The first week you continue to revisit the emotions of that finish line. It is nothing like you have ever felt as an athlete. You can not quit smiling knowing what you have accomplished. You are exhilarated by the emotions, but tired enough not to need to go out and train. That passes and then you find something is missing. What is it? What’s wrong?

To quote a good friend, training buddy, and someone I have had the pleasure of coaching to two IM finishes, “Amy, it’s like losing your best friend,” Joe Poszgai said to me about a week after he finished his first IM in Arizona. This is one of the great ways I have heard the sense of loss we start to feel following IM. If you ask me if I believe we feel a loss or depression following our IM, I will comfortably answer, “YES!!!” It is real, something to recognize and deal with.

Think about how you feel regarding planning for a wedding, baby, graduation, Christmas, vacation, etc...anything that takes time to plan for has somehow grabbed your attention more than normal. It has made you think things out, plan, prepare, and somewhere along the way, you have sacrificed doing other things you may normally do. Is IM a wedding day or the birth of a baby...NO...but it is a day that we have invested in emotionally.

Working with Coach Mike focused my training efforts and allowed me to have the season that age group triathletes dream of. I qualified to be the Illinois representative in the Best of the U.S. series. I qualified for the 70.3 World Championships, Finally, I nailed my race at Ironman Wisconsin and qualified for Kona! I would highly recommend D3 Multisport coaching to anyone wanting to take their racing to the next level!     Chris Sweet, Kona Bound!

Consider this though, just like big emotional moments in your life, you plan for an IM for almost a year. With the growing popularity of IM we don’t have a choice but to commit to this very early on if we want to do one. So, this thought is in the back of our mind and we revisit it many times over the course of the year.

So, how do you deal with “losing your best friend,” as Joe described it? One very helpful thing is to recognize it as “real,” and know that you are okay. Seek out another triathlete you know who has done an IM and talk with them about it. Do not come home following an IM and close the door on training. Talk with your coach about a post IM training plan. Do you need to train like you had been...absolutely not, but having some type of structure will help you. It is amazing how nice it can be to have a training plan that only has a 30’ walk on it, a 1,000yd swim, and a 30’ bike, for a couple of weeks, and eventually a little running. It might be more of a comfort to have the training plan than doing the actual workouts. Another great thing to do within the first week is to write a race report. This written form of your memory that already has a permanent place in your heart and mind, but one that is nice to go to from time to time remember certain pieces of your race day. It is also a nice way to share your IM day with family, friends, and fellow triathletes.

Once you’ve given yourself a few good weeks of relaxing, light training to keep the body moving, consider your first race for the next season. Sit down with your coach and start making plans for your winter base training, and sport specific work. Talk about several different races you would be interested in as A races and look at your goals for the following year. Use the energy from your IM finish to help you begin planning and preparing for a new season.

Is IM depression fact or fiction? Again, only you can answer this question. In my camp, it is real, but also easily managed with some self awareness and thought on moving forward. I would not trade my IM finishes for the IM blues ever. When you have committed yourself to something that is so meaningful to you, worked hard, been disciplined and followed it through to the end...there is nothing better than hearing Jerry, my favorite announcer say..."YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!"

Amy Kuitse is a USAT Certified coach with D3 Multisport and can be reached for questions or comments at: Amy@d3multisport.com

Competing with Heart – Racing with Gratitude
For Podium Sports Journal by Dr. Stephen Walker

On August 25, 2007 the world of track and field saw an example of greatness worth talking about, and our heroine didn’t even win the race. On this night Kara Goucher won a bronze medal in the women’s 10,000 meters outpacing her fellow American competitors and the rest of the world’s best. All three US women raced proudly and finished 3rd, 7th (Deena Kastor) and 13th (Katie McGregor) crossing the finish line in good form.

The conditions for this race were brutally warm and humid as the entire field pushed the envelope. Four of the 19 finishers had season’s best times while 3 more dropped out of the race and were carried from the course. If drama is what you expect from a world’s championship, this race did not disappoint. “Worlds” is the biggest stage on earth and is probably more representative of one’s career than even the Olympic Games which every four years offers up results that, at times, feel like a fluke.

