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Nathan Killam

The Fire

By InnerVoice

March 9^th, 2018

sometimes you shit the bed

When I first started triathlon, I was absolutely obsessed with nailing every single workout, and never missing a single session. I skipped family functions for training and missed out on a lot of things, because triathlon was number 1 and that’s it. I was really obsessed with the sport. I had trouble with balance, but working as a heavy duty mechanic and trying my best to learn about this sport didn’t leave a lot of room for much else. It had a negative effect on my relationship at the time, and I had a lot of friends that I neglected because of my new obsession. It was just work, train, work, train, work, train, and nothing else.

If I had a bad workout I fretted and stressed about it. Now, if things go off the rails a bit, I don’t worry about it. I don’t try to make up for it later in the week. I just accept that sometimes you shit the bed and the sooner I can move forward, the better off my mental and physical health is.

That said, without triathlon I’d have never met my wife. So I’d say it’s had a positive impact on my life overall (I think my wife would agree?)

i Was 210 lbs

Once upon a time, my diet consisted of a lot of fast food, mainly McDonalds and Burger King. Whopper Wednesdays was a favourite of mine; at lunch I’d drive a bunch of buddies to BK and they’d give me their second Whopper. It wasn’t uncommon for me to crush two, three or sometimes four Whoppers in a sitting, plus a large coke and large fries, usually with a sundae to wash it all down.

After graduating high school, there was no more PE class. I started my pre-apprenticeship schooling to be a mechanic, where there was no exercise involved. After class, I worked on race cars with my best buddy, and in the evenings we would crush pizzas. I would usually eat an entire pizza to myself, and then finish off whatever he couldn’t eat of his. Then we played video games. Repeat. Well, after a few months of this, my Dockers looked like spandex and I was searching for extra holes my belt didn’t have. Some time that fall, I stepped on my dad’s scales and staring back at me was this: 210lbs. It was a bit of a wake up call. I realized the eating was getting out of hand and I should probably smarten up if I wanted to live past my 30s.

My girlfriend at the time decided to get a gym membership, so I figured I should too. I completely stopped eating fast food, I started going to the gym a few times a week, and started eating these things called vegetables. I would do a 30-minute circuit followed by a 10-minute stretch. This morphed into 20-25 minutes on the treadmill and lifting weights.

By 2007 I was running more like 30 to 40 minutes at a time, and even OUTSIDE (I didn’t like running outside at the time, mostly on the treadmill.) That year, in April, I decided to see how fast I could run the Vancouver Sun Run - a 10km race. I ran 40:30, and knew if I could break 40 minutes I could get the coveted ‘Blue Race Bib’ the next year, indicating the elite field. I kept trying 10k races, and slowly brought my time down. That summer, I started riding my bike to work and a friend of mine recommended I try this ‘triathlon’ thing that he had done near his cabin (thanks Steve Verner, you pretty much started my triathlon career!)

That August, I tried my first triathlon, and with the guidance of the nice lady at the local triathlon shop (thanks Charlene) I won my first race. After that I was hooked, and the rest is history. By 2010, I was winning my age group at all the races I entered, and later that year I beat a lot of pros to win my AG at Austin 70.3. I thought “hey, maybe I should try doing this pro racing thing” and took my pro card for 2011. Although I’ve never stopped working full-time, I’ve been racing as a pro ever since.

Girls, Cars and Fire Fighting

Growing up my father was a firefighter, and that was something I always had in the forefront of my mind as a career option. In high school I really liked math and physics, but after discovering girls and cars, I decided to take my father’s advice and get a trade. I went to work as a heavy-duty mechanic, getting my red seal trade certificate in 2009. Right after I got that ticket, I went to fire school, and then was hired as a firefighter shortly after.

"Triathlon, especially long course triathlon, is all about troubleshooting problems. But sometimes the stars don’t align and the Titanic hits the iceberg and you go down."

pOsitivity wins

I never realized how well I’d learn to absorb failure. Whether it’s in a training session or in a race, I’ve learned that I can really look forward and not dwell on a bad day. I’ve learned there’s no positive that comes from stewing in frustration. Sure, I like to reflect and analyze and see if there’s a reason behind the failure, but I don’t spend too much time on them. I just move on.

I don’t have a lot of folks that I regularly train with. When I think about it, I do probably 90% of my training alone. There’s only a select few people that I train with, and the ‘tribe’ that I’ve chosen to spend most of my time with are really positive-minded, always looking at the brighter-end of the spectrum. If I was training with someone who was a Debbie Downer (no offense to the Debbie’s of the world,) or a Negative Nancy (I don’t know what Nancy’s did to deserve this name), it would really bring me down and put a darkness on my sessions.

