Allen "The Raptor" Corona — "The Prove Me Wrong Experience"

Allen "The Raptor" Corona — "The Prove Me Wrong Experience"

The Raptor is an IronMan!

Allen Corona completed his first-ever iron distance triathlon at IronMan Wisconsin. Personally, Wisconsin holds a special place in my heart as that was my first-ever IronMan as well. It also taught me a valuable lesson that I applied for all my racing moving forward and ultimately core to my coaching philosophy – It is all about the "Start Line" not the "Finish Line"! If you want to have a successful race, it is about doing the Training so that you can stand in the start corral, look around, and think, "I'm ready for this". Then, once the start gun fires, you need to be able to just keep consistently and relentlessly moving forward all day long; that is, a straight, non-stop swim at a good pace, a manageable non-stop bike leg where you find a pace that allows you to feel in control, then, on the run, running from Aid Station to Aid Station being cognizant of constant fueling, and throughout, quickly, methodically moving through transitions. This was the plan for Allen along with one other objective: beat my first IronMan time! Allen executed the day with a consistent race and, yes, finished the IronMan beating my time!

The challenge with building towards an IronMan is the long preparation time from when you start the process where you have to get ready for that final 2-3 month run-up of long training sessions. Even more challenging is when you are readying for your first IronMan, you have no idea of how your body is going to respond and you are always balancing the other parts of your life, work, relationships, friends. It's hard.

I always appreciated the effort that Allen was putting in throughout. My concern was consistency as there were occasional drop offs in training in the first half of the year which I was concerned would ultimately dampen his inaugural IronMan. But somewhere in the middle of all the work it took to get there, from my perspective, "Prove Me Wrong" became the rallying cry of Allen's season. I wanted him to race the Cherry Creek Time Trial Series to work on "what it feels like" to suffer for 30 minutes on the bike after a full workday as they were on Wednesday at 5:00 pm. He was there almost every week. The big moment of his training, from my perspective, was the Brooklyn Half-Marathon. We discussed pace beforehand — I had a number in mind a full minute per mile slower than what Allen insisted on. My comment – "Prove Me Wrong". On race day, a new threshold pace for Allen appeared in my inbox: almost 90 seconds a mile faster than what I thought and a new Personal Record for the half-marathon. Then, when the big training block hit, the Raptor nickname came to be. It came about for two reasons: first, the scene from Jurassic Park 3 — the helicopter dream scene where Alan Grant awoke with the velociraptor sitting next to him saying, "Alan" — which became the GIF I'd use whenever I texted Allen about something. Second, the fact that Allen never missed anything and found time to get workouts in that I didn't think he'd be able to do due to travel or tough weather conditions — including a planned 140.6-mile ride that a rainstorm cut to 102 miles, so, despite having to go home, he climbed back onto the trainer and finished the job anyway. That's embracing the suck, and that's the Raptor.

He raced his way into shape, too: 3rd in his age group at the Tri-Boulder Beast Tri and when I asked him what he was proudest of this season, he didn't name a finish line from another race. He named the final ride before Wisconsin and that was his last 100-mile ride where he told me how that made him realize he was ready for race day. And, Allen showed up ready for the Start Line.

When the results poured in on race day, it made me smile. Relentless Forward Motion!! :)