Posted: January 8, 2005

Multisport: EnduranceRadio.com Interview with Brenda Gilchrist

From: EnduranceRadio.com

Tim Bourquin: “Welcome back to www.EnduranceRadio.com. Thanks for joining us. This is Tim Bourquin.

We’re going to speaking with Brenda Gilchrist. She is the founder of www.trinewbies.com, which is of course linked right below the link to this audio. We’re going to talk to Brenda about why she started this site and her plans for that website for triathlon, for women triathletes, and about a training camp they’ve got coming up next year.

A couple of things about our site; make sure you sign up for the monthly audio newsletter. We’re going to be providing some interviews there to newsletter subscribers that aren’t available normally on the website to the regular public. So make sure you sign up for the free newsletter as soon as you get a chance by putting your e-mail into the box on the left of the site, and of course make sure you leave us a common over on our comment board at www.trinewbies.com Tell us how we’re doing, what questions we should be asking our athletes and coaches, and if you have any interview suggestions please post them there as well.

So we’re going to be right back to speak with Brenda Gilchrist in about 30 seconds.”

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Tim Bourquin: “Brenda thanks very much for joining us out of your busy schedule. I appreciate your time.”

Brenda Gilchrist: “Absolutely Tim. Thanks for the invite.”

Tim Bourquin: “Well how long as www.trichic.com been up?”

Brenda Gilchrist: “We launched in November of 2003. There was an official launch through at the Barbs Race in Santa Rosa, California in January of 2004, so we officially were on the market last January.”

Tim Bourquin: “Tell us why you started this site that you felt there was a need for a triathlon site specifically for women.”

Brenda Gilchrist: “About three years ago when I started in triathlon, I hadn’t ever swam before or really biked before, and for that matter, even ran, so I thought as I started learning triathlon I wanted to have a place that I could go to where it was dedicated to female triathletes and provided a one stop shopping resource. I started looking for that and didn’t find it, and with my entrepreneurial background I decided, ‘Hey, we might as well form something for the age group female triathletes,’ such as myself and that’s where and how www.trichic.com came about.”

Tim Bourquin: “Now I know that the numbers of women in triathlon have been growing steadily over the past few years, but still its seems to be somewhat of a male dominated sport in some sense. It that a little bit intimidating, do you think, to certain women who are thinking about getting into it?”

Brenda Gilchrist: “I think for the most part the women that I’ve met that have gotten into triathlon they’re not intimidated by the numbers at all. A lot of the women triathletes, they usually have a background in some sport, whether it be the swimming background, or they were runners previously, but I think most of them they’re not intimidated, they’re just inspired by being part of the new generation of women that are making up at least 30% of the sport now, and its just growing more and more as more women get into it. So I think they’re up for the challenge that’s for sure, at least the women that I’ve met.”

Tim Bourquin: “Now talk about what you personally get out of triathlon and endurance sports. Why do you participate?”

Brenda Gilchrist: “I think that it just empowers women to be strong and confident; that if you can compete in a triathlon you feel like you can pretty much do anything because being able to master at least a general ability to get through all three sports, or through the race, I think it just provides a background for building your confidence to do anything, whether it be being a great mom or being a great career professional, so for me I think that’s what I’m hearing from a lot of the women that are part of triathlon. It just builds that confident.”

Tim Bourquin: “Through your site you have the TriChic Team, talk about that.”

Brenda Gilchrist: “We had formed Team TriChic, as I said, back in January so that women such as myself that are the average age grouper, that aren’t sponsored, have a place where they be part of a team, and the concept is that we want women to feel like, even though they’re not winning first or second place, or even placing at all, that they at least can be represented by Team TriChic and that there resources for them and that we want to really promote them in the sport. The way we do that is we feature a lot of our team members on the site and if you go to www.trichic.com you’ll see a list of feature members on the home page that are just some amazing women. So by featuring them I think that it gives them the background, or the forum, so that they can show other women that they can do it. I think that being part of the team gives them a feeling that they sponsored by TriChic where they can get discounts through retailers, they can get some very cool team apparel, which is made by, currently, Louis Garneau. So I think its just giving them a sense of being part of a team when normally the age groupers are out there on their own.”

Tim Bourquin: “What are some common questions that you get through the website, or that you hear a lot from your members and your team members?”

Brenda Gilchrist: “They ask about, ‘What do I eat?’, ‘How much do I train?’ just a lot of the standard questions that the newbie would ask. Because of that we actually added a coaching section and a nutritionist to Team TriChic because we got so many questions. Besides just wanting to wear the team apparel, they said, ‘I need some help with some coaching.’ They don’t know where to even start if they were brand new, or if they’re intermediate, they don’t exactly know what type of training regime to follow and along with that they were asking about what to eat. A lot of the women triathletes what they tend to do is they try to diet at the same that they’re getting into the sport, and a lot of them are learning its not going work, so we ended up adding the nutritionist because of that as well to make sure that we can help them balance out the training as well as the nutrition.”

