Kelly's Olympic Triathlon

At CrossFit Closer, we love to celebrate your successes both inside and out of the gym. This month we are excited to feature CFC member Kelly Graham and her experience competing in her first Olympic Triathlon. ​

​1. What is an Olympic Triathlon?
     An Olympic triathlon is a sequential endurance event of swimming, biking and running. In an Olympic triathlon, the swim is 1.5 km, the bike is 40 km and the run is 10 km. Athletes finish all three disciplines in that order as fast as they can and compete for the fastest time overall.

2. What made you want to do a race like this? 
     When I was in chiropractic college I was chosen to represent my school providing chiropractic care to the athletes competing in the world championship Ironman triathlon on the big island of Kona Hawaii.  At that time in my life, I knew nothing about triathlon. I learned that an Ironman triathlon is a 4 km swim, 180 km bike and then a 42K run. I was so inspired that I decided that one day I would do an Ironman race.
     My dream of doing an Ironman almost disappeared several months ago because I was so frustrated with my swimming and generally overwhelmed with the craziness of a busy life and a lot of kids. I was ready to give it up completely when a good friend and Ironman himself reminded me that this was a deeply rooted dream that I needed to pursue. I then signed up for the Olympic distance (precursor distance to a half Ironman) and trained hard and really worked on my swimming especially.  A big shout out to Kristina Ireland for making me commit and organizing the neighbourhood Ironmoms to train together. We all had a blast.
     During my training and especially now that I've done an Olympic, I finally believe that I will do an Ironman distance race. I never had much doubt about the bike and run distances but always wondered if I could really learn to swim that far.  I'm really pumped about the future because it's only going to get more fun! I'm doing a half Ironman next spring and will train really hard on my swimming and of course lots of CrossFit, biking and running!
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3. How did CrossFit Training help you during your race?
     Crossfit helped immensely. It made me stronger so that I was able to push and train harder in all 3 disciplines.  The high-intensity intervals helped my bike and run times and because your mindset is key in any sport, feeling stronger from CrossFit made me more confident and powerful than ever!