I just got back from the 2025 USAT National Triathlon Championships in Milwaukee \u2014 and it didn\u2019t go as planned. Not because I raced poorly, but because I didn\u2019t race at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whenever something in sport doesn\u2019t align with my hopes and expectations, I try to walk away with lessons that will help me \u2014 and hopefully others \u2014 in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Little Backstory<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I arrived in Milwaukee with high hopes. Over the last five years at Nationals, I\u2019ve had multiple top-5 finishes and even a podium. This season has been a breakout for me \u2014 sweeping my age group in three races at the 2025 USAT Multisport National Championships in Omaha \u2014 and I was healthy, motivated, and eager to compete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the first time, I skipped the Olympic-distance race and focused on the sprint. I haven\u2019t enjoyed the Oly\u2019s longer 2:15\u20132:30 effort and have been more competitive at shorter distances. It felt like the right choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As it turned out, Saturday\u2019s Oly was brutal: 90\u00b0F heat, heavy humidity, and a nasty southerly headwind that chewed up the bike course. Athletes dropped like flies from dehydration and heat exhaustion. Those of us racing only in the Sprint on Sunday \u2014 in forecasted cooler, overcast weather \u2014 felt pretty smug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the triathlon gods<\/em> had their say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overnight, Milwaukee was hit with heavy rain, thunder, and lightning. By Sunday morning, water and roads were unsafe. USAT, working with local authorities, canceled the race. Thousands of athletes \u2014 many who had traveled far and spent a lot \u2014 were left with no start line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t blame USAT. Safety comes first, and I know they were as disappointed as we were. Still, leaving without racing hurts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s what I took away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lesson #1: Feel Bad<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As we all know, when life serves us lemons (and, no, I\u2019m not going to use that tired \u201cmake lemonade\u201d trope), the taste is rather sour. In other words, we feel bad, sometimes really bad. A veritable tsunami of emotions may overtake us. If you ever read about Kubler-Ross\u2019s model of grieving, you know the thoughts and emotions I\u2019m talking about. It starts with denial (\u201cThis can\u2019t be happening!\u201d). Your emotions then run from frustration to anger and finally, to disappointment and sadness at the opportunity lost. Oh, the final step is acceptance, a good place to get to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s the lesson: Allow yourself to grieve and feel bad. Don\u2019t ignore your feelings, distract yourself, or self-medicate (either with exercise or worse). Though these strategies provide short-term relief, they don\u2019t actually cause you to let go of the emotions. Instead, they just stay inside of you and fester. So, write down what you\u2019re thinking and feeling, share them with others, or just sit with and wallow in them (but just for a short time). In other words, allow yourself to just plain feel bad and fully experience their unpleasantness in all their glory. My experience, both professional and personal, suggests that you\u2019ll feel much better by tomorrow as you re-immerse yourself back into normal life. You won\u2019t be 100% happy and loving life completely, but over the next few days, the plethora of negative emotions will slowly fade away, but only if you experience them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And here\u2019s a confession: when I read the cancellation notice, I also felt relief. Many athletes do. Racing matters to our identity, and the risk of not performing can feel threatening. No race means no chance to \u201cfail.\u201d Acknowledging that mix of emotions can help you process faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lesson #2: Accept These Two Triathlon Truths<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n First Triathlon Truth: Triathlon isn\u2019t an indoor sport. Wouldn\u2019t be great if triathlon was contested indoors (okay, there are the Arena Games and E World Triathlon, but still pretty rare) like, say, table tennis, badminton, and squash? But maybe not so great because part of the challenge of triathlon isn\u2019t just against the other competitors or even against ourselves, but also against everything that nature can throw at us. Which means the unpredictability of having a sport that can fall victim to all manner of outdoor forces, including weather, terrain, water conditions, and road surface, as befell us yesterday in Milwaukee. If you can\u2019t accept the vagaries of the environment in triathlon, best to take up bowling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second Triathlon Truth: S&%# happens in triathlon. Those almighty triathlon gods sure like to f&%# with us (apologies for the profanity!) and make an already difficult sport that much more difficult. When they