Tim Bourquin: “Well if any our listeners missed yesterday’s interview with Cindy Dallow, who’s the dietitian for TriChic, you’ll have to go back into the archives.

Brenda I want to ask you about the camp that you’re having next year, but we need to take a quick break, and we’ll be right back to speak with Brenda Gilchrist.”

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Tim Bourquin: “Brenda you’ve got a camp coming up next year that you’re offering. Is this the first time you’ve offered this?”

Brenda Gilchrist: “Yes. This is the first annual TriChic training camp dedicated just to female triathletes.”

Tim Bourquin: “Tell us about it a little bit; where it is and how long is it?”

Brenda Gilchrist: “It’s a four day, three night training camp, and its going to be held May 26th to May 29th of next year, 2005, and its in the beautiful wine country. We situated there because of just the ambiance. Its some beautiful bike rides that we’re going to be doing; as we’re learning coaching skills in swimming, cycling and running. There’s also going to be some seminars. Cindy Dallow, our sports nutritionist, is going to fly in from Colorado and do an in-depth seminar on nutrition and triathlon, specifically for women, and we also have our coach, Luke Moran, and his staff from www.eperformance.com flying in from Canada to train all the women triathletes on all those areas that you need to be prepared for in order to do a triathlon and also if you’re an intermediate in order to excel better in your areas of triathlon.”

Tim Bourquin: “Now is there some sort of minimum physical level that your participants should be in before they actually come to the camp.”

Brenda Gilchrist: “We expect that they’ve at least been doing some swimming and biking. This camp is not going to be designed for someone that has never worked out at all, so they need to have some, whatever, foundation that they’ve been doing a little bit of running on their own, or they’ve done some mountain biking or some biking on their own, so we do have different skill levels where they can be a newbie where they haven’t done a triathlon but they at least have some background of doing some sort of working out, that they’re physically fit enough to where they can go on the rides with us and they can jump in the pool and do at least 100 yards, or a 100 meter swim, where they can go back and forth and feel confident in the pool. Its designed for all levels, and we’re going to break everybody up into the different backgrounds and levels that they are currently, and the way we’re doing that is they fill out a pre-fit assessment for EPerformance and our coach will be assessing that and putting people into the appropriate groups.”

Tim Bourquin: “If someone hasn’t been to a camp or had time to dedicate three or four days to this, is this a good place to start if you’re a relative new person, but you’re got that minimum level; is it a good place to kind of get your feet wet there?”

Brenda Gilchrist: “This is a great place to get your feet wet. The terrain is set up to where there’s some courses that will be flat, so the person that hasn’t done a lot of hills will be able to take them on at least a training ride where the coach is going to be able to point out to them how you build more strength on your peddle stroke, and Luke Moran is going to talk more to that, because I’m not a coach, but basically he’s going to be providing to them at their newbie level what are the basics of being able to get the power and strength out of your peddle stroke, as well as with your swimming; how can you get the best form in your swim. He’s also going to be looking at everybody’s run and their style, and letting them know how do you start with your run versus how you end it, so he’s going to be looking at heart rate training and talking about that as well. So the new people that aren’t used to running or swimming and cycling and using all the techniques, he’ll give them at least the basics of the foundation of what they should be going back and doing once they start training.”

Tim Bourquin: :Now I would imagine with a camp like this its not always just about the physical training as well, but there’s a lot to be said about getting together with other people that are like minded and exchanging ideas as well.”

Brenda Gilchrist: “Absolutely. The camp is not just going to be the coaching aspect of it, but its definitely a way to bring female triathletes together that have a love and a passion for the sport and/or really want to learn about the sport, and will have a lot of time during seminars just to share stories. Sheila Isaacs, that you’re going to be interviewing as well, she’s going to be attending the camp and I’m sure she’ll have tons of stories to share about how she just competed in the Ironman at age 67; she’ll be there. Lots of neat women have signed up that we’ll be able to see, they’ll talk about their background, how they got into the sport, share their ideas and just meet lifetime friends I think.”

Tim Bourquin: “Great. Well of course listeners can go to www.trichic.com by clicking on the link below the link to this audio. They’ll have all the information there about the camp. Brenda thanks very much for your time. We look forward to maybe following up with you after the camp with another interview.”

Brenda Gilchrist: “Absolutely, and thanks again Tim for the invite, and TriChic really likes and endorses EnduranceRadio. We think it’s a great area.”

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