The 2012 London Olympics will represent the 30th Summer Games of the modern era. And despite the citius, altius, fortius — faster, higher, stronger — spirit of the triathlon, the Olympic swim-bike-run has been contested only three times (2000, 2004, 2008). Canadian Brent McMahon has competed in one-third of them. Normally, it would be considered a benchmark achievement to have run the Olympic course; but for an elite athlete like McMahon, it might be the most haunting accomplishment of a storied career.
Two months before taking to the course in Athens in 2004, McMahon, jubilant over having qualified as an Olympian, suffered a debilitating injury to his iliotibial (IT) band. Runners everywhere collectively cringe at the mere mention of such an injury because they know how the pain and loss of function resulting from damage to this bundle of fibrous tissue that runs along the outside of your thigh can be flat unbearable.
“I saw as many people as I could, took time off, and could still only train at a very basic level,” McMahon recalls. “It was really very painful. I had a cortisone shot, and that worked to a certain extent, but it was still really painful. We flew to Athens before the Games and I was able to swim and really not do much else.”
But one cannot doubt the heart of an Olympian. The sacrifices made and sweat invested to compete on so grand a stage make the thought of abstaining tantamount to competitive suicide. So McMahon zipped up and splashed in with 49 other competitors, laboring through the pain on each leg of the race in an effort to properly bookend an emotional and exhausting three-year stretch. In the end, he crossed the finish line with a time of 1:59:44, good enough for 39th place.
“I hung in there on the bike and sort of dug deep, and I still managed to get through the run and beat 11 people,” he says, smiling. “I don’t know how I did that. It was big for me just getting to the finish line.”
Despite the magnitude of the moment, it still wasn’t good enough. Not content simply to compete, McMahon, the 2007 Pan American Games silver medalist, uses the memory of unfulfilled expectations in Athens to power his training efforts as he looks ahead to London.
“Before my career as an athlete is over, I want to compete at my best at the Olympics, so I use that as a motivator,” he says. “I am ready to jump through the hoops and do what I can do to get to London. And I’m prepared to do everything I can to be my best and be on that start line.”
Brent McMahon
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 145 lbs
Born: September 17, 1980
Birthplace: Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Current residence: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Club: National Triathlon Training Center
Q: What sports did you play growing up?
Brent: The main sport that I did growing up was swimming. I swam club, then moved to playing water polo through the winters. In high school, I ran track, pole vaulted, played soccer, and ran cross-country. I was in school in North Vancouver, so mountain biking was big too. I also did some rock climbing; then I skied and snowboarded as well. I was always involved in a sport before or after school and during weekends. I had a lot of energy as a kid — I was a bit of a brat — so my parents made me use it. It calmed me down a bit. My parents called me the Tasmanian Devil!
Q: When you first started running triathlon, what was your strongest event?
Brent: I did my first triathlon when I was 10. I was pretty much all right at everything. I wasn’t a super-fast runner or a super-fast swimmer. My strength originally was the run because I’d done a lot of duathlons.
Q: When did you first get serious about competing?
Brent: From ages 10–13, I basically did one race a year — I did the Victoria Youth Triathlon. And then, after that, as I got into high school, I would do all my sports through the fall and winter — soccer, mountain biking, water polo — and in the summer I would do triathlon exclusively. I met my coach, Lance Watson, at a triathlon camp when I was 13. When I was 15, I did my first Junior B world championships (sprint distance) in Cancun. Then Lance offered to help me through the summers, and I’ve been working with him going on 14 years now. Once I graduated high school, I decided to take a year’s break from school before I went to university. My parents moved, but I stayed in Vancouver and worked at a bike shop and trained with Lance all throughout the year. Since 1998, my swimming has gotten better and better because I’ve worked at it more.
Q: What did it feel like to qualify for the 2004 Olympics?
Brent: It was my first cycle of Olympic qualification and meeting standards and having to really raise the bar and compete on the international circuit. So for two and a half years it was sort of a learning experience — learning how to race at that top level. I gained more experience and got faster as well, but with that we also had to really work hard to make those standards and try to improve quite quickly. It was exciting to finally get there. I needed a Top 10 at the very last qualifying race. I was really prepared and had a great race and came in eighth, and it was like winning the world championships because I’d qualified. It was a great feeling, with all the training and sacrifices, to have it all come together.
Q: As we know, you ended up dealing with a very painful IT band injury that affected how competitive you could be. How hard was that to deal with?
Brent: It was disappointing to go through all that hard work to qualify and improve as a triathlete, then go and race knowing I wouldn’t be able to put down my best effort. Everything was lacking. So for me, it was just the experience of taking in the Olympics and learning from the event and seeing what it’s like to be there so it won’t be scary or intimidating the next time. Still, as an athlete, you always want to be able to put your best performance forward, so that was really frustrating. I ended up having to get surgery to correct the problem, and I haven’t had any IT problems since.