team up with Murphy\u2019s Law (\u201cAnything that can go wrong will go wrong\u2026at the worst possible moment\u201d) real s&%# can really happen: cold, heat, winds, waves, potholes, steep climbs and descents, flat tires, sundry other mechanical problems, cramps, dehydration, the list goes on. If you want those gods and Murphy to stay out of your life, I suggest backgammon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lesson #3: Don\u2019t Rage Against the Machine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you mean by that, you\u2019re wondering? I mean being angry about something that you have absolutely no control over and can\u2019t possibly change. What a true waste of thinking, emotional energy, and time. Even worse, when you blame the machine. Yesterday morning, you may have found yourself blaming and being angry at USAT for making the decision to cancel the event. Now, admittedly if you read some of the USAT-related Facebook pages, you may conclude that USAT deserves your enmity. But not in this situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s an insight that I hope you will appreciate. Anger is never the real emotion. It\u2019s a shield against disappointment and sadness. Plus, anger takes your bad feelings and externalizes them onto someone or something outside of you. And it gives your emotions a tangible outlet; \u201cIt\u2019s their fault, they are bad, it\u2019s not me!\u201d But your emotions are you, no matter how much you try to convince yourself that it\u2019s their problem. Yes, being angry at someone else about the decision does provide temporary relief from the hurt you feel inside. But, as noted in in Lesson #1, ignoring the emotions doesn\u2019t help relieve them in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lesson #4: Keep it in Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is easier said than done because triathlon is likely really important to you. It may even be the most important thing in your life. When I say keep it in perspective, I don\u2019t mean compare it to all the awful things that are happening in the world. I rarely find that this sort of perspective taking works because those \u201cbig picture\u201d ways of looking at the world are too distant from our own lives. We wish that sort of perspective helped ease the pain because it would make us seem feel likes saints when all we really are is human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But putting the lost weekend in perspective around aspects of our own lives that are real and feel immediate can help. Expressing gratitude to our family and friends who have supported us despite the hours we spend away from them training and racing helps. So does reminding ourselves that this is an avocation, not our careers. That triathlon may be a big and important part of our lives, but it isn\u2019t life itself. And just being thankful for being healthy and able to do something as fun and gratifying as triathlon won\u2019t erase the pain of the past weekend, but it takes the edge off, enabling you to put the unfortunate experience in your rearview mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lesson #5: Turn Your Gaze to the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Having allowed yourself to feel bad, avoided raging against the machine, and gained some perspective on the disappointment, it\u2019s now time to put the past behind you (where it belongs) and begin to look again to what lies ahead, whether it\u2019s your next training block or a fun race you have scheduled, or another \u201cA\u201d race that might wrap up your season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s something that I thought of within hours of the cancellation announcement. I told my coach that the good thing about the non-race is that I don\u2019t have to recover this week and can throw myself back into intense training for my \u201cA+\u201d races of 2025, the World Championships in Australia in October. Since 2022 when I returned to triathlon after an 11-year hiatus, the World Championships has been the marquis event of my race calendar and the most fun because I get to do triathlons for the primary reason I do them, namely, to compete and see how I stack up against the best age groupers in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As soon I had this realization, I felt better. Not totally back to normal mind you. But it felt like I was a flat tire on my bike that I was able to repair and was slowly refill with air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Final Thought<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So, dive back into training, and find a race to do soon, even if it isn\u2019t the Nationals. A race is a race (mostly) and this will give you many of the same feelings of meaning, fulfillment, and joy you would have experienced in Milwaukee. And before you know it, the disappointment of Milwaukee will be a distant, albeit sensitive memory, and you\u2019ll be back on the road (emotionally and literally) to your next triathlon adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I just got back from the 2025 USAT National Triathlon Championships in Milwaukee \u2014 and it didn\u2019t go as planned. Not because I raced poorly, but because I didn\u2019t race at all. 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