Keavy McMinn

St Croix had been on my triathlon bucket list for a couple of years, since hearing my friend Cat talk about how wonderful, yet tough, a race it is. This was to be the iconic race’s 25th anniversary year, and now living in the U.S., it would only take about 20hrs to travel there.

From day one, the beautiful Caribbean island setting and the warm welcome of Cat’s home stay and friends, made the race feel like a special experience.

Practice swim session

At dinner on the first night, I met Cat’s home stay Todd, and local friends James, Wayne and Wynn. They entertained us with stories of their racing, some having competed at St Croix 21 times! Cat told them a story where I survived a long, lonely, horrible training day in France last year. My housemates (who had wisely cut their day short) were impressed by my efforts in the harsh conditions, and Cat joked that it was time to “Keavy the fuck up”. The guys loved it, and I heard them retell the story several times over the following days, with some heavy doses of poetic license!

Pre-race night

There was a huge thunderstorm the night before the race. From my beach side hotel room, I watched and listened to the rain and the lightning on the shore, I got a bit scared and emotional thinking about the swim the following morning. I texted Eney, open water swimmer extraordinaire, who has been helping me with my technique. She reminded me of several techniques to keep in mind, and positive things about how wonderful it would be to challenge myself in all the elements a sea swim could bring. She reminded me that it’s a privilege and an honor to use our body to race, not least in somewhere as beautiful as St Croix. I was so reassured, I almost wanted a rough swim.

Race morning

Pre-race day calm

This is a small race, with a much more relaxed feel, than your average Ironman event. There were 510 athletes. We all jumped off the harbor wall and swam to the beach of the small island, just a few hundred meters from shore, from where the race would start. There was a relaxed and friendly camaraderie as we mingled and waiting for our wave’s turn to start. As my age group nervously waiting in our pre-start window, one local woman shouted to our small group, “I know this course really well, so if you all want to just follow me!”. We all laughed. Then the siren fired and we were off, every woman for themselves!

Swim
In the end, the swim was perfectly flat, unusually so, apparently. I focused on the little phrases Eney always tells me, and thoroughly enjoyed swimming in the clear, calm water. Although I’m not a strong swimmer, I much prefer the non-wetsuit swim – it feels like a much better connection with the water, and awareness of every movement. Small age group numbers, and a wave start, meant it was the least congested open water swim I’ve ever done. I lifted my head out of my movements and mantras a few times to just catch sight of the wide Caribbean sea, with the sun rising around us, and thought it really is a privilege to be there.

Bike
The bike course winds through hills, coastline, tropical forests, in one big loop around the Caribbean island. The torrential rain the night before had left the roads in a serious mess. They were strewn with debris: huge piles of gravel, mud, sand, dead frogs. Surface water hid, or potentially hid, the pot holes and cracks I knew I’d seen on the course recce.

I passed many athletes fixing punctures, and was passed by several pick up trucks ferrying athletes and their bikes off the course completely.

I felt a bit despondent in the early stages of the bike, being at the slow end of the field, barely seeing any other competitors for long stretches. I was nervous, but excited, to reach the infamous climb, ‘The Beast’. I determined that I would NOT walk.

The initial 12 and 16% hairpins warmed you up for the killer 26% (!) bend. The gradients are spray painted on each climb on the course, in case the fact wasn’t apparent by your burning legs and lungs! Turning that last, crazy steep corner, I saw everyone ahead walking their bikes. Determined to keep cycling, I remembered Todd’s tip that from that last bend, it was only 39 pedal turns “until you can breath again”. I started my count, “… 21, 22, 32, 41, 36..” realized I couldn’t actually keep count, and my number would be wildly different anyway, but thinking of numbers was still a helpful coping strategy!

Things got into a better rhythm after The Beast. The course flows around the East of the island, which I had enjoyed on my practice ride. There’s still plenty of 12-16% hills, but around such beautiful coastal scenery, they were almost a pleasure to punch up and over.

(perhaps the paid for pic will be delivered, eventually)

Finishing the bike, I was mostly relieved to not have injured the bike, or my self.

Run
As I was exiting T2, Todd and Cat waved and shouted that Cat had won! We hugged, jumped up and down, cried… then Cat reminded me I best get my own run started!

I started the run fueled with pure delight at Cat’s achievement. After 18 months out of racing, dealing with bereavement and injury, I knew it had been a challenge just to get to the start line. A whole hearted performance.

