can, can add up and thought I'll be expensive, pricey.
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Yes, your first triathlon ride, anything.
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I borrowed a bike from my parents garage.
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It literally was like a leisure bike.
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It wasn't even a true mountain bike.
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I wore a water skiing wetsuit.
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I did not have even a triathlon quote, unquote wetsuit.
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I probably would have been better off not wearing anything, because those water skiing wetsuits, there's no buoyancy to them whatsoever.
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So yeah, comparison is the thief of joy.
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So you show up at a race or training and if you're just starting out, use what you have, or there's no reason to invest in the pricey equipment until you know that it's something that you, that you, actually like I love that.
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I comparison is the thief of joy is one of my favorite sayings.
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It's such a great way to live your life.
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Tell us about your very first triathlon.
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We love stories.
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Our listeners love stories.
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Give us the Jennifer and I want the details of what was a success and what was a disaster, cause we all have them on our first triathlon.
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Well, actually I'm so happy that you asked me that because just five days ago was the anniversary of my 20th triathlon my 20th year doing triathlon so I did the race that I started with 20 years ago and it was also on my.
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It was on my birthday and they sang happy birthday to me and I started crying before the race.
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It was just so special to be in the same place where I'd been two decades ago, scared and nervous, and my new.
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Five days ago I was still very nervous, but, as I am before every race, but 20 years ago in this race it's the local mountain bike sprint triathlon.
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So it's in the Columbia River and it's a half mile swim down river.
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I never put my face in the water.
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Once I was, I was terrified.
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Oh, I love that you never put your face in the water.
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No, no, my first triathlon, my face did not.
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Were you wearing goggles?
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Oh, yes, I was wearing goggles, but I might as well not have been wearing goggles.
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I never used them.
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I was so scared and I had been out in the river a couple of times before and I was just very.
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I was very nervous, which I know.
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A lot of people are in open water, it's not uncommon and I wasn't immune to that anxiety either.
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I got out of the river, I got onto my whatever this bike was.
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I got out of my parents' garage.
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It was a piece of work, probably weighed 120 pounds, and I went and rode it and went through the trails.
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The chain fell off and then I get in and then I go on.
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The run was I'm more from a running background still, the five kilometer run, three miles, that wasn't too bad.
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But coming off of a bike, there's jelly legs and I actually just don't got myself and I probably looked so silly and I saw a group of people over the real triathletes over on the other side of the awards, and I was like I want to be like them and they ended up becoming my very best friends in my community and so that was the start of it.
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That is a great.
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That's a great origin story of you and triathlon.
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So what is this passion that I've in my research on you?
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It's just you just love triathlon and you want to share it with everyone.
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What do you think is the reason that people need to do triathlons?
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Well, it's just so dynamic.
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It's a lot to juggle, and I do realize that, of course, and we all have busy lives and families and careers, but at the same time, there's always something new and fresh.
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Each day you're doing a different type of workout, a different style of workout.
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I think for me it just keeps exercising and being healthy, so dynamic.
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I have some hammering going on in the background, which I mute my line just for a second.
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Oh, okay, okay.
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Well, he was hammering so, but you fell in love with it and from there what?
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At what point did you really start getting serious, like after two years, five years?
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serious like after two years, five years.
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I seem to escalate things really quickly, but but I so I went in all.
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I went all in.
00:17:30.019 --> 00:17:38.480
That being said, I didn't make it into my first 70.3 high fire world championship qualification for 10 years, so that so it wasn't.
00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:40.932
It did not happen overnight by any means.
00:17:40.932 --> 00:17:45.092
I just kept in hindsight I guess I did have some patience.
00:17:45.132 --> 00:18:08.980
But I went all in and trained and just really embraced the lifestyle and the community and those became my training partners, became my best friends, and it's kind of what we did yeah, yeah, I, I definitely had the triathlon bug when I had it and just it's really fun when you get it and you can do it and you're in the best shape of your life.
00:18:08.980 --> 00:18:12.413
So what good comeback stories do you have?
00:18:12.413 --> 00:18:18.994
Like, has there been a time that you know you were injured or sick or whatever that you really just thought, oh gosh, I'm down and out, and then you came back?
00:18:19.596 --> 00:18:26.964
Yes, I was just going to mention that because I feel like I'm painting this rosy picture of triathlon life and it's not always that pretty by any means.
00:18:26.964 --> 00:18:32.923
I have had name and injury and I've probably had it when I say I jumped all in and it became a lifestyle.
00:18:32.923 --> 00:18:37.599
It also in hindsight I was overtraining, I wasn't sleeping enough.
00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:44.678
I had three very, very young kids that I was taking care of full time, so I would say a couple.
