| Putting it Down on Demand |
| Written by Claire Young |
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‘Ruthless competitor' gears up for London Olympics
DECADE OF TRI But her passion for triathlon was sparked through a boy, she admits slightly sheepishly, in a telephone interview from her home in Victoria, B.C. She met her future husband, Adam Campbell, in psychology class at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., in 2001. "He was really into triathlon at that point and talked me into doing some races, so I blame him for getting me into this. He left Queen's a year before me to move out to Victoria to train at the national centre and that's the main reason I followed him out here." Retired from triathlon competition, Adam is now into trail running and ultra-marathoning, which he balances with the demands of studying law. Lauren (nee Groves) and Adam married in December, and this will be the first season racing under her new married name. Campbell enjoyed early success in triathlon. Her first race was Junior Nationals in Winnipeg in 2001. "I didn't know how to pack my bike. The aero bars fell off in the race. It was just a disaster. I didn't know how to change the gears. But I qualified for World Championships as a junior, and I finished almost last that year. My parents were watching. I remember them saying to me after, ‘Well, we're really proud of you, but what master's program are you thinking of?' " Nevertheless, her parents remained supportive, and the following year she finished fourth at senior nationals and was eighth at the Under-23 World Championships. "I was quickly on the rise at that point, and I had the support of my parents to pursue this. You really do need family support in the beginning because you're not making money at that point. It's hard to have a full-time job and train at an elite level." Success followed success and her results steadily improved, building to a breakthrough year in 2006. She finished fourth at the International Triathlon Union World Championships. "I was naive to think at the time, ‘If I finish fourth in the world this year, I'm going to be winning next year.' I had a rough patch with injuries, and that was really the first time I had to face adversity. Then I rebounded, and 2009 was a really great year for me." She finished the year as Canada's top-ranked female in the ITU Championships standings, in 12th spot. "What I'm working through right now is probably the biggest setback of my career so far." ATTITUDE MANAGEMENT The elite group is in transition, moving away from a single national coach model for the team to allowing individuals train with individual coaches. Campbell is exploring this option and, in the meantime, is working with Innes. Innes says he's impressed with Campbell's attitude management, saying that it is sometimes half the battle in recovering from serious or ongoing injuries. "Sometimes athletes who get injured tend to get really down on themselves and allow the ‘why me?' and allow themselves to become a victim. Lauren is absolutely the polar opposite of that. She's really taking it upon herself to really get to the bottom of the symptoms she's been facing and is off to Arizona to work with a different physiotherapist to get a different perspective." Innes and Campbell have also switched up some of her training regime to address the knee issue. "Now that she really is going after being The Best, she has pushed some of the things that maybe now have led to these injuries. We've tried a new bike position, tried a different technique from a run perspective, trying some new things strength-conditioning-wise. That's what you have to do to try to make a difference." Noting a silver lining in dealing with the fractured clavicle, Innes says through the recent rehab, Campbell has made great strokes in her weakest discipline, the swim. "She's made some big inroads there," Innes said. "She's becoming a much more competent swimmer and is able to handle much more from a technical perspective. I think she's going to find that she leaves this set of injuries behind her and comes out of the water much more in command of the races." Campbell's winning attitude is not only reflected in her let's-fix-it approach to her injuries, but also in her positive contribution to the team approach to what is, in the end, an individual performance. "In order to continue to do the amount of training required to be successful in an endurance sport, you have to rely on other people in order to help you get through the bad days," Innes said. MEDAL CONTENDER "Within our sport, we boil it down to two main contributing factors: the overall health and happiness of the athlete being the most important, and the quality of the run performances they're able to lay down after getting off the swim and the bike legs. Can they really run at a high enough level to consider themselves medal potential? "Lauren has definitely been able to demonstrate those capabilities with performances within the top four or five runners within the sport of triathlon. There just simply aren't that many girls who can run at her speed when she's healthy and happy." For the record, running is Campbell's favourite event. She loves the simplicity of it. For now, Campbell and Innes are looking at a return to ITU competition as early as June in Madrid, Spain. If not then, they are looking at July in Hamburg, Germany, at the fourth race of the eight-race Championship series. Campbell is keen to get to Britain in July for the London World Championship race. It will be a great preview for 2012, as it's being held on the Olympic course. Campbell attended the Beijing Olympics in 2008. While on track for a Top 10 finish, one of the cyclists in her pack fell, bringing down Campbell with her. She broke her arm in the fall and was out of the race.
