Race Previews

"I am Surprised How Much This Means to Me"...

Wednesday, 13 September 2017 19:10

By Greg Dummer (via Facebook)

I have been receiving a lot of emails and texts from friends asking me about my upcoming race. Admittedly, I don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook but I thought this would be the best way to share some information and a bit about my journey.

On Sunday, September 17th I will be racing in the ITU Triathlon Age Group World Championships in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. I will be representing Team USA competing in the draft-legal sprint championship. The distances are a half mile swim, 12.5 mile bike and 3.1 mile run. While this may appear short to Ironman participants, at this level of competition…it is a red-line racing above any type of threshold you can measure for one hour. I love this distance, it is all about pure speed and fits my personality. 

I started training for this race mid-December, after taking two months off from the 2016 season…eating and drinking anything in sight. For the people who know me well, this isn’t a joke! Seriously, one of these days I am going to try to temper myself. To kick start the season, my wife and I did a “cleanse” at the suggestion of my sister-in-law (Gianna) who sells Arbonne products. Although I was skeptical at first, it was a great experience and I had never felt energy like that before. Based on my assessment of my results from the National Championships last year, I decided I needed to get a little more serious about one of my glaring weaknesses in triathlon. The swim! Following the lead of my three beautiful...

daughters, I sought out a coach from their swim team, YWCA Otters (Tim Walton) to help me with my swim. He started by filming my swim stroke which was incredibly humbling to watch. I couldn't believe I swam like that for the past 7 years of competing. We started to put my stroke back together, I’ve been swimming 3-4 times a week since and my swim has never been better. In addition, my incredible wife gave me the blessing to buy a new bike, which has been a joy to ride and really fast. In 2017, I’ve raced 6 multi-sport events leading into the world championships and am feeling really good about my fitness and speed. 

Having a family, a job and a wife who is a doctor...finding time to train has always been a challenge. Luckily, my wife has been so supportive in letting me find times to train and I have incorporated the help of my daughters. Two weeks ago, I really needed to complete a long run on the weekend and I was at home watching the girls. I told them to get their bike helmets on and to lead me on the run. Truthfully, I couldn’t leave them at home alone and selfishly need to run. One of them complained…and to my surprise, I said (rather forcefully) you are doing this for your country! They laughed, started singing the Star Spangled Banner, got on their bikes and wanted to help me out!

Why do I do this? Good question! My dad (as he was following me in his boat on a recent lake training swim at their Potato Lake cabin) innocently asked me what motivates me to work this hard on triathlons? I’m not sure if I gave an adequate answer to him at that time…but I have been thinking about it. I would say that one of my core life philosophies is this – we are all so much more capable than anything we can imagine. Each and every one of us. I guess by pursuing my best in triathlons, I am trying to affirm this philosophy to myself. To realize my potential. I also believe that having this type of mindset spreads to every facet of your life. It requires you to be intentional, focused and passionate. I see too many people in this world acting like a shadow of who they could be…and to be honest, I saw a little of this in myself a few years ago. I wanted to end it. I also wanted to show my daughters what hard work, dedication and passion can lead to in life.

The other component is that this is a unique way to represent my country. Honestly, I am surprised how much this means to me and has motivated me in my training. Here is a picture of my Team USA racing suit.

I have looked at the participant list for the World Championships and there are so many fast people from Australia, UK, Brazil, Spain and other countries. I am not expecting to do anything earth shattering. However, I am going to do my best, be grateful and appreciate everything about this moment. From the Team USA events, the parade of nations, making friends from other countries and having my wife and parents in attendance. 

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and support!