How I started racing. Why I stopped racing. Why I choose not to race.
I shared parts of this story in 2010 or 2011, on a website I had at the time. I took the website offline a few years later, and the story went offline with it. I started a draft of this post about 10 months ago, but it was not an easy one to write, so it stayed in the draft pile until now.
This is the story about how I started racing, why I stopped, and why I am choosing not to race again.
As something new, you can also listen to this post, too (If there are mistakes in the narration, its not on me though. Blame the software). Click below if you prefer listening, or keep reading.
How I started racing
It is the summer of 1987. I am five and a half years old (hey, half years make a difference when you’re a kid). My brother, who is a year and a half younger, was just diagnosed with asthma and the doctor told our parents to enroll him in swim club. He said it could help.
If my little brother gets to enroll in swim club, so do I. Right? That’s how I started competitive swimming.
I insisted on learning how to swim fly before I was strong enough. I practiced outside of swim practice and kept bugging my swim coach about it until she gave up and taught me how to swim it properly. It ended up being my A stroke, with Breaststroke as my B stroke. When I was 11, we had an 800 meter A stroke time trial at the end of a session. We were told that if our A stroke was fly, we were to swim freestyle. So what did I do? I swam fly. I vividly remember how my arms felt in the last 100 meters and that everyone had to wait for me.
A few years later, at 14 years old, I raced a sprint distance triathlon in the morning and a ran 10km race in the afternoon. I don’t recommend doing stuff like that, by the way. I am just sharing this o paint a bit of a picture of what is to come.
In addition to swimming, I somehow got into a tennis academy when I was 9 or so, because of my brother again. A tennis development center was holding talent ID sessions and my brother wanted to get in the program. He didn’t want to go on his own, so our parents made me go with him. I got in, he did not. He tried to beat me at tennis for years, unsuccessfully. To be fair, while I was better at tennis, he was a more talented swimmer than I was.
By the time I was 10 or 11, I was already doing twice daily swim practices once or twice a week. I was also in a track and field program. I loved running. I remember finishing school, going to run practice right away, then I jumping in the pool for swim practice. Luckily, both clubs were in the same facility.
By that point, my parents sat me down and told me to drop one sport, so tennis got the boot. When my swimming coach told me to choose between running and swimming… I refused. We were moving anyways, which meant new run and swim programs, so my mom did some searching and found a triathlon group that had a few other kids my age.
That is how I found my sport.
I didn’t get a bike until a few months later, as it was a special order. It was an Italian steel Bottecchia 989 Corsa, in very dark purple, finished with zebra bar tape. Every now and then, I search through vintage bike websites to see if I can find that bike in my size. If you come across one, send me an email. I’ll buy it 100%.
I competed in triathlon events since 1993, as well as running and cycling events. It was mostly sprint and Olympic distance triathlons, being a junior and all, with the international races being draft legal triathlons (My first draft legal event was in Belgrade, in 1997). I also competed in a few half ironman events in my late teens, but to be honest, I was too young for the distance.
In addition to triathlon, I competed in national level running events on the track and road (including world mountain running championships in 2001. It’s a long story). I also competing in national level cycling road races, TT’s and crits. The women’s field was non existent back then.
I can’t say I was exceptional, but I was good enough to compete internationally and have sponsors and such.
I was pulled in too many racing directions in my teens. My running coaches pressured me to focus on running, my triathlon coaches pressured me to focus on triathlon and my cycling coaches pressured me to focus on cycling to the point that I turned down a free Pinarello and a chance to guest ride in Italy for a particular big race. That race conflicted with junior triathlon European championships, and I was fed up at that point. I chose triathlon, and ended up in an ambulance with Hypothermia during Euro champs. Perhaps I should have taken the Pinarello and gone to ride in Italy after all.
As a side note, when you hear me say that triathlon is not swim, bike and run... This is why. Triathlon is triathlon, not the sum of it's parts. Anyways, I have more stories from years of competing, but that’s for another time, maybe.
This is how I got started and my racing background. It was all my doing, I was never pressured by my parents. To be honest, competing from such a young age never seemed out of the ordinary to me, because outside of school, I was surrounded by other kids and juniors who went down a similar path growing up.
Why did I stop racing?
Lets start with my eating issues.
By definition, I never had a clinical eating disorder, but my eating patterns in my late teens and early twenties were far from normal or healthy. It just took me a while to realize that.
As an example, I used to carry a big 2L bottle around to drink from instead of eating when I got hungry. Good hydration is great, but hydrating instead of eating? Not so much.
On most occasions, I did not eat enough, often forgetting to eat during training sessions. Then I would overeat in general, including stuff like cookies or processed foods, which I tried to hide. This lead to guilt, which lead to trying to eat less as compensation. The cycle just kept repeating itself. I should also mention that I was training 20-25 hours a week during that time.
