Amidst the suffering and toil that comes with challenging the globe’s best off-road triathletes at the Xterra world championships in Maui, Hawaii, Canmore’s Kyle McLaughlin had an epiphany: he’d rather spend time with his kids.
It wasn’t a new sentiment. This past year, he replaced long training hours with ice time coaching his children’s hockey team, but he still wanted to compete at the world championships and race in Hawaii on Oct. 27.
“I felt in the race I had time to think about the good moments and I realized I have more fun coaching my kids than pursuing individual goals,” McLaughlin said.
He still finished the 1.5-kilometre ocean swim, 30-km mountain bike and 9.5-km trail run in a time of 3:34:32, good enough for 217th overall out of nearly 700 athletes, but results took a back seat to family.
“The thing that came out of this race is that I knew going in I wasn’t as fit as years before. I accepted that based on how life is. I knew going in it would be an experience, so I had a different mentality; just soak it in.”
His competitive side still put up a fight. He shaved time off his swim from last year and wanted to push himself on the run.
“Probably near the end of the bike and going into the run, my mind wanted a better result than my body could provide,” McLaughlin said. “I had a tough time on the first two miles of the run, which were really difficult. I usually just grit my teeth and go and take as much suffering as I can. But my body just didn’t want to respond.”
He pushed through a tough two-mile climb, found his legs on the descent and saw his inspiration waiting for him near the finish line.
“The highlight by far was running the last 200 metres with both my boys. We were all wearing the MitoCanada gear. It was a really cool experience and an awesome day. It’s world championships and I know I’m not going to podium. It’s more about being there, racing with the elite. With the training I had, I’m happy with the result.”
McLaughlin chaired Team MitoCanada for the past two years, but he’s decided to step down. He was one of the co-founders of the charity with the Penny family. He originally ran back-to-back Ironman races to raise awareness for the charity, and it’s exploded since then.
From humble beginnings, Team MitoCanada now raises $200,000 a year to combat mitochondrial disease, and has more than 500 athletes representing the charity. Balancing his own training, parenting and job as an emergency room doctor hasn’t left a lot of time in the day.
“I was very proud I was able to do it. This gives an opportunity for someone else to put their signature on it,” McLaughlin said.
Mitochondrial disease robs the body’s ability to generate energy. The philosophy behind Team MitoCanada is athletes push their limits for those who can’t.
