This week I got a serious case of the warm and fuzzies around you guys - the Purple Patch athletes. Not only did I emerge from the personal connections at the Napa and South Carolina camp, but I really enjoyed reading about athlete race reports and experiences.  Across the globe, Purple Patch athletes connected and raced events to the very best of their ability, but something really caught my eye.  Allow me to expand.

At one end of the performance spectrum, we got to celebrate a simply wonderful performance from Sarah Cameto, who succeeded in becoming the first overall finisher at the IRONMAN Hawaii 70.3.  Sarah’s story is special, as she joined Purple Patch almost ten years ago, as a Mom of two who had never done a triathlon. After some training and fitness builds, Sarah quickly began to knock it out of the park and win amateur races around the Bay Area.  She improved so much that she cracked on to give professional racing a go. She fully committed, while ensuring she also remained focused on being a great Mom, always working incredibly hard. She did the hours you would expect from an aspiring pro, but had less time for recovery and rest than her peers.  She had success, but we never found the true consistency of high level performance we believed she deserved.  A couple of years ago, Sarah stopped racing professionally, and put full focus on family, then transitioned to taking on a full-time position as a recruiter at Premise. Within a few months of simply keeping fit, the itch of triathlon returned, but she was now a genuine Purple Patch time-starved athlete. She has about ten weekly hours to dedicate to her training, a very different approach to her prior triathlon life.  Sarah optimized the ten weekly hours, kept it fun, and balanced the bike sessions in the center and live on video, with a whole bunch of lower stress soul filling swimming and running.  She managed to create consistency, while truly enjoying the journey.  Her expectations for the Hawaii 70.3?  She had none.  Go and enjoy the day and race like it was a day of training.  Allow the day to come, keep it fun, be patient and be ready to stay tough when the inevitable heat and fatigue hit later on that tough and sweaty run.  She emerged with a special day, no doubt arriving to the race fit enough for performance but also mentally and physically fresh.  No expectations are not the same as low expectations!  She now has to double-down on the same approach and mindset, while ramping toward a bigger challenge. A return to the Hawaii IRONMAN World Championships.

While we were all so proud of Sarah’s accomplishment, the second part of the inspiration hit me, and that was hearing about all the athletes over the last week’s completing their very first triathlon ever. I can never do myself justice by successfully naming them all, but hearing stories of folks like Griffin Gafney, Vickey Rabould, Brett Anderson and Robert Sebastian really make the whole team at Purple Patch excited for the journey ahead. It is a great accomplishment to cross any finish line, but our first time finishers tie the joining thread between the Sarah’s of the world and all at Purple Patch.  The key is that it doesn't matter where you land in the results page to us, what matters is a desire to improve. A thirst and commitment to get better in your sport, and by extension, in life.  Remember this as big races begin to emerge, and the pointy end of the season arrives.  Your goals are important, we want you to nail them and get faster, but allow yourself license to smile, have fun and enjoy the journey. No athlete has to weigh themselves down with heavy expectations or concerns of failure. I encourage you to lean into the process, do all you can to improve, then go race free. All of us, every Purple Patch athlete, are after the same thing. A desire to improve our own performance.  The outcomes and results will always flow from that.

Keep it up gang, we are having a great year so far.

Matt