What I never thought I could do

Post by Randi Strunk

It’s over. So strange to think that the thing we’ve been training for the last 4 to 5 months has come and gone, but Jenny and I successfully finished the St. Croix Valley Triathlon on Saturday, September 5. I was a mixture of nervous and excited leading up to the race, but knew we had done most of it before so I tried to treat it as much like a normal training day as possible, so by the time we were lining up to start I was more focused than nervous.

The part I’m most proud of is the swim. If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning you know my swimming experience was very little and I remember the feeling of dread when I could barely make it down and back in the pool without wanting to die. Pete and Jenny kept telling me it would get better, but a mile seemed like such a long way it was hard to believe them sometimes. However, with the coaching of Pete and our open water swims on Tuesday evenings I was able to complete the swim portion in 44 minutes. I think I gained the most confidence from this portion of my training, and it was definitely the part I had to work the hardest to accomplish.

The bike went really well too, I feel like we gave it everything we had and with good results. Twenty five miles went by more quickly than I ever thought it could. I really enjoy biking and am going to keep training through the winter, continuing to take spin classes and riding our tandem on the bike trainer we have in the basement. I certainly didn’t go into this thinking at the end I’d have purchased my own tandem bike, but that’s what happened and I’m very excited to keep improving on the bike. I’m going to reach out to other blind riders and triathletes to ask about techniques for hills etc. there’s got to be a better way to not lose all your momentum. We stayed seated on the bike the entire time while traditionally you are able to stand and push harder on the up hill climbs. Something I want to learn more about in the off-season.


Finally, there’s the run portion, where I broke the cardinal rule of racing, “Nothing new on race day.” I had some Gatorade at the first water station and my stomach revolted from there. I’m not sure if it was the Gatorade, dehydration, or a combination of the two, but I’m pretty sure we walked more than we ran of those six miles. It was frustrating because I felt like my legs could do more but the rest of my body wasn’t having any of it. Jenny kept reminding me that we were still moving and that we had accomplished our goal to finish regardless of the tough run.


Overall, the training and the race itself were fantastic. I’ve learned so much about the sport and about my own physical capabilities. It’s strange, I’m a bit sad it’s over… having a single race as a goal results in an abrupt end to what your focus has been on for the last five months, but it also means I can move on to something different for a while. I’m anxious to keep up my skills over the fall and winter and to get back into lifting.


I’d like to thank Jenny and Pete for being such great teachers and training partners throughout this journey. Also a big shout out to everyone who came to support us on race day. We had a whole team of supporters and it was a fun day.


Now the question, “Would you do another one?” The answer is a resounding Yes! I have a baseline time now I have learned a ton thus far, but know there is so much more to learn about the sport and about how others train. I’m also super competitive and I want to beat my time, particularly in the run. I hope Jenny had as good of a time in this journey as I did and I have to say we make one hell of a team!!!


Until next time…

It's not courage, it's my life.

Post by Randi Strunk

I'm always a bit hesitant when approached with a pitch for any sort of media, particularly where I'm in the spotlight (it’s not like that happens every day, but it’s happened occasionally). First, because I'm not very comfortable in that position, but secondly and more importantly I'm always worried about how I will be portrayed in the story. I never want to be a part of a story that extolls my courage for even getting out of bed in the morning, because it just must be so hard being blind, and sadly those types of stories are more common than I'd like to admit. I'm also a bit wary about the "inspiration" angle, because to me what I do isn't inspiring at all, it's normal, it's my life, and it’s all I’ve ever known.

On the other hand I feel like I need to get over that for a couple of reasons, and when Jenny approached me with the opportunity to have a piece done on our triathlon training by local station KARE11 I wanted to do it in hopes that it would not paint me as being inspiring as an individual, but it might inspire somebody who didn’t think they could do physical activities to give it a try. Everybody knows about the staggering statistics of obesity in our country, but not everybody knows that those numbers increase even more among our nation’s disabled population.

Statistics from an article published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, July 2013 issue state that nearly 42% of American adults with disabilities are obese and 9% are extremely obese. In comparison, about 29% of adults without disabilities were found to be obese and 3.9% were identified as extremely obese. This is a statistically significant difference, one I attribute to expectations. I’ve heard countless stories of blind kids who weren’t allowed to participate in physical education classes in school due to “liability reasons.” When children aren’t allowed or encouraged to be physically active there’s a good chance they won’t grow into physically active adults.

