Top-Ranked Americans Prepare for Finals in Budapest
Laura Bennett and Jarrod Shoemaker are currently training in Europe
September 2, 2010
Laura Bennett and Jarrod Shoemaker are currently in Europe, traveling, racing, and training for the ITU World Championship Series Grand Final in Budapest, Hungary, now only a week and a half away. On Wednesday, USA Triathlon gave journalists the opportunity to talk to the two highest-ranked American athletes, about their training, race strategies, and the sport in general.
Bennett, who is based in Boulder, Colo., headed to Europe to race Kitzbühel, where she placed eighth. She’s now in the midst of a training camp in Germany. Shoemaker, who arrived in Europe on July 10, has been training outside of London. “It’s tough adjusting to not being at home, and not knowing the training environment very well,” the athlete said, currently ranked at world No. 7.
Both athletes had transitions on their minds. Shoemaker (fresh off an eighth-place win in the inaugural ITU Elite Sprint Triathlon World Championship August 22 in Lausanne) said he hasn’t been practicing them as much as when he first got into the sport. “Sometimes you get so focused on the swim, bike, and run, you forget about the little things,” he said. His goal for the next week is to take his bike out into a field and practice running with it—something he said can make the difference between coming in first and thirtieth. Bennett commented that her normally strong transitions have been “terrible” this year.
When it comes to the actual Budapest course, neither Bennett nor Shoemaker feels particularly well prepared. “There hasn’t been a lot of information on the course,” Shoemaker said, who usually previews the race on Google maps street view—a feature unavailable for the Budapest region. He said it looks flat, and with a couple of turns. “It will likely turn into a runner’s race, which is good for me,” he said.
Shoemaker said there are a lot of good guys, but (Jan) “Frodeno and (Javier) Gomez are the two guys to beat. I know I can run with them, but it’s about setting myself up on the swim and bike.”
As for Bennett, she said she’ll be working on her run, and staying uninjured. “Most of the women racing are really strong—if I can just keep my strength and endurance up, I think I’ll be vying for the podium,” she said.
As the conversation transitioned from the specifics of Budapest and the ITU Series circuit, the athletes pulled back a little to reflect on the sport as a whole and their respective places in it.
Among Bennnet’s goals are to race with her husband Greg (currently ranked world No. 41) at the 2012 Olympics. “Going into the start of this year, we both thought it would be a crazy goal to have to make the team at 40 and do it together. The sport is so hard, you really need to find a goal that you’re passionate about,” she said.
She said that after getting a taste for (and enjoying) the 70.3 distance, she still loves the competition and challenge in World Cup racing and wants to do another Olympics.
Shoemaker used the question of what U.S. athletes will have to do to get a podium finish at the 2010 Olympics as a springboard into how the sport is “constantly changing.” He said the runs are much tougher than they were even last year, and that paces are really picking up. “That’s the question we’re all asking. I have it on my wall, my computer screen, etc. We’re all wanting to get a medal.”
But as important as the podium is to both Bennett and Shoemaker, they know the sport isn’t all about winning.
“One of the cool things about triathlon is that you can go out and race, then sit down to dinner with (your competition) and chat about life and racing,” Shoemaker said, speaking about the camaraderie between athletes. “Especially in triathlon, everyone is good and everyone is bad at the same time. All of us have to be humble—it’s impossible to go out there with some big attitude, because you’re going to lose,” he said.
Bennett, who said she loves living and training in Boulder along fellow triathletes said that every athlete respects what that takes to do the sport. “You realize that you can put 110 percent in and get zero percent out. When somebody else has success, you know what it takes to get there—we all understand that triathlon is an overall battle on its own, let alone the competition.”
Check back in on September 12 to see how Bennett and Shoemaker fared in the ITU World Championship Series Grand Final in Budapest, Hungary.
