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Mimi Boyle Checks In With Jordan Rapp
By Mimi Boyle
7/10/2008 |
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Keeping up with Jordan in May was a full time job as he raced his way from Boise, ID to Canada! He did manage to stop for a while and chat with us…here’s what he had to say about back-to-back race weekends, and his apparent passion for Western movies…
Mimi Boyle: You recently did two 70.3 distance races back to back weekends. What made you choose these races and how was the recovery between the two?
Jordan Rapp: Everyone says you get sort of a "freebie" race after Ironman about six weeks after, when you've gotten a chance to fully recover and absorb the load of the day, so I figured I'd try to take advantage of that. So the timing of that coincided with the first race, Shawnigan Lake. The race was local, so it was easy to do since it involved driving roughly 30 minutes to the race course. The post-Ironman fitness was really nice; I had a much better race than I thought I would given the amount of training I'd done right before the race.
The race in Boise was sort of a mix of challenge and convenience. I was headed down to California anyway to teach a FIST bike fit workshop with Dan Empfield, so the race in Boise was a convenient race in terms of setting up a recovery week during a week in which I'd be traveling a lot anyway. My perfectly planned day didn't work out, since the logistics of the Boise race (split transitions) meant I ended up missing my flight down to California. After leaving California, I headed to Vancouver to watch the ITU championships. In retrospect, that was probably a bit much to tackle. I actually felt pretty good after the race, but traveling all over the place is not the best way to recover, and I ended up paying the price a week after Boise in terms of how I felt.
So, as for why I picked those two races, they were both convenient, but for different reasons. So I decided to give it a go. The mistake, if I made one, was not really recovering after Boise properly. I also definitely paid the price racing on back to back weekends, as I was not at my peak for Boise, but it was fun to give it a go. It was a nice challenge, and the race in Boise went well enough (except for the swim, again...). I had so many close friends racing in Vancouver, that missing that race was not an option. If the ITU would have scheduled their races around my life, I would probably have not raced in Boise and would have gone to Eagleman or Alcatraz (both on June 8th). Boise was an awesome race, so I'm also really glad I went because I will definitely go back. I also thought about racing again in Kansas (two weeks after Boise), but that started to put me into recovery mode closer to Lifetime Fitness than I wanted. I knew I needed to get back to training more regularly, since it's hard to just keep trying to do the taper/race/recovery cycle. So there were a lot of things to consider, and in the end I just sort of put the decision to Coach Joel who decided this was the best option (minus the whirlwind of travel after Boise). I think in his mind, he didn't really consider all the things I thought about; he just wanted to see me suffer.
MB: In IM AZ you were eligible to qualify for Kona but you declined the slot. What influenced this decision and do you have plans for Kona in the longer term?
KR: There was really only one thing that influenced the decision. I'm going to Beijing to watch some of my closest friends race in the Olympics, and there would have been only five and a half weeks after I got back to train for Kona. That just wasn't enough time, in my mind, to prepare for Kona (especially my first try) after spending two weeks in China, where I have no idea what (if any) training I'll be able to do. I'm sure I'll go eventually, but I'm not in a rush. I'd like to go when I feel like I can be prepared enough to do well. Of course, Kona is a unique race, so being prepared doesn't always mean as much as at other races (crazy things happen on the big island), but I'd like to feel like I have done what I needed to do to really be ready before I step on the line for the first time. The swim in Kona is so much more important than at other races. If you don't swim well, you're generally never really in the race. So I'd like to feel better about my swimming more than anything else. That is probably what will dictate when I decide to race there - when I feel like I can confidently call myself a second pack swimmer (i.e. come out about 2min down on the leaders). In some ways, it was nice to have the trip to Beijing as a reason not to race, since I didn't really feel that I was ready to take on Kona yet anyway. I'm really excited to go back to Arizona again. I really like the course and racing in Tempe is so convenient for a lot of reasons, the major one being that there is a Whole Foods close by.
MB: You are planning on tackling a number of short course, none drafting races this summer - how does this change your approach to training versus Ironman prep?
JR: Basically, my long workouts are shorter. Preparing for Ironman, I'd have some days where I'd do a two hour run in the morning and then run again in the evening. Right now, my longest run is about 90 minutes.
The focus is really on the quality sessions throughout the week. So the big focus is on
MB: Where are you training these days?
JR: Victoria, BC, Canada. It's nice to be with a training group and have Coach Joel there to supervise every day. He gives us more structure than I'd implement on my own, which makes it nice because you just show up for workouts when they are scheduled. You don't have to think about when you are going to do something, which I like. Don't think.
Just train. :)
MB: On your off days (please say you have those!) do you sleep till noon and watch tv all day?
JR: I don't really have off days, honestly. Mondays are the easiest day - just an easy swim (one hour or so) and then an easy ride (1-1.5 hours) or run (30 - 60 minutes). Friday is a mixed day - hard swim in the morning, but then easy ride or run in the afternoon. Other than that, most days are pretty full of training. Of course after Ironman I had some lazy days, but that's not regular training time. And even then, I tried to do something every day. For the week after Ironman, I tried to swim about 2000m most days. During normal training weeks, I actually have a hard time sleeping in past 6:30, which is when I wake up M-F for swimming. Sometimes I sleep until 7;15 or so, but usually I'm really awake and just sort of laying in bed relaxing. I slept until 8:30 the other day (fell back asleep after waking up at 6:30), but that was because I'd gone way too hard on one of my weekend workouts. It's a rarity that I will sleep that late. I don't own a TV, but I do spend way too much time on my computer on the days when I have less training that I'm supposed to do. I try to get a lot of work done on the Slowtwitch.com site on those days, where I guess you could say I'm the "manager." I think of myself as the CTO or something fancy like that, but Dan calls me the Janitor, since I keep things in order.
But as much as I try to be good about getting work done, I also waste plenty of time surfing.
MB: What's the last movie you've seen on the big screen? Ok, if you haven't been to the theatres in a while, what have you rented?
JR: The last movie I saw in theatres was "Bee Movie." That was kind of meh. Before that was "Transformers," which was awesome on the big screen. Both of those were a while ago. Honestly, I have a hard time sitting still for a long time, so I don't like to go to the theatre. I get restless. Really, my favorite part is the previews, since they are about the perfect length for me. The last movie I watched was "3:10 to Yuma," which I watched on my computer (I love iTunes for movies). I'm a huge western fan, so this was a real treat. I think this will become a classic. I think people will watch this in the future the way that we watch old John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies.
MB: Thanks Jordan…and best of luck to you as you tackle the Olympic distance circuit in Minneapolis this weekend at the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon, and in NYC on the 20the at the Nautica NYC Triathlon. We’re hoping to see you on the podium again sporting some True-Motion gear!
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