Social Media and the Coveted Sponsorship

         Since this is my blog, I have the freedom to say whatever I want, and I’m aware that this post may rub some people the wrong way…so be it.  I’ve noticed a trend over the past few years, and it extends far beyond the realm of triathlon, but since most of my Facebook/Instagram friends are fellow triathletes, I get bombarded with these types of photos every day.  It’s no longer just the selfie, it’s the selfie on the bike, on the run, getting in and out of the water, post-workout group shots, you name it…and they are everywhere.  This has created a sort of positive feedback loop in the community, where individuals who never used to post anything are suddenly posting pics of themselves every other day. 

            Why is this happening?  The majority, I believe, are just having fun chronicling their journey through this sport, and sharing their adventures with friends, and that’s fine.  A minority also exists, however, who either have sponsorships, or are trying to get them.  Interestingly, your number of Instagram followers or Facebook “likes” now directly correlates to your attractiveness to potential sponsors, regardless of your athletic abilities.  For many athletes this is great news – just build up your social media influence, and the sponsors will soon come knocking.  But where does that leave those of us who just can’t do this?  I don’t have a GoPro, and I refuse to take a picture of myself every time I get on my bike.  The thought of posting this kind of stuff literally makes me cringe.  I know of only a few other triathletes that share this view, and they are absolute powerhouses in the sport.  Guess how many sponsorships they have? ZERO. It doesn’t matter how athletically gifted you are, your silence on social media makes you invisible to sponsors. 

            But Ola, why do you care? Don’t worry about anyone else, and just do you.  True, but I’m currently a student essentially living below the poverty line, and this sport is expensive as hell.  For me, and others in my situation, every little bit can help.  And sponsors can only support so many athletes before it starts to cut into their bottom line.  So, what to do? I basically have two options: I either get over it and start playing the game, or I bow out as gracefully as possible and assume the financial repercussions.  It's really nobody's fault, this is just the way things have evolved. And there really is no other point to this post other than to vent a little.   What are your thoughts?  Am I total ass for expressing this opinion? Do you feel the same way?

Welcome to the Big Leagues Besser, Part Deux

         TriRock Philly was my second experience racing in the Pro division and it was definitely an interesting one, in that it was simultaneously one of my best and one of my worst.  But let’s back up a second as the past few weeks have probably played some role into how today went, as I knew might be the case.  A couple weeks back I took a 10-day vacation in Italy with my family and my boyfriend Tom.  It was fantastic.  We had a jam-packed trip hitting several cities back to back.  

         Unfortunately, I didn’t do any training while I was there, nor did I expect to.  We walked A TON, but nothing to get my heart rate up.  It was a well-needed break, yet upon my return I was greeted with a surprise deadline at work (a necessary meeting to finish up my PhD), and some pretty tough workouts courtesy of Coach to get the gears turning at full speed again.  I was immediately stressed trying to meet the requirements of this particular deadline, and I was struggling to hit my normal numbers in the pool, on the bike, and on the run.  Needless to say, the week after the trip was a rough one for me.  And yet, I miraculously made it through, like I always do.

            I wanted to get a race under my belt before this weekend’s race (TriRock), just to put myself back into race mode.  Luckily, the Mack Cycle Trilogy race was scheduled for that weekend, and I was fortunate that my new Sponsor, Pro Cycling and Fitness in Miami, was able to assist me in getting a race entry.  Thank you Andre and Magui!  

           I look forward to teaming up with Pro Cycling, as they are a well-respected bike shop and are committed to lessening the cost of training for this sport.  Seriously, sign up to be part of their email listserve, as they send out great deals almost every week -> https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/1777064/1746484.9406004/?v=a.  They have everything you could possibly need.   Anywho, the race went reasonably well given the training I was subjected to the prior week.  I held back a tad as I didn’t want to completely annihilate myself for TriRock the next weekend, but it did the trick.  I was back in race mode.

            Fast-forward to the weekend of the race.  It turns out I was pulling double duty this particular weekend.  Tom and I were going to a wedding on Saturday that was 4 hours away from Philly.  So my weekend looked like this:

Friday – hop the first flight to Philly, grab breakfast, pick-up packet, drive to Ithaca (4 hours), go straight to pre-wedding dinner.

Saturday – join the wedding group for a leisurely hike around a nearby lake, put half of my bike together before getting kicked out of our room for check-out, 2x wine tasting since it was pouring outside, go to wedding celebration, hop in the car at 8:30pm to drive back, get to Philly around 12:30am, put the rest of my bike together in an exhausted stupor, set alarm for 4am, hope bike would not fall apart on first descent during race.

