Paula Findlay begins quest for Tokyo 2020 with refreshed approach to training
Paula Findlay announced in an interview with the Edmonton Journal last week that she intends to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games but will be returning to the training philosophy that brought her success in her early days of the sport.
“I’ve put myself back in the position I was in in 2007,” Findlay said in the interview. “I was living at home, going to school, swimming with Keyano, running with the run clubs. And then I would go race in the summer and do super well. I think there is some value in going back to that life a little bit.”
Findlay has suffered a string of injuries since the London 2012 Games where she finished last in the women’s field. She narrowly missed the opportunity to redeem herself at this past summer’s Rio 2016 Games, failing to qualify for one of the three women’s spots for Canada while recovering from knee surgery. To say the last four years of Findlay’s triathlon career have been difficult is an understatement, but the 27-year-old, who was once ranked number one in the world on the WTS circuit, has proven her talent and dedication to the sport and is determined to make another Olympic team.
“Being at home with my parents takes a lot of the stress off of things like grocery shopping, the little things in life that make a big difference when you have to train 20 hours a week and balance a course load. It’s a positive thing and I’m hoping that will catapult me into having a good season, going back to these roots,” she says. “I kind of tried to change everything up when I had that success in 2010. I moved to Victoria and pursued it full-time and stopped going to school. It was an all-encompassing part of my life. I got injured because of it. I didn’t have any balance. It was just all about training and all about going as hard as I could. So I think coming back to having a bit of this balance with school and my friends at home, and living in Edmonton where I’m from, is a good thing for me. We’ll see how that works out but I’m happy right now.”
In previous years Findlay has trained full-time out of Boulder, a triathlon mecca in the the United States. She is continuing her training under the guidance of coach Neal Henderson, who also coaches world champion Flora Duffy, but she will spend shorter stints in Boulder throughout the year in between races on the ITU circuit.
Findlay looks towards the next Olympic cycle with optimism, acknowledging that she will be 31 by Tokyo 2020 — a prime age for endurance triathletes.
“Four years is so long. I have learned in my triathlon career that so much can happen in one year. So it’s hard to plan for that, but you do have to have these goals so you can structure your four-year cycle.
“This year is all about getting back into racing and healthy and happy. That’s the plan I’m on now and it’s working well. I’m very healthy now and running well.”
With files from Dan Barnes.
