Rachel McBride

The Purple Tiger

By InnerVoice

August 18^th, 2017

i won't let you fall apart

My mind has two tracks when the going gets tough in competition. One path goes down the negative; praying for a respectable reason to stop - a flat tyre, mechanical issue or some sort of acute medical situation. If this is the case, I know I’m in a bad place and need to try and turn things around.

The other track is to divert my attention away from the pain. At Ironman Canada this year, I decided to try singing songs to keep my mind off the physical suffering I knew I was going to have to go through to try to win that race. What I ended up singing was the chorus from a Nine Inch Nails song: “I won’t let you fall apart.” I was telling myself to keep going and stay strong. These words also made me think about my family, my partner, and my friends who all love me so much, who were there supporting in person or from afar, who were there for me when things got tough both in my personal and professional lives.

That love and support I literally felt holding me upright, keeping my body strong to keep moving forward, to run tall, to finish strong.

i finally smoked smoking

When I was younger I was much more comfortable spending time with animals than with humans. I had a passion for horses and horseback riding and hoped to be a veterinarian when I grew up. We were an active family and my parents were recreational runners. Some of my earliest memories are of them coming back all sweaty and red-faced from training runs. I remember running Fun Runs with my dad where the post-race treat was a banana split.

Fast forward to age 25 and I’m doing my first graduate degree in genetics. I had given up a budding music career in Toronto to focus on what I thought was being an “adult”. I felt pretty uninteresting and especially out of shape. I was going a stir-crazy in the horribly cold Canadian winter. I woke up one morning and decided I needed to do something for my mental health – something that seemed epic. My parents had run a marathon in 1985, so I decided to give it a go. I started running in January 2004 – the middle of the brutal winter – as a commute to my lab along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.

For some company and training guidance, I joined a local marathon clinic and 9 months later completed the Berlin Marathon in 3:32 - qualifying for the Boston Marathon. I couldn’t give up that opportunity, so I put my nose to the grindstone. I finally stopped smoking that occasional cigarette because now I was becoming an athlete. I ran Boston in 2005 and made all the rookie mistakes. I was completely over-trained and underfed.

I finished disappointed with my performance.

“I remember sitting down with a mentor of mine Shelley McKay, who had been on the national cycling and triathlon team in the 1980s. She said point-blank, “Rachel, I think you could be an elite triathlete.”

I'm really doing it

I finished my masters degree and moved to Vancouver where the training temperatures were a bit more reasonable, and at age 28 did my first local sprint distance triathlon. I remember coming out of T1 and starting out on my bike with a huge grin on my face thinking “I’m really doing it!” I nearly won that race, placing second.

From there on, triathlon completely took over my life. My first Olympic distance race happened to be National Championships where I won my age group and got a spot at the World Championships.

After a mechanical on the bike in my race in Lausanne, I went back to World Champs next year and won my age group at 29. That year I also started racing draft-legal ITU triathlon, placing 5th at the Canadian Elite Nationals and 9th at US Elite Nationals in 2008.

it was now or never

For all my success, the toll of training as a high-performance athlete, working full time and trying to maintain a marriage really got to me. I was always tired and sore from training. I was completely distracted at work with triathlon and not really enjoying my job.

My commitment to sport has definitely had a profound impact on all of my relationships. It was likely a big part of the tearing apart of my first marriage. That said, it’s not actually something I regret in the least as it really wasn’t the best fit for either of us. Along the same lines, sport introduced me to the incredible man I now share my life with. He’s also a very committed and strong athlete and coach. I believe for a professional athlete to truly be successful they need partners around them who understand what it takes, and accept wholeheartedly the journey, time and commitment it takes to be at the top of the sport.

During my own personal transition, I discovered a fascinating health care profession in genetic counselling and went back to school for another Master’s degree. I decided to take my training down to just one sport and raced bikes for a local team. 18 months later I was a graduated genetic counsellor, completely burnt out from the intense study, and in the process of ending my marriage. I decided to take the summer off for some “me” time before finding a job in my new career. My cycling coach Bjoern Ossenbrink suggested I try this Half Ironman distance triathlon thing, so I got back into the pool and hit the trails and track for some runs. I really didn’t know what to expect for my first race at this distance, but I certainly didn’t expect to win the race by a whopping 24 minutes and post a time that would have put me in the top-10 in the professional field of the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. So at age 32, I decided if I was going to take the risk of professional athletics, it was now or never!