Fast forward a few decades to February 2024, when I was officially diagnosed with ADHD. Forgetting to eat is a problem for those with ADHD - You get so hyper focused that you forget to eat, even when you are hungry. Its hard to explain, to be honest. Typing this and reading these words, I acknowledge how ridiculous it is and now that I know its a part of the symptoms, its actually a heck of a lot easier to manage with various strategies. Knowing these strategies would have made a massive difference to my trajectory as an athletes when I was a teen and in my early 20’s.
Needless to say, things got worse when I was at uni, due to studying, working, volunteer coaching and training.
Sports nutrition wasn’t really a thing in my teens. During my first sport nutrition class of my undergrad degree, we had to complete a food diary, then analyze and critique it based on our activity level, goals, etc, using scientific evidence. Pretty standard course work stuff, really. Macronutrients were expressed as a percentage of total daily caloric intake in the scientific literature (it was 2003, after all), which we now know is inaccurate and misleading.
I got my assignment back, with a note from my lecturer urging me to start taking care of myself and eat better to support both my training and health, or I won’t pass the course (despite getting good grades). It took a diagnosis with chronic fatigue syndrome for me to fully understand that I was, in fact, very unhealthy.
I dismissed the advice because I did not think anything was wrong. Yes, I acknowledged that my caloric intake was too low, hovering between 1000 to 1200 calories a day. But I thought that because my macronutrient percentages were right in line with the scientific recommendations, I was OK.
Let me explain in more detail: I was eating ~55% of my calories from carbohydrates, ~25% from fat and ~20% from protein (numbers are approximate, from memory). At first glace, that is not all that bad. At least based on 2003 nutrition knowledge. But when we break it into grams per kilogram (the way things should be done), things look very grim. At 165cm and 55kg (at the time), with an average of 1100 calories a day, my numbers were really 2.85g/kg of CHO, 1.03g/kg of protein, and at 25% fat intake, my intake was considered low fat. The sad part was that I recorded everything accurately, and might have even over reported my caloric intake.
Remember how many hours of training I had every week? Yeah, not good. I can go into the scientific detail, but lets get on with the story or we will be here all day.
After my CFS diagnosis leading into my final year of university (keep reading), I asked the same lecturer to be the supervisor for my thesis. She is also the reason I went on to study sport nutrition at a post graduate level and I am forever grateful she intervened. I have been where she was with athletes myself, and it’s not easy, as they don’t always want to listen until they hit a wall, the same as I did.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Diagnosis
The following year, I had to stop training and take time off 3 times. The first time was severe iron issues. I was also sick all the time and even cracked a rib from coughing too much. I kept on training, of course. Swimming and a cracked rib do not mix well, by the way.
The second time was more iron issues. This time, I got iron injections twice a week for approximately 3 weeks. Let me tell you, those injections were horrible and painful. 0/10 do not recommend… But they were effective.
I had liver tests done. They came back showing that my liver albumin and protein levels were much lower than normal. Albumin, among other proteins, is made in the liver and the body needs these proteins to fight infections, etc. Chronic under eating can lead to chronic low levels of albumin, leading to liver damage and disease. I am horrified at that thought. Liver damage at 22 years old?! Not good.
I took about a month off, then started training again, although I just could not get back to a normal training pattern (no surprise there). I felt like something was holding me back. My eating has improved, but not enough. I was still not eating as much as I should have and the quality of my diet was not good enough either.
The third time was October or November 2004. I had more tests done and was fast tracked to see an endocrinologist, bypassing a 6 months waitlist.
My cortisol levels were so bad, my sport doctor said he has never seen numbers that high. We are not talking about any sport doctor here either. He was, and still is, one of the most respected doctors/triathlon coaches in the world. Luckily, we had periodic test results from the previous year, so we could see the progressive increase in cortisol and testosterone levels.
In December 2004, after many, many, many tests and examinations, I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that was attributed to years of under eating and overtraining / under recovering.
Most of the CFS symptoms were there along side the hormonal imbalances - constant muscle/joint aches, short term memory loss, sever fatigue, headaches and insomnia for certain periods of time (At least 4 CFS symptoms need to be present for 6 month or more for clinical diagnosis). Of course, I was also an emotional mess and suffered from low levels of depression. I refused to take medication and went through sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy, which was a relatively new things at the time.
I put the university database to good use and started reading everything I could get my hands on, which unfortunately, was not much at the time. I started working on my diet gradually and by the time I graduated in 2005, I was better but not completely healthy.
Up until 2009/2010, I still had some hormonal imbalances and there were several weeks, a few times a year, where I had to deal with those CFS symptoms again. That was when I made a few key decisions related to my health, along side more changes to my diet, including removing gluten (not due to a trend, but due to celiac, even though I was tested for the first time in 2005. That's a long story on it's own). I can't say that I have not had a single relapse since, but the severity, duration and frequency certainly decreased.
