Written by Ironman Wisconsin Champion Hillary Biscay

Last Thursday Coachie sent me over a gift from the States: a brand shiny new . . . training partner! This was very nice of him considering that I was going to have to say goodbye to training partner, etc etc extraordinaire this Tuesday. Yes, Dougie is on his way home to the States now, and Eric Bell is now on swim and track duty.

Eric is a former standout collegiate runner and has won pretty much every short course age group title one can win, including his age group at the world championships last year. He would like to race as a pro and has qualified to do so, but Coach has said that runner boy must get his swimming skills up to scratch before racing the big boys. So he is here in Noosa for 12 swim sessions per week–and a few other workouts–as well as to see if he is cut out for the life of a pro. Thus far he is becoming acquainted with realities like the Friday and Saturday-night 9PM bedtime, and a kitchen stocked with only “bird food.”

So Eric has to suffer a bit of culture shock while I have the benefit of a new training partner (I should add that my other “other half” is also away this week, as Belinda is racing Ironman Malaysia this weekend.). I would feel sorry for him, but we have all been through this essential part of the process.

In Dougie and Belinda’s absence, after last night’s running intervals, I was reflecting on the value of my training partners. Possibly my least favorite type of training session is a track-type running session. Everyone knows how much I love to run; I know it is not pretty or fast, and thus this statement might be perceived as sarcastic, but it is not. I am probably an anomaly: a former swimmer who loves to run. My favorite running-related activity is running at a cruisey pace for many, many miles–five-hour runs, for example. My least favorite is the opposite: short, fast, running with lots of stop-and-go. I don’t even mind running hard on a treadmill for a couple hours at a time; but running even harder for a minute or two, when I have to break my rhythm in between, but yet hardly have time to catch my breath . . . This is one of my least favorite types of training. I am not good at it and it hurts–badly. Of course these are two big reasons that I need to be doing this type of workout!

So although I dread Tuesday night run intervals (especially following the morning’s smashfest brick session), I also look forward to the feeling of satisfaction I derive from putting myself through them every week. If they weren’t such a challenge for me, I couldn’t be so proud of myself afterwards.

Last night I got some payback from Runner Eric for some of our recent swimming excursions when he joined me for the Tuesday night intervals. I should add that we don’t have a track here, so run intervals also involve using a Garmin to measure off an accurate distance–thus giving me another reason to hate them. Luckily, Dougie, Mr. Thorough, gave Eric a lesson with the Garmin, including a walking simulation, before he left. Thus, in order to avoid my head exploding before the session even started, Eric handled course-measurement duties.

Then we ran the same “track” session, although I couldn’t even run the speedster’s pace for one step. It was the massive difference in our speeds, however, that got me to thinking about how much it helps to have someone there to keep these intense sessions at an honest effort. I had my best interval session of the past three months, and it didn’t matter that Eric was miles ahead. When I see someone there pushing himself as hard as he can through the same session, it is impossible to back off.

Tomorrow morning I will have to re-establish my dominance in the water .