Posted: February 14, 2005

Triathlon: EnduranceRadio.com Interview with Triathlete Terri Rowan

From: EnduranceRadio.com

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

Tim Bourquin: "Thanks for joining us for another interview today. We’re going to be speaking with Terri Rowan. She’s a triathlete; she’s been into triathlon for about three years now. We’re going to be talking to her about her upcoming season in 2005 here, and also some changes that she’s been making over the off-season in getting ready for that.

First thing though, the Race of the Day today is the Women’s Triathlon in Ontario. It’s the first triathlon series for women in Canada, and the event we’re going to feature today and link to is the Orangeville Triathlon. It’s on Sunday, July 17th, 2005. You can find out more about that triathlon by clicking on the Race of the Day link right below the link to this audio.

So we’re going to be right back to speak with Terri Rowan in about 30 seconds.

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Tim Bourquin: “Terri thanks very much for joining us today, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.”

Terri Rowan: “No problem.”

Tim Bourquin: “Well, we found you on the Trinewbies online board. Are you a pretty active poster over there?”

Terri Rowan: “I’m pretty active yeah. I hope my employer doesn’t hear me say that.”

Tim Bourquin: “Yeah, there was a thread the other day talking about TNO, people posting at work. I thought that was pretty funny.”

Terri Rowan: “I think that’s when most people do their posting.”

Tim Bourquin: “Well talk about your background. How did you get into triathlon originally?”

Terri Rowan: “Unfortunately it’s not a very exciting story, but I had been running primarily for probably two or three years and had been cycling, sort of recreationally. My boyfriend does quite a bit of endurance cycling. He’s done a couple of cross Canada trips and that type of thing, so I was cycling a little bit with him, and a guy at an office that I was working at, who I didn’t know at the time but he was quite a competitive triathlete; he asked me if I knew how to swim and I told him that I had swam for a number of years and had worked as a life guard and a swim instructor, so he basically said, ’You’ve got it all figured out, its all there. You may as well give it a try,’ and I entered a race actually at the end of that summer and did my first one then, and then that’s all I’ve been doing since then.”

Tim Bourquin: “Have you been using a coach at all, or is it pretty much on your own training?”

Terri Rowan: “I had always done my own training. I had picked up pre-made plans from different places, from Trinewbies and from books and that kind of thing, and then I guess starting last season I got more into sort of more serious self coaching and trying to make my own plans and that type of thing.”

Tim Bourquin: “What does your training regime look like right now? Did you take a break over this off-season?””

Terri Rowan: “A little bit. I tend not to take too much time off. I took one week of strict nothingness.”

Tim Bourquin: “One week? That’s not much of a break.”

Terri Rowan: “I mean I scale back significantly through the winter, and here, obviously, in Toronto the weather certainly does put a bit of a damper on it. I refuse to ride the trainer for longer than; an hour and a half is about my limit. Through the winter things naturally scale back.”

Tim Bourquin: “How many races did you do last year?”

Terri Rowan: “Last year I did five, all sprint distances.”

Tim Bourquin: “Were you happy with your performances there?”

Terri Rowan: “I was actually, I was very happy. I was fairly consistent through most of the summer. The first race that I did, the first sprint distance race that I did I was actually very shocked at my time, it was much quicker than I thought it would be, and then I sort of held consistently through the season.”

Tim Bourquin: “Did you come into this off-season thinking you were going to make some changes or was it as you had been thinking about it over the winter time?”

Terri Rowan: “With the coaching aspect of it, its something I had been thinking about since last season and it was one of those things that was if I had the money, when I have the money, that kind of thing, and I just couldn’t justify doing it last year, because I purchased a bike last year so I couldn’t really justify that. As I came into winter I started doing my research, probably around Septemberish I started to realize that I definitely wanted to do it, it was just a matter of figuring out who I wanted to use and what I wanted, what exactly it was I was looking for from the person I wanted to hire.”

Tim Bourquin: “Tell us about that. What were you looking for?”

Terri Rowan: “The most important thing I was looking for; I think because I had spent so much time previously when I was coaching myself, reading and doing a lot of research and that kind of thing, I really wanted to find someone that was offering a package that was competitive in its pricing but that also provided a lot of communication with that pricing, because I wanted to be able to talk to the person who was doing it so that I didn’t really feel like I was completely giving up everything that I had worked for myself in the past. I wanted to kind of have a relationship with this person so that I could say, ‘Listen, I’ve done this in the past and it really worked really well for me. If you don’t think I should continue doing that, why don’t you think I should?” I wanted to have that kind of relationship and I wanted to know that I was free to ask questions.”

Tim Bourquin: “A lot of people I think, when they first go into coaching and get a coach, they put everything into their hands and they just say, ‘Whatever you tell me to do I’m going to do.’ You didn’t really come from that prospective; you wanted to keep some control of that.”