Lets revisit that ADHD diagnosis from a year ago, shall we? There is a very good chance that the whole ordeal was compounded by an ADHD burnout. Again, I wish I has been diagnosed earlier in life, as I have had my suspicions for years. A small part of me thinks ‘what if?’ I try not to dwell on it.
I wish I had received solid nutrition advice earlier on. The 'wake up call' I got from my lecturer came way too late and it was still at a time when I wasn't willing to listen, which was stupid on my part. The thing is, we don't always get to hear what we want, when we want to hear it and the timing is never right. Waiting for 'the right time' is pointless.
Our reaction to advice that we do not want to hear says a lot about where we are at that point in time: I was immature and stubborn, which 'earned' me some hard lessons and a few medical issues that last a lifetime. Luckily, I manage them very well. I have my regrets, but I don't blame anyone (anymore).
While I started my path towards my career choice as an endurance coach and sport scientist in my teens, my decision to study sport nutrition at the graduate level was heavily influenced by the experiences above. It is also why I decided to combine the two, rather than pick one over the other.
I have learned that you are damned if you say something to try and help an athlete and damned if you don't. Through experience, I know that I prefer trying to help as much as I can, if I can, and that is part of the reason why I share my story - I hope that more athletes will take their nutrition seriously and fuel their training properly.
If you made it through the entire post, thank you for taking the time to do so - It was not an easy one to write and many tears were shed in the process. I appreciate you reading it!
If you feel other athletes can benefit from reading about my experiences, please share this post and if you are an athlete wanting to talk, don't hesitate to get in touch. After all, this is why I decided to share my story in this very public format.
We are not quite done yet though!
Why I don’t race anymore
I get asked if I race all the time. Or get told that I should give racing a go, which always me me laugh and roll my eyes at the same time.
I am generally healthy now. I have not eaten gluten in ~15 years which obviously helps given the whole celiac thing. I do miss croissants though… I found a bakery making phenomenal gluten free croissants in Milan when I was there in Sept 2023. Do you think they will ship to Vancouver?!
Anyways, I don’t race anymore by choice.
Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to and I tried. As soon as I could, I went back to training with the goal of going pro as a triathlete (again). I had a good stretch of training for a short while, but every time I went past a certain point, I would have a significant CFS related setback that took several months to recover from. It was the same pattern even after I gave up on returning to high performance racing and decided that I’m happy with racing locally for fun.
After several years, I realized that running was a trigger for CFS symptoms, but cycling isn’t. Don’t ask me why. While I have my suspicions, I don’t know and there isn’t research to explore further.
Unhealthy relationship with exercise and training
I think the main problem trying to get back to racing was fighting through an unhealthy relationship with exercise and training. I was my own worse critic. I was also someone who grew up as a racer, so it was all I knew.
I could not differentiate between training with a singular performance focus and training for… Exercise, fun, personal challenge, whatever. I was very hard on myself for missed training sessions, when I didn’t hit my targets, etc. I see that with athletes all the time, recreational or pro levels.
I know how that story ends, and that is not just from my personal experience. I’ve been around sports in various capacities for close to 4 decades at this point, after all (I am 43 in case you’re doing the math in your head).
All in, it took me well over a decade of yo-yo training and exercising to find a happy and healthy place, and a good relationship with sport. I got there in 2018, and I managed to maintain the joy and balance since.
I know that if I attempted to race again, it will be hard to maintain this joyful and balanced place. I also know that I can work on myself and make it happen if I wanted to… But through a lot of reflection, I realized that I simply do not want to do that, and that is okay.
I am happy to ride my bike for fun and personal challenges. I am happy to ride consistently enough to de stress from my crazy busy schedule, maintain fitness and still be able to do dumb rides at short notice. Since 2018, I have done some riding in Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Croatia, Colombia and Morocco… And of course, locally in BC. In 2025, I will be riding in France and Vietnam (the latter was supposed to happen in 2024, but postponed due to my nerve injury). I still challenge myself as much as I can, but I am in a place that I am happy doing that on my terms, without races or events.
Naturally, I am not telling you not to take part in races or events! I have done more than enough in my day, which is perhaps why I feel at peace not doing any at this point. I would also be a hypocrite if I said that, since I work with people who race at various levels all the time.
I made a decision that has been working really well for my health and my happiness. You should do what works for you, whether it includes toeing a start line or not.
Well, now I just need to hit that ‘publish’ button. It’s pretty easy to do on most of the articles I write, but a lot more challenging on this one.
Thanks for reading!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Great post, Noa, thank you for sharing your story. The more we talk about our paths, the challenges and decisions and changes that come along the way; the more we see that whatever we're experiencing, it is what it is and there's probably someone out there who's facing or has been through something similar. It's tough and also reassuring. And good for you for finding your balance.
Thanks for sharing