00:18:44.678 --> 00:18:49.945
I had piriformis issues for two to three years.
00:18:49.945 --> 00:18:53.941
I think my worst injury was my plantar fasciitis in my left foot.
00:18:53.941 --> 00:19:02.116
I ended up having a platelet-rich plasma procedure done on it, wore a boot and was in crutches for weeks on end.
00:19:02.116 --> 00:19:07.536
That was probably that was my lowest point then, when I wasn't, when I was sitting on a couch.
00:19:07.536 --> 00:19:21.316
I I need to be outside and active and I just many listeners can probably relate with injuries I just felt like a caged animal and I think not only just physically recovering, but mentally.
00:19:21.316 --> 00:19:24.816
It was very difficult for me but I survived.
00:19:25.450 --> 00:19:34.476
So it's more of a like two steps backward, one step forward type comeback Like oh, now I'm down again with piriformis injury, and oh, now I have plantar fasciitis.
00:19:34.630 --> 00:19:35.694
And then you just keep going back.
00:19:35.849 --> 00:19:37.739
Yeah, boy, that's definitely.
00:19:37.739 --> 00:19:44.642
I'm sure a lot of our listeners can relate to that, and this is where you can throw in your thoughts on this.
00:19:44.642 --> 00:19:58.613
I feel like that's one of the beauties of being a three-sport athlete, that when I have a lower body injury, boy, I get to swim, and when oh, I can't swim, I've done something to my neck or my shoulder as well, I can go run or walk or cycling.
00:19:58.613 --> 00:20:04.513
You can kind of always do cycling, I think, unless unless, well, you know, but you've got that option yes, absolutely.
00:20:04.554 --> 00:20:30.880
When I wasn't able to run, I was in the pool five, six days a week yeah, yeah, you're way too young for this, but I remember back and this was in the maybe, I'm gonna say the early 90s when Lisa Leidy was a pro triathlete and she broke her neck in, yeah, in a cycling accident and she was swimming.
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:41.277
She could not turn her head and I think she was in a neck collar, but she kept swimming by doing no flip turns and just doing 25s, I mean she was not getting out of shape.
00:20:41.738 --> 00:20:45.009
So I I hope nobody goes that far as an injury.
00:20:45.009 --> 00:20:47.335
But yeah, you can really do things that keep you going.
00:20:47.335 --> 00:21:03.036
Let's transition to your coaching and then at some point you obviously become certified to observe open water swimmers, which is really interesting to a lot of our listeners because I've always had in the back of my mind maybe one day I'll swim the English Channel, but now I'm not going to do that.
00:21:03.096 --> 00:21:13.218
After I interviewed Matt Mosley and that's popular- you have to listen to Matt's interview which is right before this one, where he talks about why he doesn't want to swim the English channel, and he makes such a great point.
00:21:13.218 --> 00:21:24.311
So, but I know, when you do these big swims, you you need observers, and so let's tell us how you got into coaching and then how you got into observing and what those are.
00:21:25.473 --> 00:21:25.773
Sure.
00:21:25.773 --> 00:21:29.260
So I got into coaching in 2015.
00:21:29.260 --> 00:21:37.933
I was at a point in my life where I'd been racing for so long and I was ready to give back to the community and it was just kind of it was for me, it was a natural progression.
00:21:37.933 --> 00:21:45.357
I come from a long line of educators in my family and I really think coaching is just educating others.
00:21:45.357 --> 00:21:47.837
So I became certified.
00:21:48.230 --> 00:22:01.054
When I got in for open water observing, it really was from a fellow swimmer, one of my friends, and he just reached out and he had these ideas of what he wanted to do and they have to be.
00:22:01.054 --> 00:22:16.248
These huge swims have to be observed and and I honestly at that point I had never done it before and the first one I did was in 2020 and August of that year and I said, yeah, sure, I'll observe you and but I had.
00:22:16.248 --> 00:22:35.696
There was a bit of a learning curve and it it's been just absolute honor to witness specifically that he did the Hanford National Reach 33 and a half miles in the Columbia River, down river, in seven hours, a little over seven hours, and that was August of 2020, which we all know.
00:22:35.696 --> 00:22:45.202
Nothing really was going on then in the world, so it was a good time to be outside, be in a river, and that's where I got my start.
00:22:50.109 --> 00:22:50.671
So what are you observing?
00:22:50.671 --> 00:22:52.255
Like is it that they can't touch the boat that they have to tell us?
00:22:52.255 --> 00:22:52.695
Like what do you?
00:22:52.695 --> 00:22:53.659
What does an observer doing?
00:22:53.659 --> 00:23:00.421
And I know one of them you observed was like 50 miles right, so that's a lot of time standing around and checking boxes.
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