Kara was not the only athlete to compete with heart that day, and the results of her race weren’t sensational like the Tyson Gay - Asafa Powell, “Earth’s Fastest Human” match-up. Just the same, it is what you do not know about Kara Goucher that serves as the lesson here and it gives us both hope and pause as we expand our definition of “greatness.”

As a sport psychologist I teach mental conditioning skills. Much of what we do seems pedantic and routine, but collectively we are a resource for information, ideas, encouragement, methods and techniques for learning how to relax, set goals, motivate, concentrate and manage distractions. We also help athletes deal with the emotional roller coaster ride vital to competing and performing when they put “everything on the line.” As athletes advance in their abilities, the work can get quite specific to each individual as they discover how to train and compete “in the zone” and use tools like imagery and visualization to turn their dreams into reality. Perhaps the most important contribution we offer to each is essential to developing confidence and managing one’s self-talk. These things are a persistent concern and require everyday practice. To those who faithfully follow sports, that’s how it goes during the best of times. What about during the worst of times?

Distance running is unique. It requires endless hours of training and recovery, the everlasting and incessant cycle of building fitness season in and season out. For Kara, the recovery process was all she knew for several years, and it was so much a part of her life experience, it felt interminable. Even the strongest person loses heart in such circumstances. She loyally watched and cheered her husband (Olympian Adam Goucher) from the sidelines internally fearing that might be the closest she would ever come to competing on the world stage. For years her career was characterized more by ‘set backs’ than accomplishments, that is, up until last year (2006).

In 1999 through 2000, Kara was a star runner at the University of Colorado, boasting NCAA Championships in the women’s 3000 & 5000 meters and Cross Country. Her last good season was capped by winning the NCAA Cross Country Championships in the fall of her senior year. Then things started to go south. First came the fatigue attributed to anemia and then her problems were exacerbated by nagging injuries that spoiled a promising track season and the disappointment of not being able to defend her titles.

That however, was just the beginning of her difficulties. Even though she signed a contract to represent Nike as a professional, her career was sidetracked by compartment syndrome, a patellar tendon injury, stress fractures and multiple surgeries. It seemed as if procedures and injuries were defining her more and more. Even after screening for the female athlete triad, she missed season after season of competition and felt as if she were letting everyone down, her coach, her husband and her sponsor. Her mood crashed and she was wondering if she would ever be healthy.

A change was in order, and so Kara along with her husband, Adam, researched their options. That research concluded in the decision to train with the highly touted director of the Nike Project, marathon great Alberto Salazar. They ended their longstanding relationship with Colorado’s coach Mark Wetmore, sold their house, kissed their family and friends good-bye and moved to Portland. The Nike Project offered promise, great nutritional and medical support….and the wisdom of Alberto Salazar who helped Adam rekindle his great career, and for Kara….to start hers. 2006 showed them both PR’s, and Kara was able to compete for an entire season without injury. Life changed for them that year and the emerging flame of confidence started to glow, boosted by great workouts, staying healthy, and PR’s for Kara at virtually every distance she competed in.

Even then, a bronze medal in the World Championships was a stretch….but few people know of Kara’s secret weapon. That special inspiration comes from “gratitude”...for many things in her life, a loving family, a supportive and encouraging Adam (who trains, eats, laughs and sleeps with her), the best facilities coaching and support available, and finally...her emerging health fitness and racing savvy. For those that know Kara, they appreciate her warm and friendly personality. For those who have watched her grow, they admire her devotion and tenacity…working through every challenge. “Greatness” originates in courage and toughness, but it is never more welcome or deserved than when it is accompanied by gratitude. The wait was long, and the journey filled with adversity….yet no one is more thankful for its course than Kara Goucher, bronze medalist in the World Championships.

On September 2nd Adam Goucher placed 11th in the 5000 meters, 7.3 seconds behind the gold medalist, Bernard Lagat. Kara’s medal was the first won by an American in the 10,000 meters since 1992, when Lynn Jennings won a medal in the Olympic Games.