My mum and dad inspire me incredibly

My family inspires me incredibly. My tendency towards over-achievement comes from them. My mum has had multiple careers in health care, completed a PhD in her 50s - in a second language that she learned in her 40s, and has fought (and won!) both breast and ovarian cancer. I also have to credit her for starting the running trend in my family. She was the first to hit the road, and my dad followed so he could spend more time with her.

Both my parents are incredibly brave humans who have done amazing things in their careers and as parents, and who are also fallible. I feel like it has made me love and appreciate them even more learning they are not perfect. That they can be vulnerable. That they have made mistakes. My parents and brother are incredibly generous and tolerant souls. They have supported me unconditionally through every time in my life, for better or worse. They have given me the freedom and privilege to discover who I am, to make my own mistakes and to help me clean up in the end.

“Suffering is not infinite. Life is a glorious, intense, heartbreaking roller coaster where every moment has a lesson. Every moment has something positive to take from it, no matter how painful or euphoric. It’s just a matter of being open to recognizing that lesson.”

life is too short

Getting through the challenges in my sport have helped me understand myself better outside of competition. I think a lot of this coping comes from perspective. Sport has forced me to constantly keep an eye on the big picture. When times get tough outside of sport life, I find I have a greater ability to step back from the minutia of the problem, take a deep breath and see it in a greater context of my life. Issues that may seem earth-shattering lose their grandeur and significance in a larger perspective.

Sport has taught me just how passionate I can be about my “job.” It made me realize that life is way too short to be doing something that doesn’t give me such joy. That my job doesn’t have to feel like “work.” It’s also made me realize that even though I love my job so much, there are still days where it’s hard to get the work done. There are times when I would rather do anything else than get out for a workout. These are what my partner calls “hard hat days,” where you just have to get out there and put in the work. In that sense, this means keeping perspective on your career and even relationships. Big picture: I love doing said job, or I love my spouse. I’m not going to throw in the towel because of one bad day or week or maybe even year.

Team Rachel

My tribe has certainly evolved over the years. I train primarily on my own, so “Team Rachel” consists mostly of my medical and coaching team who guide me through my training, racing and - what seems like so much of the time – injury. The wonderful individuals in my team all have skills and knowledge levels well beyond what their titles describe. So, basically, a bunch of over-achievers, kind of like myself. I need my team to be those who will tell it like it is, who won’t sugar-coat, who will give me their opinions and guidance yet allow me the freedom to ultimately make my own choices.

I am grateful to have led a relatively calm and privileged life up to this point. I think one of the biggest tragedies I’ve had in the past couple years is a pretty major upset in my personal life that saw me lose contact with my best friend of 13 years, as well as the few very close friends around me, and almost my partner Shane. All this was in the middle of a year of struggling with what I feared in my darkest times would be a career-ending injury. It was horrible knowing that what I thought were such strong friendship bonds could be severed. Shane was instrumental in keeping me together. He helped me start to move forward, gain perspective and step out of the dark wallowing of my emotional devastation. In these moments I had practical strangers who came out of the woodwork to support me and made me realize I was surrounded by a whole community of people who care about me. And I still need this help. I still depend on their support.

“Transitions were absolutely a big unknown for me. I knew how to swim, bike and run. That was the easy part. What seemed truly unnerving was how to get from one to the other with speed and grace.”

my body and mind is unique

Triathlon has taught me just how self-motivated, dedicated and passionate I can be when I put my mind to it. Before I was an athlete I felt like what I was doing with my life was just normal and that anyone could accomplish all the things I was achieving. I still feel that way in some respects, but the longer I’m in the sport the more I realize that what I am able to do with my body and mind is unique. I have become more comfortable acknowledging this without feeling like I’m boasting.

I have so many sporting adventures still on my bucket list. I dream of spending hours running in remote trails and up mountains. Ultra trail running is high on my list, as well as joining my partner on epic, long on- and off-road rides. I’m so intrigued by the limits of the human body. I hear stories, especially from ultra distance athletes, of hallucinations, extreme fatigue and digging into the deepest parts of the psyche to keep on moving forward. Of finding flow states where the body and mind are one focused entity completing amazing feats. These are extremes I am so curious to experience.

I would also love to try my hand at rowing competitively and exploring the British Columbia coast by kayak in the summer, and skate skiing in the winter. My brother and I have committed to going skydiving at some point in our lives. This winter in Costa Rica I got my first taste of surfing, so now I’ve caught that bug and would also love to learn to kite surf. I’m sure my list will keep growing. I better stay healthy and strong for a while longer!