Terri Rowan: “I think what I wanted to give up, in terms of the thing that I wanted to unburden myself of, was the planning. I’m kind of a tweaker, so I make a plan and then I race the plan and I’m happy with the outcome, but despite being happy with the outcome I still fiddle around with it, I don’t know why, it’s just my nature. So I wanted to give that part of it away, I wanted somebody to do the skeleton and the outline of it, and then we can haggle about the details, which is fine. But I wanted someone else to take that responsibility, to say, ‘This is how it’s going to unfold over the course of all of these months and that’s not going to change. I’m not going to let you change that,’ unless something drastic happens obviously, but its going to play out in a certain way. The smaller details of like whether or not you’re going to do this type of workout or that type of workout, I can have that conversation with my coach, but I wanted to get rid of the temptation to touch it, to mess with it once it had been set.”

Tim Bourquin: “Well I want to ask you about what kind of questions you ask coaches or what kind of information you got off the internet before you chose, but I need to take a quick break. We’re going to be right back to speak with Terri Rowan.”

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Tim Bourquin: “So Terri, what kind of things did you ask the coaches? Did you interview people or did you just look at their website? What did you do?”

Terri Rowan: “I mostly looked at their websites first and then I did some email back and forth with some people that I was considering. Most of the questions were about communication; what’s your level of communication? What type of communication, is it email, is it telephone? That type of thing.”

Tim Bourquin: “Did you want somebody in person or were you okay with doing it virtually online?”

Terri Rowan: “I was looking for somebody who was relatively local. They didn’t have to be right in the city, but I didn’t want someone who was in another Province. Most of the stuff that I do now is handled online. My work ethic dealt that to me through an online service. I can get to my coaches if I want. They sponsor some weekend training, you know where everyone takes their trainers and goes into a big room and works out together. They do that type of thing so I get to have a little bit of personal contact with them, which is nice because its nice to meet them because that takes the relationship to a different level, but also I’ve got some things out of it like my coach was primarily a cyclist so I get some good bike fit analysis and that kind of thing if we do manage to get together, so its kind of a little bit of a bonus. If I do have the opportunity in the summer for him to come for an hour with me to ride its not an impossibly for either of us. It’s nice to have those options. It wasn’t the number one thing, but I definitely looked locally first.”

Tim Bourquin: “Was there anybody, and you don’t have to name names, that emailed you back or told you something you disliked you thought, ‘Absolutely not, I know that’s not the right person for me’.”

Terri Rowan: “There wasn’t actually. It was very small details that made the difference for me, and it was mostly, again, in relation to pricing and communication, that’s really what it was; who was going to give me the most amount of contact for a good price. It didn’t have to be rock-bottom, you’re paying for a service and you’re paying someone for their expertise so cheap cheap is not really what you’re looking for because it’s a bit of an investment, but who is going to give you the most for that moderate price plan.”

Tim Bourquin: “And how are you going to judge success do you think? Do you want to take time off your races or just feel better while you’re racing? How do you think you’ll judge whether or not this has worked for you?”

Terri Rowan: “Obviously everyone wants to see time come off their races. I think that I would like that but I don’t think that’s going to be my number one criteria. I think part of it is going to be mental, like how I feel mentally. I find that mental burnout is more of a fear for me than physical. I find I get mentally burnt out if I feel that I don’t have enough free time or that I’m not maximizing the use of my time. I think that will be a number one thing for me. I think a big part of the mental burnout for me is finding time and now I don’t have to find the time. I tell somebody, ‘These are the days I have available, make it work’.”

Tim Bourquin: “And just train efficiently it sounds like.”

Terri Rowan: “That’s it exactly, and a big mental thing for me is to use my time to its potential.”

Tim Bourquin: “How many races will do you this year?”

Terri Rowan: “I think I have five scheduled again this year, five triathlons.”

Tim Bourquin: “Does that seem to work for you; is that the number that allows you to feel comfortable with recovery in between?”

Terri Rowan: “I would probably race more, but my number one limiter is that I don’t drive so I count on others to get me places, so I’m limited in who I can get to drive me places and how many times they’ll do that for me. I might race a bit more but five, four or five, is nice.”

Tim Bourquin: “Are most of those in Canada?”

Terri Rowan: “They all are yes.”

Tim Bourquin: “Well we’re just about out of time now, but Terri thanks very much for talking with us. I appreciate you sharing your stuff about your coach, and I think our listeners will get a lot out of that. Maybe we can follow up in three or four months and see how that’s all going and see how your seasons coming along.”

Terri Rowan: “Sure.”

Tim Bourquin: “Thanks very much.”

Related Links: Presented by: Gatorade Endurance Hydration Formula
Ontario Women's Triathlon
USA Triathlon

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