I also agreed to the story to hopefully encourage more non-disabled athletes to consider being guides for disabled athletes. I literally could not do a triathlon, or snow ski, or a myriad of other physical activities without somebody to act as a guide for me. I can’t even explain how grateful I am that Jenny and others have given of their time to allow me to pursue my own athletic goals. It’s not only a time commitment for me to train, but it’s also a time commitment for guides, and I’d hope that every disabled athlete who relies on a guide in some capacity would agree that our appreciation for your selflessness and time is immeasurable and I’m forever trying to figure out a way to pay it forward… maybe this is the way, by encouraging people with disabilities to find a physical activity they’re passionate about and give it a go, or think about sharing your passion for your given sport with a disabled athlete.  

Watch the segment and tell us what you think!

Are you interested in becoming a guide for a disabled athlete? Email MAGNA at ask@magnausa.com for more information. 

Bricks and Breakthroughs

Post by Randi Strunk

As I mentioned in our last post, the first open water experience for me was a bit nerve racking. Luckily we have open water swims at a lake nearby on Tuesday nights. So last Tuesday Pete and I ventured out to practice. I asked him on the car ride over how far we were going to swim that night, he said we'd go about three quarters across the lake and turn around and come back, about 2/3 of a mile. I wasn't sure quite how that would go, but he said we have two hours, and we'll take our time. My goal was to just get into a steady rhythm and see how that felt.

Pete asked how I was feeling mentally before we began and I said I was nervous, but ready to get started. We started out and Pete stopped me after a bit to see how I was doing. I was good. I went slow and steady, and we stopped 3 times or so on the way to our halfway point.

Sometimes I'd stop when I felt like I was going way off course, or as much off course as a short tether would allow, but I quickly realized

I have absolutely no sense of direction in the middle of a lake. I have to trust that we're going straight... or straightish, and adjust whenever I feel myself getting too far away from my guide.

We reached the half way point and I was feeling pretty surprised that we got there so fast and that I was doing well cardiovascularly. We turned around and only stopped twice on the way back, the first time so Pete could show me one of the giant buoys they use on the course and once because we hit a patch of weeds, which threw me off a bit.

We ended up only taking around 32 minutes to complete the swim. I was really really excited about that. The kind of excited where you just can't stop smiling for a while. After my first open water experience I wasn't sure how it would go, but this was just the result I needed to keep going and to start to feel really good about this portion of the race. For the first time I really felt like the swim was going to be okay. There are still things to work on, but I feel like I'll be able to make it.

This past Sunday we ventured back out to Square Lake and completed a swim, again around 2/3 of a mile, and a 24 mile bike ride pretty much back to back, with a brief pause to get the bikes ready and to get a quick bit of food in between the two. After the bike however, we did a very brief "brick run" thusly named as your legs feel like absolute bricks. I'm pretty sure I muttered and cursed the entire run. I couldn't believe how terrible my legs felt, it hurt to move, my legs felt so tight and sore. It's like nothing I've ever felt before, and something I'm going to have to work on after every spin class or bike ride. Bottom line, brick runs are horrible, terrible, no good, very bad things... that are probably very good for me.

Don't Panic in the Pool

It was about six years ago that I did my first triathlon, and six years feels like a really long time ago. For me I thought that the swim would be the easy part of training, but I learned all too quickly that having grown up swimming in lakes and open water was a heck of a lot different than swimming in a pool. My first swim in an indoor pool was a total disaster. I had a panic attack. Swim cap, goggles, walls in the pool, chlorine, no way out! I thought I was going to die. It took a lot of practice for me to get comfortable in a pool and couldn't wait to get outside and into open water. I do realize that I'm in the minority of triathletes that feel this way.

Pete working on stroke entry with Randi

For Randi and I, the challenge would be different. The little vision she has is limited shadows and color, limited vision means in what and in what terms? Would she be able to see the lines at the bottom of the pool? I had no idea. Would she be able to distinguish the end of the swim lane? Who knows?! Just navigating the maze that is the downtown YWCA locker room was going to be hilarious. Then we were to get in the pool and figure out how to swim knowing that we'd eventually be tethered in some way? Screw that?! I mean, hell yeah! But for someone like me, her tether - what does that mean? It means nothing! I'm not blind. I have absolutely no concept of what she's experiencing.

While Randi said she could be tossed in a pool and not drown, she gave little credit to herself as to  how much she could actually swim. The first attempt was going to tell me everything. We started simple, down and back with the kick-board. It went great. No one died. Keep in mind that I'm not a swim instructor. What I learned about swimming was from an expert, but how teach swimming is not my forte. But as a personal trainer I can break down the motions into basics, and since Randi and I have run together, why couldn't we swim together?

