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Xtri Chats With Mary Beth Ellis
By Betsy Delcour
11/23/2009 |
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Mary Beth Ellis capped off a season that included wins at Escape From Alcatraz, the Pan Am Championships and Boulder Peak Tri with a second at last weekend's Foster Grant IM 70.3 World Championships. A Boulder-based athlete with the great Simon Lessing as her coach, Mary Beth loves to race and does it often by focusing much of her season on ITU and short course races. However, were it not for an osteoarthritis diagnosis in her 20s, Mary Beth would most likely be an elite marathoner today! Check out what she had to say about last weekend's race, how she stays sharp mentally on race day and more...
Hi Mary Beth, and congrats on a stellar performance in Clearwater last weekend! Were you surprised at all to finish in 2nd place again this year?
Yes, I was pleasantly surprised with the results considering how the day unfolded for me. Going into the race I had high aspirations and was hoping to better my performance from my first year at Clearwater. However, after struggling with a foot injury for the second half of the year, I just wasn't sure how things would play out. In order to try to get the foot healthy, I didn't race much the second half of the season. As a result, I felt a bit race rusty, as I hadn't raced in six weeks, and lacked some race confidence that I normally get from having a recent good performance.
Reading your race report, you mentioned that you didn’t feel especially nervous on race morning and worried that perhaps you weren’t excited enough. Did this end up affecting your race at all? Sometimes nerves can be good, but sometimes they can wreck your race! :) So how do you control your mind before and during a race?
There is a little trick with this one: Fake it until you make it. If I don't feel nervous enough or on the flip side am freaking out, I try to fake whatever emotion I want to invoke. It doesn't always work, but it at least seems to help quite a bit. I think the main reason for my lack of nerves was due to my limited racing; my body simply forgot how it was supposed to feel and react on that start line. I don't think it impacted my race except for perhaps contributing a bit to my lackluster swim.
Having trained with Julie Dibens in Boulder, you noted that you weren’t surprised by her win. What was it about her attitude or training that made you feel that way?
I think it fair to say that Julie Dibens had one race in mind all season long. After finishing fourth two years in a row, she was on a mission to win Clearwater this year. On top of the desire and drive to win, she is an amazing all around triathlete. Obviously, she has a solid swim and amazing bike, but I think she doesn't always give herself credit for being a great runner too. When she is on her game, Julie has no weaknesses.
Earlier this season, you had a tough race at the Oceanside 70.3. Can you tell us what happened there? And how did you bounce back mentally and physically?
Oceanside was one of my toughest days in the sport. In retrospect, I should have skipped the race. The weekend before Oceanside, I competed in a world cup in Australia. I flew back to LA on Tuesday before the Saturday race. In addition, I had lost two weeks of run training in early March with a glut strain. I found out first hand that it is a lot easier to fake a 10K on no run training than it is to fake a half -marathon. In addition to the atrocious run, I made a few other mental errors during the race that contributed to the poor performance. It's fair to say that I wasn't mentally or physically on my game at Oceanside. Bouncing back physically was easy; the injury that impacted my training in early March was completely gone. Mentally, I think the performance was harder to get over and contributed to some of the self-doubts that plagued me going into Clearwater. However, while I'd like to forget Oceanside, it was a great wake-up call for me. I made some big changes right after the race: most notably I started working with Simon Lessing.
Most of your focus during the season is on the ITU or short-course circuit. And many top contenders in Kona focus on 70.3 races, rather than full iron distance races, during their seasons. Does the savvy athlete focus on shorter, faster races during the season in order to have more speed and less fatigue for the longer distance World Championship at the end?
I enjoy racing often. If I were only doing 70.3 races, I wouldn't have the ability to get out there and compete as regularly. In addition, I think for me personally the ITU races are a good yardstick. The depth and level of competition on the world cup circuit is much higher than the typical women's field at most non-drafting races. I could go to smaller non-drafting races and perhaps win more often, but I would prefer to race the fastest women in our sport and see where I really stack up and what needs improvement.
You’ve got a broad background in sports from your childhood days, and it seems you were the best at every sport you did! Can you tell us about your athletic interests as a kid and your college sports career?
While I was naturally athletic, I was abysmal at many things such as music and dance. My great aunt once noted that my violin playing was akin to a dying goose.