But the few people I train with always help me take away all the positive aspects from a session. For instance, one of my favourite people to train with is Rachel McBride; she’s about the only person I swim with, and I try to log as many miles on the bike with her as I can. We were swimming the other day and I joked about how her slow speed is my fast speed. But she commented with “from what I remember, last year at this time you were really sick and could barely swim” (which is totally true, I had hyperthyroidism and was in a bad place physically). That’s the kind of person I love to train with, someone who can really pull all the positives out of a session. My coach Björn Ossenbrink is the same way; when I’m not performing great or I’m off the mark in a session, he will point out the positive aspects of the performance. Negativity can act like a cancer and spread to other aspects of your life.

“When I started in triathlon I didn’t know you aren’t supposed to lock your bike in transition. I also didn’t know that during a race you just pee on the bike. I figured that one out eventually.”

i considered crashing

Sometimes it’s difficult to recall what my mind was doing when I had to go deep in the well. But, there are a few instances where I can clearly remember how I got through an insanely difficult moment. One instance was Ironman Canada in 2015, it was 8 degrees celsius when we came out of the water, and it was raining incredibly hard. The ride took us up to where Whistler Olympic Park is, and by that time it was hovering around 3C, just about freezing, and it was POURING, like crazy rainforest type rain. Wearing practically nothing, I was at the point of hypothermia; I was unable to feel any of my body, I could barely control my arms and hands, and I was shaking uncontrollably coming back down into Whistler.

I was seriously considering crashing so I would have an excuse to quit. But in my mind, just giving up because I was in pain didn’t seem like an option. I was delirious, was getting tunnel vision, and was at the point of pulling the pin. But then, as I rode through town, back through the crowds, I passed my parents, wife (fiancé at the time), and my coach. They were in shin-deep water, cheering their hearts out for me. From then on, I knew I was racing for them, not for me. I couldn’t let them down. They came all this way to support me, and the pain I was in at that moment couldn’t possibly be as bad as the pain I would feel if I just jumped ship and gave up, and let them all down. It became a battle of attrition. I rode through the pain and suffering and kept going.

Eventually the rain stopped and it became dry out. My body was aching and I hurt all over, but I managed to run myself back up into 6th, and I couldn’t have been more proud.

“When times get tough in a race, I always break it up into bite-sized chunks. If you’re going to eat a huge burger, you don’t just toss the whole thing in your mouth and hope the person beside you knows CPR. No, you make it small, bite-size chunks that you can handle.”

i stop when i'm done

There’s a few incredibly inspirational people in my life, and each inspires me in a different way. My parents inspire me in the sense that they have always believed in me no matter what I’m doing. They’ve always supported me 100% and that motivates and inspires me.

Growing up, my dad never cared how well I did in sports, all he cared was that I tried my hardest and had fun. When I toe the line for a race, whether I’m fit or not, whether I’m prepared or not, I always do my best, because that was how I was raised. I always go 100%, and when it really hurts, I keep digging because anything less isn’t my best effort. As David Goggins says, “I don’t stop when I’m tired, I stop when I’m done.” I’m a ‘100% all-in’ kind of person.

My wife also inspires me to no end. She's a great athlete, and started her Executive MBA in September 2016. She got pregnant shortly after starting, but has continued to push through even after our son was born. She’s doing really well, and still tries to get top marks. She is an amazing woman and inspires me to always try for 100%, even when I’m tired and things get really hard.

do what you love

I would say the biggest tragedy I’ve had was the sudden passing of my cousin last year in an MVI. It was a huge shock, to hear my mum on the phone telling me this terrible news, and just not really believing it. I still tear up when I see photos of my cousin, he was just a young lad and taken too soon. It really reminded me that life is so fleeting; that my time above ground needs to be lived to 100% of it’s potential, with no room for negativity or wasted breath.

In my line of work we see tragedy over the years, sometimes horrific. It reminds me to hug my wife and hug my son as much as I can, to let the people close to me in life know that they mean so much to me, and how much I enjoy my time with them. I’ve learned that you never know when you’re going to have your ticket punched, so every day should be spent with whom and doing what you love the most.

Footnotes

Words by Nathan Killam, Photos by Matt Clark (@stirlandraephoto), Aaron Palaian & Nathan Killam, Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc.

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FootNotes

Words by Nathan Killam, Photos by Matt Clark (@stirlandraephoto), Aaron Palaian & Nathan Killam, Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc.

Colin O'Brady

Nathan Killam

The Fire

FootNotes

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Season 3