I felt so good when I left T2, I remember thinking “this is going to be a great run! What am I a quarter of the way in already?”… I looked at my watch… three minutes in. I drained quickly and by 4km I was just spent and had to start walk/jogging. I took some coke at the first aid stations, then ice at each one – down my front, back, and held some in each hand. It felt so good. I got a bit obsessed about the ice! As if walking wasn’t irritating enough, I got the line “ice ice baby” stuck in my head, not the entire song, just those three words. The. Entire. Run.

Approaching the half way point, right beside the finish area, I considered just stopping. Beat and teary, I bumped into Canadian pro Sara Gross on her walk home. We had a quick chat, and Sara assured me I’d feel better if I finished. Just down the road Cat was waiting, and I told her the mess I’d made of the run and that I might just call it a day. I’m not sure I see any shame in calling it a day, if the day is essentially done. I said I wasn’t sure what the point in continuing would be. Cat suggested carrying on until the next aid station, trying to take on some coke and gels, but that it was fine for me to call it from there. Todd (who was acting as lead marshall) saw me walking and shouted “Keavy! Keavy the fuck up!”. I jogged off, laughing.

I decided the point in continuing was simply to feel what it feels like to run, or not, in that humid heat. To store that feeling in my memory bank, and know that I would learn from it, and hopefully then not experience it again.

Finish
On the last street towards the finish, an old Rasta man shouted to me, “Yeah girl, catch your breath, the finish is just there and then you’ll feel alllriiight”. Indeed!

At the finish line, a lovely medical volunteer must have decided I didn’t look too good and walked me straight into the medical tent. They covered me in cold, wet towels. Bliss. You’d think as the winner, she’d have better things to do, but Cat sat with me the whole time, chatting, making me drink, taking embarrassing photos… as I laid back and absorbed the IV.

I’m not entirely sure yet if I blew up because my nutrition wasn’t good enough for the conditions (it wasn’t bad on the bike), or if I just couldn’t mentally push through the fatigue in the heat.

My own poor performance aside, I thoroughly enjoyed my whole race experience at St Croix. I’m grateful to be surrounded by such inspiring and supportive friends. I look forward to doing it all again next year, only better.

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2013/03/features/dispatch-age-group-athlete-keavy-mcminn_72020

Published in Offscreen Magazine, Issue #4.

“Why? Why am I doing this? This is INSANE!”

I can’t ignore the pain my body is in, but can only continue to move forward successfully if I embrace the difficulties. There’s no energy to spare on negative thoughts. Of course I want a successful finish, but my focus is on the processes, in the present. I concentrate on the things I can control: the fuel I take on, the pace I work at, the thoughts inside my head. I try to convince my body to repeat the motions that I have practiced, for hours, days, months, years. It’s an extraordinary space, feeling at the limit of what your body and mind are capable of, transcending thinking in favor of just feeling, with absolute focus on pushing yourself forward. The awareness of what I achieved seeps in days, weeks later, and makes me feel incredibly… alive.

I started training for triathlon in 2009. Within a year, the benefits in my work life were tangible. Things that once would have intimidated or scared me, still did, but I felt able to start, to at least try, knowing I’d get through it. I failed to finish my first attempt at Ironman, in June 2010. Having spent nine months training to complete this event, I was devastated by my failure, for a few hours. But the benefits of my practice and experience outweighed the outcome of that one day. Sport encourages a willingness to put yourself out there, with no guarantees that it will work. The rewards of that approach ripple through every other aspect of life.

When I was first asked to speak at a conference, in 2010, my initial reaction was “No. Way.”. I didn’t have the skills or nerve to stand up and speak in public. But I accepted the opportunity, knowing I could apply the same approach from my sports training: learning from those who are more skilled and experienced; planning; practicing.

Through the planning and reflection that surrounds racing I am accountable for my failures, but also celebrate my successes, even the little ones. I take ownership of my strengths and weaknesses, and get support to help work on whatever limits my progress. These are processes that can obviously be applied to our professional practice as programmers.

Of course there are wonderful physical health benefits to regular exercise, but it’s the mental processes that can perhaps have the largest impact on our work as creative makers. Pushing the boundaries of what we’re capable of redefines who we are.

Photo: Bob Foy

Swim: 1.9km
Bike: 90km
Run: 21km
www.oceanlava.com

This is a small, low-key race: there were 120 athletes, 12 of whom were women. There’s no hype, no fancy expo, just one world class, challenging course and a warm, friendly atmosphere.