Before we got into the logistics of how we'd tether ourselves together, she just needed to get from one end of the pool to the other, and be able to repeat that a million times. So twice a week for the next few weeks and her stroke-form and efficiency skyrocketed.  And no one drowned. What she was able to command her body to do in the pool had taken me months all those years ago. Her body awareness is that of any athlete, excellent, once she knew what queues to take. However, the very unexpected struggle she's had has been endurance. Swimming takes charge of the whole body as a system, unlike any other sport. Our swims have been shorter and her endurance is catching up. The strength is there. Her form improves every time we get in the pool. And thank goodness she's patient.

The issue of how we'd connect to each other during the race has been the big question. Think about this: we swimming about a mile in open water with a hundred other people, they don't know that we're tied together. We've
done some laps where I would swim in front and she'd tap my feet with each stroke. That seemed reasonable, but we still needed a string or some mechanism to connect us. The open water chaos of a triathlon swim means we MUST be connected or we WILL lose each other. The toe-tap technique was fine, but it limited our ability to actually get our workout completed. For the time being we're swimming back and forth independently, warmup, kick board, pull buoy, sprints, the whole 9 (or rather 50) yards. The great part is, Randi has never panicked, not once. Panicking in the water really sucks. She's trusted that I woke let her drown or at least trusts that the lifeguard at the YW won't her drown.

I think that our first attempt at a tether might be around the ankle. That's right. The ankle. But this seems to make the most sense. This week, our work will be to swim side by side and get our rhythm down, before we tether. We've got about 14-weeks, we'll figure it out.... right?

Who Me? An Athlete?

Post by Randi Strunk

I’ve always been interested in sports, maybe even borderline obsessive over my favorite team, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, but I never considered myself an athlete. Sure I spent summers as a kid riding my bike on the 3/4 mile stretch of gravel road between our house and my grandparent’s house. My younger brother and I played whatever was in season baseball, basketball, football. However, my pursuit of athletics never got far past the front yard. I’ve been blind since birth with a little bit of residual vision so when I tried sports that were available in my small town school such as volleyball, basketball, and track I was terrible at them, so I just figured I wasn’t an athlete, no big deal some people just don’t have that sort of talent, right?

 Fast forward to 2012 when a friend of mine said she had started running and she knew a lady who taught Learn to Run workshops. She thought we should take a class together. So four of us got together and contacted Magna Health & Fitness owner Jenny Halstead. We weren’t sure how she would react to the thought of teaching four blind people how to run, or if she’d even consider the idea. There was no hesitation from her though. She said an enthusiastic "yes!", found us volunteer guide runners, and brought lengths of rope we could use as our first running tethers.

When you’re used to a world full of "watch out!", "be careful", and "you can’t", the class and Jenny’s attitude were truly a refreshing experience. Throughout the class Jenny would make comments about my running form, how it was really good, and how I should run a marathon someday. Naturally I thought she was nuts and after a lifetime of thinking I was a terrible athlete I didn’t really believe her, I thought she was probably just being nice.

Randi and Dr. Tara running the TC10 October 2014

Then about six months later I got the urge to train for a marathon. Of course, Jenny was all for the idea. I didn’t end up finishing the marathon due to injury but I did run the TC 10 mile last year. I liked training for a goal. I enjoyed the energy of race day, and the thrill of accomplishment when it was all over. For the first time I set out on a quest for an athletic goal and I achieved it. Over a couple of months training with Jenny, she mentioned how she did triathlons and she bet I would enjoy them as well. Again, I thought she was OUT OF HER MIND. It’s not like running, you’d have to have somebody to guide in the swim portion, you’d need a tandem bike, and then a guide for the run. On top of that, I still wasn’t quite sure I could ever be fit or strong enough to do a triathlon, people don’t just do those on a whim. Somewhere in the back of my mind though, there was a little spark, a tiny thought that I could even when 99% of my brain said it would never happen. Over time training with Jenny she’d make comments about how I was an athlete. Every time that happened, I felt like I’d just aced a test or won an award. Slowly I began to believe her.

It’s a humbling experience to have somebody believe in you enough and with such conviction that you start to believe in yourself. I think great teachers, mentors, and great coaches can inspire that in an individual and I’ve felt that in my time training with everyone at Magna. On a random evening in February I texted Jenny “So when are we going to start training for a triathlon” I also included a winking smiley face so maybe she’d think I was kidding because I was enthusiastic and terrified at the prospect. Naturally, she didn’t think I was joking and responded with a resounding “Hell yeah!” and here we are training for a triathlon. We’re not going for the short sprint distance either, it’s Olympic or bust. I felt good about the running part, and figured if picking up on something you haven’t done in a while is “like riding a bike” I could pick that up again pretty quickly. The swimming part however, was going to be my biggest challenge.

I could save myself should I be thrown in water, but beyond that I had no technique to speak of and breathing properly was something I’d never done...