Motivation From The Pro's

Got an update from Joe Umphenour. Joe is my buddy who has been a professional ITU triathlete for twelve years. I believe him when he says its incredibly hard to maintain his professional status and keep sponsors happy for all that time. Yes he gets free room and board at the Olympic Training Facilities in Colorado. Yes he training up to 35 hours a week with trainers, physical therapists and such. I often get whoosy thinking of him doing all the fun stuff I would love to be doing, but he is sure to ground me with the hard work he does to keep his status and the sacrifices he must make to do so.

He just finished the Elite National Championships race in Bellingham, Washington. Finishing in 4th place he cemented his place on the World Championship team for races later this year. He is currently bouncing between 10th and 13th in world based the results of races being held in Europe that he is not doing. Consider that the difference between 10th place and 1st first place in an ITU race is less than two minutes. He remarked to me recently that dropping the bike bottle that had his carbs cost him on the run and cost him a podium. Is that dialed in training or what?

Compared to other sports professional triathletes make a pitance of money compared to other sports and I suppose rightly so if your comparing money based on revenues. For example 7th place money for an M-Dot IM is only $1,500. All that effort and training for that amount of money. Compare that to base salaries the bench warmers of the NFL, NBA and Baseball, they start at $250,000 on average.

If your ever interested in ITU events, which are based on Olympic (International) Distances, click here. The distance is something most of can do or have done or done longer so its interesting to look at the times of the pro's and compare to ourselves.