Q: How did you feel about your finish in that race?
Brent: It was pretty amazing just to be a part of it. I was so happy that I was able to do that. Before the race, we froze my knee and tried to see if I could get through it pain free. By the end of the bike, my knee started to get sore and I had to run the whole 10K in excruciating pain. It was all I could do to not just walk. But I still managed to get through the run and beat 11 people. I don’t know how I did that — it was big for me just getting to the finish line.
Q: Do you think about that race often?
Brent: It doesn’t haunt me or anything, but it’s something that I think about and something that I’m not satisfied with. Before my career as an athlete is over, I want to compete at my best at the Olympics, so I use that as a motivator. I went through the Olympic cycle for Beijing, but things kept me from going there and competing, so I had to ask myself if I wanted to do this for another four years. I don’t want to finish my triathlon career and say, “I really wish I’d gone to the Olympics again.”
Q: So how are you approaching all the races between now and the London Olympics?
Brent: Any athlete is going to have benchmarks and goals along the way to a major pinnacle event like the Olympics. I have multiple world championships to do — Pan Am Games and some 70.3s — but London 2012 is on the calendar and that’s when I want to be in top form. All other races will be important, and I’m going to peak for them, but they’re stepping stones to 2012.
Q: Your IT band has healed up, but have you had to deal with any other injuries as a result of the kind of training you do?
Brent: When you’re a triathlete and you’re doing the volume of training that you have to do, you’re always balancing overtraining and overuse injuries. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned what works for me. I make sure I do just enough and not too much. And with the progression of sports science and sport therapy, we can reduce injury time and also be preventative. So staying on a solid preventative routine in conjunction with a good training program is what keeps you injury free. Last year I ran faster than I’ve ever run and was healthier than ever. That said, I still came up with an injury preparing for other events in the fall. It’s a balancing act. Right now, I’m dealing with a stubborn injury that won’t go away, and it’s going on four months now.
Q: You finished a pretty close second at the 2007 Pan Ams, with American Andy Potts edging you out by only a few seconds. Tell me about the finish of that race. Have you raced with Andy since?
Brent: It was very close. It was just one of those races where you have to make decisions and take gambles, and I just decided to break away. I went out for it, and I paced it as if I was running with the pack, and I put everything out there and was running at my limit. Unfortunately, the finish line didn’t come fast enough. When you’re at the front, you’re doing everything you can to get to that finish line, and the person chasing is doing everything to get to you. Andy had a whole lot of motivation to get to me. I had no lack of motivation — I was just giving everything I could to go with him, but I was maxing out as it was.
I was so exhausted and had put myself in a position to win, but I got a medal and had put 100% of what I had into that course. I was really happy with that. It’s pretty neat to be on the podium at a major event.
Q: What’s your approach to nutrition? Do you have a very general plan or do you aim for specific numbers of calories and macronutrients?
Brent: It is very specific. For optimal performance, you have to know what you need for proper fuel and hydration. Hydration is usually my #1 concern, because if you’ve had enough food but you’re dehydrated, you’re done. Next is food, but I don’t really count my calories. I will count exactly how many PowerBar
® Energy Gels and how much water I’m getting for training though. I tend to eat three good meals, with snacks in between. But it varies. When I have three workouts, I can’t get three meals in. That’s where PowerBar
® nutrition comes in. When I don’t have the opportunity to have a bagel and eggs, I have a PowerBar ProteinPlus
® protein bar or PowerBar Harvest
® Energy bar or a couple of PowerBar Energy Gels. I can digest those quickly and move on to my next workout.
Q: With all the time you devote to swimming, cycling, and running, do you have time to strength train?
Brent: There is a limited number of training hours in a week, and that’s the problem with being a triathlete. We’re trying to be awesome at three sports. Runners run twice a day, four days a week; swimmers swim multiple times, three days a week; cyclists go on 6–7-hour rides. We’re trying to use the least amount of hours for the greatest return in fitness. It’s tough to find the right volume. You have to go through cycles of increasing volume on one, and decreasing in another, to make strides. The more you do, the fitter you get. So guys who do higher volume do better in races. But you can only do so much; then you get overtrained, chronically fatigued, or stuff like that. It comes down to balance and finding the time. Right now, while I’m injured, I’m not running and biking as much, so I’m doing more weights, mainly upper-body stuff. You sort of look for any opportunity to add volume — you use it.
Q: Do you have any other high aspirations in the world of triathlon, like winning an Ironman®?
Brent: As soon as I’m done as an ITU (International Triathlon Union) athlete, I’ll do 70.3 racing and XTERRA — which involves swimming, mountain biking, and trail running — full time for a year or two, then eventually go up to an Ironman. I would love to win the XTERRA World Championships, 70.3 championships, and Kona. I see myself as one of the most versatile triathletes in the world. It would be pretty cool to do them all in a year — but maybe over two years. Getting three podiums or titles would be good.
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