            Amazingly, I woke up when my alarm went off and I mustered up enough energy to get out the door.  Some of you may know that I loathe waking up super early in the morning, even on race days (I do my training in the evenings), and this morning was no different.  Even more amazing was Tom’s willingness to wake up with me, and chauffer me to the race.  With 3.5 hours of sleep, I expected some slight grumpiness, but received none.  As it turns out, I’m usually the grumpy one at that hour, but I managed to keep it together and be somewhat pleasant.  I headed to transition without any problems.  The Pros had their own little staging area in the corner of transition.  I felt like we were a bunch of cattle being auctioned off in there, as many of the age-group triathletes and spectators were leaning over the gates, watching our every move as we got ready to go.  It felt pretty amazing to be in the group with these other incredible athletes.

            I should probably mention that the swim was canceled the day before.  A sizable storm had made its way through the area, and the race director deemed it unsafe to swim as a result.  My first thought was “oh, this is a good thing, I wont immediately lose minutes to faster swimmers that will drop me like a stone in the water, right? WRONG!  As a result of the canceled swim, we did a time trial start on our bikes out of transition.  In typical Ola fashion, I had no idea what was going.  I just lined myself up with the other women, and presumed I would figure it out once we got going.

 While in line waiting, I realized my bike seat was totally loose. Probably should fix that or I’m not going too far. With about a minute to go before my send-off, I whipped out my multi-tool and tightened the necessary bolts. 

 Disaster #1 avoided.  The potential impeding disasters were what ended up crippling my race though, as I will explain.

            While it wasn’t pouring the morning of the race, it was oscillating between a light drizzle and a steady rain.  As a result, the roads were obviously wet and my race mentality went from “ferocious tiger out for blood” to “precautious house cat”.  In fact, I am a gigantic scardy-cat when the roads are wet.  This, combined with the fact that I actually hate descending down hills, sort of took all the wind out of my sails.  While my compatriots are bombing down the bridge in Key Biscayne in aero pushing the hardest gear they can to get the free speed, I’m the one sitting up with both hands rubbing the breaks.  I made a conscious decision before starting the race that I was going to be conservative going down hills and around sharp turns.  The conditions under which my bike was assembled made me even more nervous that I didn’t tighten something properly, or that my wheel would fall off, or something spectacular like that.  Unfortunately for me, the bike course was quite technical with many descents and sharp turns, and descents WITH sharp turns.  More so than I realized before hand, as I didn’t get a chance to check the course out the day before.  So I guess you can say my race was over before it began, but I didn’t know that at the time.  My one goal on the bike was to bump my watts up to around FTP, as I had been hovering around 90-95% FTP prior to this for Olympic distance courses.  

  I realize this post is getting pretty long, apologies.  

            Within the first mile, I got passed by the girl behind me.  Almost immediately after that, I got passed by the girl behind her. I mean, they passed me like I was standing still.  For somebody who feels that they have some pretty decent bike speed, this was quite demoralizing.  Well, that happened a few more times, and I started to feel like I was going unusually slow, more so than my “scardy-catness” would attribute to.  But I had nothing to blame it on, my brakes weren’t rubbing, my tires weren’t flat, my derailleur was shifting just fine.  However, my watts were great!  I was at or above FTP throughout most of the course (except for when I was descending or turning of course).  Yet I still felt so slow.  Many have experienced this phenomenon, where your pushing hard but the speed isn’t matching up.  Sometimes you find the problem, in other cases, it’s all in your head.  I have no idea what was going on my case, it’s a mystery.  Even though I was thrilled with my power output, I came into T2 pretty far behind the other women (all of them), and I knew I wouldn’t be running anyone in this group down.  Just being realistic here.  

            I fought the urge to give up, and to “just have fun”.  I fought and fought.  I didn’t have my run pace screen properly set up on my watch (of course), so I was running completely based off of perceived effort.  At the first turn-around, I realized how truly far back I was.  Ugh.  But I kept running and tried to keep my emotions at bay.  When I got to the finish, Tom was the only spectator there, as all the other Pros had long finished, and all of the age-groupers were still out on the bike course.  I held back a couple tears of embarrassment and took a quick look at my watch.  I finished dead last, but my numbers revealed that I had my best race to date.  I was able to throw down one of my best runs ever after my strongest ride yet…..and I didn’t give up.  And for that, I am extremely proud.  As I wade through this new set of experiences racing against world’s best, I’m learning unexpected lessons of humility and fortitude that I know will make me a stronger athlete.  These lessons will inevitably carry over into my professional life as a physician-scientist, and I’m grateful to be given these opportunities to grow.  On to the next!