"From an injury standpoint, this (current situation) is worse. "(Not finishing) was the biggest blow to me. When you prepare for a race, you prepare to have a great day or not a great day, but you don't prepare not to finish. If I had had to walk in the Olympics to finish, I would have walked. I remember going in the ambulance to athletes' village. I didn't even watch the end of the race. I couldn't bear to see who won. I remember thinking, ‘This is too much, I can't go on!' " Of course, Campbell is made of tougher stuff than that and was healed and back training by Christmas that year. Her best podium finish to date at a World Cup race was just ahead of her, a bronze in Des Moines, Iowa, in the summer of 2009. "Maybe (Beijing) was a once-in-a-lifetime journey, but I have an idea of what I can achieve in this sport. I have pretty big goals, and I did not meet my goals," she said. "I was 26 years old - there's still lots of time. I made a decision right then and there that I'm going for four more years." Campbell is clear about her goals. They are in line with Triathlon Canada's objectives for the high performance team over the next three years - to have a minimum of two World Cup podium finishes per year, two Top 16 finishes per year, qualify a full team for the 2012 Olympics and earn at least two medals at that Olympics. "I want to be more consistent on the World Cup circuit," Campbell said about her personal goals. "Any time I toe the line, I want to be a podium contender. And I want to win a medal in London." And she has more in her tank. "I don't feel that I've peaked at the sport," she said. What Campbell loves about triathlon, what keeps her coming back for more, is the challenge on a daily and yearly basis of testing her limits. "As the years go by, the sport's getting quicker, we're learning new techniques," she said. "The sports science has gone beyond what anyone thought it would. It's a learning process. I've just learned so much about myself and developed as a person and an athlete in the past 10 years." Triathlon is also a sport Campbell predicts will keep growing in the years to come. "When I started years ago, there weren't masters triathlon clubs, there weren't these training groups today, races weren't selling out. It's really caught on with the average person. You can do it with family. You can do it having fun being active on weekends. It's a great lifestyle sport. I think it's just going to continue to grow. There are new events every year, whether it's half-Ironman or Ironman. It's really the sport that anyone can do. The average person can finish the Ironman, there's no question about that, with the right training and the right environment." As far as looking past 2012, she isn't sure if she will become inspired to go another four years in triathlon, retire, have children, become a teacher or a chef. She does know that she wants to take up marathon running at some point, but probably not Ironman or XTERRA. "I haven't tried anything longer than Olympic distance, and I don't know if I ever will," she said. "I love the excitement and the fast pace of it. I want to go the Olympics and win medals, and the other sports aren't Olympic events." INSPIRATION "(Now) he's the big brother that I just sometimes tell to get away," she said, laughing. "Simon was definitely my early inspiration in the sport." Campbell's husband also inspires her with his attitude toward sport and competition. They share a key word that, when the going gets tough, brings them back what's most important. "I do a fair bit of work on positive self-talk in training, so that when I get into a race it can come naturally to me," Campbell said. "I have a few key words that I'll say to myself. ‘Breathe' is a good one for me. I think of relaxing when I say to myself ‘breathe.' And ‘smile.' That's something Adam has instilled in me, is just having fun. When you're hurting beyond belief in a race, try and smile. It's amazing. It's like a switch will go off and you just realize why you do this. We love what we do, and we love the pain." Career Highlights
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On the third day of winter training in Maui this January, Canada's top female triathlete was riding in a pack with other national team members. The gorgeous scenery took Lauren Campbell's mind off her knee, which had been niggling at her for some time. The highway wended along the coastline toward Hana, brilliant blue ocean waves crashing on the beach to one side, lush tropical jungle to the other. As they began to descend, a camera flew out of someone's pocket near the front of the pack. Cyclists swerved to avoid it, and Campbell braked hard. In that moment, she went over her handlebars headfirst, breaking her wrist and fracturing her clavicle. As she began to bike and run again a few weeks later, she realized that knee's nagging overuse injury was truly flaring up again, and she had to find a serious solution to it if she was to meet her goals for this season and the London Olympics in 2012. The drive to the top can be a complicated journey.
"I don't think there's anything worse than crashing and not finishing the Olympics," she said, still feeling the sting but putting it in perspective with her current challenge.