As a child, I played almost every sport imaginable from golf, tennis, and sailing, to soccer, softball, gymnastics,...on and on. I enjoyed sports, and they kept me busy and out of trouble. In high school, I whittled the list down to focus on field hockey, lacrosse, swimming, and running. When forced to choose a sport to pursue in college, I was torn between field hockey, swimming, and track. Ultimately, I chose swimming and actually decided on Stanford first. However, mid-summer, I changed my decision to Northwestern University when they made me an offer I couldn't refuse. In college, I had a good swimming career but not a great one. I went to NCAAs and received all the requisite academic honors from the NCAA and the Big Ten; however, I think I knew that I reached my own personal glass ceiling in swimming and wasn't destined for the Olympics. During my junior year, Northwestern added a women's cross country team. My swimming coach was kind enough to let me join despite the fact that it would detract from my early season swim training. I really enjoyed racing cross country and decided to stay on a fifth year to finish out my cross country/track eligibility. While there for the extra year, I started graduate school to earn a Masters. During the second year of grad school with my eligibility expired, I competed in my first marathon, the Chicago Marathon, and was immediately hooked.
In your training as an elite marathoner, you discovered that you have premature osteoarthritis in your hip. Can you tell us what those symptoms were? How has this limited your training? Is it a factor in your day-to-day life?
In May of 2005, I was having pain in my hip all the time even while sitting at work or lying down in bed at night. After x-rays showed osteophites, bone spurs, growing off the hip socket my physical therapist contacted a doctor and ordered an MRI right away. The MRI showed the cause of my immediate pain was due to a tear in the joint capsule that resulted in joint fluid leaking out, multiple bone spurs, and a labrum tear. At the time, it sounded like a death sentence: if I kept up my current level of run training I would need a hip replacement in my thirties. I took six weeks completely off of running and started doing some biking and swimming. By June, I started to run again slowly and did my first triathlon that summer. Likewise, in early 2007, I tore the labrum in my other hip. My hips are definitely a factor in my day to day training approach; I am compulsive about stretching, taking ice baths, and getting physical therapy on a regular basis. In addition, I have learned when the hips start to get aggravated a day off is most often the best medicine.
Can you share your perspective on the drafting that went on in Clearwater? For those of us on the sidelines, you hear about the blatant cheaters, but you also hear about people (particularly the women) getting engulfed by a pack – then getting penalized for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What would your solution be to the drafting dilemma?
I don't think anyone was happy with how the race unfolded on the bike, that includes the men and women. I think the athletes were all trying to be legal, and the officials were doing their best to make fair calls. It was simply an impossible situation for everyone out there.
The easy solution to the drafting dilemma would be to move the race to a different course, which I think is the plan for 2011. I'd love a hilly bike course as would many of the other athletes. On the Clearwater course, I think the pro men should have started 8 to 10 minutes ahead of us, and the faster age group men's waves at least 15 minutes behind our wave. While this might not have prevented all the issues, it would have helped immensely.
This year you also switched from one famous coach (Siri Lindley) to another famous coach (Simon Lessing). Why’d you make the change, and how are their styles different?
I left Siri at the end of 2008. Siri was my first triathlon coach, and I cannot thank her enough for everything that she taught me. When Siri moved her training group to California, I decided that the right choice for me was to stay in Colorado. At the end of 2008 and early 2009, I worked with Neal Henderson and learned a great deal about cycling from him. But I struggled without enough day to day interaction and supervision. In April, I started working with Simon and have been very happy with the Boulder Coaching program that also includes run coaching with Darren deReuck. At the end of the day, there are no secrets and hard training is pretty much the same regardless of the coach. However, coaching styles and personalities vary greatly from one to the next. Siri has an incredible enthusiasm for triathlon and an energy about her that is infectious. While Simon is much more realistic, he doesn't mince words and definitely lets me know what he thinks. At this point, I need someone to tell me like it is and help me get to where I need to go.
You’ve had a busy season with lots of outstanding results (besides her 2nd in Clearwater, Mary Beth earned a coveted win at Escape from Alcatraz, Boulder Peak and the Pan Am Champs). How will you relax in the off-season, and what are your plans for 2010?
To be perfectly honest, I am not very good at relaxing. After about a day off, I get antsy and want to find something to do with all my energy. This year, I am visiting family through Thanksgiving and that should help keep me from sneaking back to full-on training too soon.
I am not sure of my plans for 2010 at this point, but my schedule will probably be similar to this past year with a mix of ITU races as well as non-drafting olympic and 70.3 races. There are so many races that I’d love to do and so little time. In the next month, I will sit down with Simon and start working on the plan for next year.
Thanks Mary Beth!
For more info, check out Mary Beth's blog and website.
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