Performance enhancing
drugs, felony convictions, recreational drug use, greed, spousal abuse. These
are some of the trademarks of today’s crop of professional athletes. Luckily
there are still many professional athletes in our midst that are not connected to any of these things. Karen Holloway is one of the good ones. Karen doesn’t
have an agent and she doesn’t make 7 figures for an hour or two of competition.
Karen Holloway is
a professional Triathlete. She has finished 7 Iron Distance triathlons since
October 2000. On August 28, she was the first female finisher at IronMan Canada
(IMC). For those of you unfamiliar with the Iron Distance, a marathon run is
preceded by 2.4 miles of swimming and a 112 mile bike ride. All in a day’s
work. Karen finished IMC in 9:51:31, just under 3 minutes ahead of second place finisher Paolina Allan. IM Canada was Karen’s third top 5 finish in an iron distance race and her first
win.
Karen was nice enough
to meet me for coffee when she returned from Canada. I’m no reporter and this was the first time I “interviewed” someone. I was a bit apprehensive about how this meeting would go. About 5 minutes into our conversation, my fears were swept aside by the very personable and outgoing professional
athlete.
Karen lives in Richmond but she was born in Canada. This made her victory all the more special to her and special to Triathlon fans in
Canada. Karen swam at Old Dominion University and has
lived all over as the child of a military father.
She is very positive
about Richmond and its’ atmosphere. While
most professional triathletes live in California, Texas or Colorado, Karen likes being away from the crowd. Plus the heat and humidity
in Richmond definitely contributed to her strength at IMC since it was an uncharacteristically
warm day. Karen coaches the Masters Swimming Program at the Tuckahoe Family YMCA
and coaches a few athletes in Richmond. Karen is coached by Chris
Danahy. They have been working together for about three years. Chris is the only coach Karen has ever had in triathlon.
Karen’s year
has been up and down to say the least. During the Ralphs California Half IronMan
race in California, something gave way in her foot.
She ran through it to finish the race and continued training. The foot
was not getting better and she suffered to a 10th place finish at IronMan Arizona in April (more on Arizona later). The Morton’s
Neuroma had gotten to a point where surgery was necessary. In the month leading
up to the surgery Karen had run very little. She could swim and cycle but running
was too painful. After surgery Karen had a little more than 10 weeks to recover
and train in preparation for IMC. Obviously she did it correctly by building
up her mileage slowly. Karen believes in quality training over pure quantity,
so she made every workout count between her foot surgery and IMC.
2005 was the first
year for IronMan Arizona. Karen was fourth female
professional off the bike or at least she was the first time off the bike. It
seems that due to a route issue, Karen and another female professional had missed a section of the bike course. They were on the run course when the mistake was realized, so it was back to Transition and back on the
bike. Unfortunately, Karen had ridden for awhile on a tire going flat. Rather than taking the time to repair the flat, she rode on it some more to finish the bike course. End of story, after going back out on the bike and then running the marathon in 3:45,
she was tenth professional female. Between her ailing foot and the course issue,
that is an impressive finish. While many triathletes have been quick to blame
the course marshalls and volunteers for course issues, Karen has not. She knows
that knowing the course is the responsibility of the athlete. I wonder where
she would have finished without the bike course issue.
IMC was next up. Karen had worked with a bike builder in Ohio to build a new bike. This was not part of some sponsorship deal, Karen
paid for this bike. Unfortunately due to some manufacturing and supplier issues,
the bike arrived only a few days before IMC. Triathletes spend hundreds of hours
on their bikes training for an IronMan race. The positioning is incredibly important
since the bike leg is 112 miles. To ride a bike with almost no training time
to the fastest split of the day says good things about the bike builder and the athlete.
The decision to ride an untested bike in an IronMan took some guts. It
ended up being the right decision as her 5:07 bike leg led to a sizable lead
going into the Marathon. Her 3:45 Marathon was the 8th fastest in her division, but it was fast enough
to retain her lead and win IronMan Canada by almost
3 minutes.
Thankfully 2005
is on the upswing after a win at IMC. Karen is preparing for IronMan Florida as you read this. GOOD LUCK to Karen on November 5!!!