After my first ironman attempt of the year was a DNF, and my consolation attempt 70.3 was a DNS, I was hungry for a good race. Challenge Roth would be the 6th full distance triathlon I’d toe the line at, hopefully the 4th I would finish.

The couple of days before this race were good. Just switched off from an intense few weeks in the Real World™, and enjoyed meeting up with some triathlon buddies.

Swim
The swim is in a canal, with wave starts so it’s not *too* crowded. I started 3 rows from the front of the women’s wave and felt reasonably calm, until the gun went… within seconds it felt like there were dozens of bodies pushing into my torso, over my legs, thankfully not over my head. I still don’t cope very well with this reality of racing and just kept raising my head for fear it would get pushed far below. “Relax… relax… relax”. Breathing under control, and the pack dispersing, it got easier to truck on. It’s a really straight forward swim, with sighting easy – just keep parallel to the canal bank. I found the bank a comforting sight – if you really needed to, you could escape to the side and just stand up.

At my pace in the swim, there’s soon no good feet around to catch onto. I was happy enough to just feel safe and resolved to just keep turning my arms over until I didn’t have to anymore.

Sure enough eventually there was a finish line, hit stop and watch tells me it was 1:25. Happy enough with that, always happy for the swim just to be over. T1 was super simple – straight into one change tent for men & women, as is T2 and even the finish area showers: this is a very European race!

Ironman St George is known to be a tough race course. This was to be its last year, dropped because the course intimidates too many, hitting sales. That is a shame, it’s an epic course, with a challenging bike course in particular, that I know many people would love.

It was the 5th ironman distance race I started, assuming bar any major catastrophe it would be my 4th finish (I DNF’d my first).

Excerpted from the As Good As Gold, ESPN BOOKS
By Kathryn Bertine

How to Love a Female Athlete

When we’re sweaty and covered in
grime, tell us we’re hot.
When we’re clean and smell nice, tell us we’re hot.
We spend a lot of time in gym clothes, so if we take
the time to put on clothing without Lycra or
elastic or chamois, notice. And tell us we’re hot.
If we prance around the house bellowing, “Check it
out, I put on makeup today!” tell us we’re hot.
If we experience a moment of weakness and stare
at the mirror wondering if our muscles look
too bulky, tell us we’re crazy. And hot.
When we’re lying on the couch in a state of
disheveled athleticoma, tell us we’re hot.
When we train together, tell us we’re hot.
When we beat you in a race, tell us we’re
hot. Or at least mumble it.
When we win, when we lose, and when we absolutely
tank, tell us we’re hot, hotter, and hottest because
effort is the hottest-est damn thing out there.
When we question ourselves, tell us not to.
When we doubt our ability, tell us you don’t.
When we wonder if we can do it, tell us we will.
Tell us you’re proud, tell us you believe,
tell us you’re amazed.
When we break down, just hug us and let us whimper
for a while and let us wipe our nose on your shirt.
Don’t tell us we’re hot, we won’t believe you on
this one. But you can think it if you want to.
Say these things to a female athlete, and we will
love you.
Say these things and mean them, and
we will give you lots of sex.

The best part of my third ironman race was probably the taper. I’d got a call from Catriona Morrison saying, “What you doing before Regensburg? Fancy joining me and Rachel, in Europe somewhere, maybe at altitude?”.

And so I spent the three weeks prior, in Morzine, France, along with Catriona Morrison and husband Richard, Rachel Joyce, Emma-Kate Lidbury and Jo Carritt. On the day I arrived, the usual July sunshine turned to the worst spell of weather the area had experienced in some time.

Ironman Lanzarote, 21st May 2011
Swim: 3.8km, Bike: 180km, Run: 42.2km

Not having the energy to build up your bike, two days before taking part in an Ironman, is not ideal. That’s how I felt on the Thursday evening, after arriving in Lanzarote.

Between jet lag, lack of sleep, several mosquito bites, phantom period pains, general fatigue… I felt even worse on the Friday. Having put in so much hard work to prepare for this one day, I was annoyed that I just didn’t feel remotely in the right mood. Then I was annoyed that I was annoyed. I just wanted to be able to execute the plan I’d worked for. I knew I need to pick up my mental game, if nothing else. Not ideal lead up maybe, but it’s what I had, so I’d better just get on with it!

My coach had warned me, “don’t go doing anything stupid now and buying fancy new socks or shoes at the Expo!”. My friend Emma, a kindred spirit, texted me saying “go buy yourself something you don’t need at the Expo!”. I resisted the shiny pink trainers, but resolved to treat myself to a pair when I got home.