From 5K Weekend Warrior to IRONMAN Worlds Qualifier
The Athlete:
Kinga Kimbrel is a 32-year-old software engineer working for Amazon in Seattle. Despite juggling a demanding career with her triathlon training (and being a relative newbie to the sport with no real sports experience).
“I had no athletic background whatsoever. I was just a weekend warrior exercising from time to time.”
When Kinga first moved to the US from Poland in 2015, she picked up a fair share of unhealthy lifestyle habits. As a result, she gained weight and struggled with her body image and self-esteem. She was inspired to try running in hopes of evolving her lifestyle. Kinga’s athletic journey began on a whim in 2016 when a coworker convinced her to try a Halloween 5K. After the race, Kinga continued running 5K’s and started cycling a few months later. Surprise, surprise, this led her to triathlon. However, her training was sporadic and disorganized.
Kinga completed her first IRONMAN 70.3 in May of 2019 but was disappointed in her race result and motivated to improve. Realizing that her inconsistent and scattered approach to training was not cutting it, she bought Coach Matt Dixon’s 'The Fast Track Triathlete’ book and started self-coaching her triathlon journey.
The Challenge:
Integrating Triathlon Training into a Time-Starved Life
As Kinga progressed in triathlon, she quickly realized that juggling a full-time job as an engineer at Amazon and a complex triathlon training schedule was no easy feat. She also had a lot to learn about nutrition, fueling, race strategy, and managing the unique challenges of each triathlon discipline. Matt’s book was great, but it was only a jumping-off point for her. She needed and wanted more.
The Solution:
Structured, Progressive, Consistent Training
Part 1:
High-Performance Training with Squad
Kinga’s high-performance journey really started when she joined the Purple Patch Squad. The experience on Squad shifted Kinga’s mindset to the value of integrating training into her busy life and focusing on building consistency instead of obsessing over training volume. She also amplified her focus on nutrition, fueling, sleep, and her commitment to strength training. In addition, the educational resources offered by Squad enhanced her knowledge of the intricacies of endurance training.
This shift in approach allowed for an accurate level of performance predictability for Kinga. In addition, the change opened up measurable gains in performance while allowing her to retain a sense of calm control over life. As a result, not only was the journey more successful, it was more enjoyable.
Looking back at her training before joining Purple Patch, Kinga realized she hadn’t been giving it her all, unable to push through those key moments that can define our training and ultimately determine our racing success. Purple Patch helped Kinga learn her most important lesson: Just show up every day, and do your best on that day.
Part 2:
Personalized Approach with Coach Mike Olzinski
After her initial success on Squad, Kinga decided she wanted to invest more in her training and transitioned from Squad to one-on-one coaching at Purple Patch.
Coach Mike and Kinga worked together to develop a three-pronged strategy for her evolution as an athlete.
Evolving Mindest
Mike realized the most significant barrier in Kinga’s way was not time, energy, or strategy; it was her mindset. So Mike and Kinga worked on the importance of patience, viewing her training as a project and letting herself enjoy the little victories on the way.
Learning the Intention and Specifics of Different Sessions
Despite successfully learning to integrate training into life, Kinga still fell into the trap that catches many ambitious athletes, a desire to go hard on every session. So Mike created a strict protocol of days where Kinga could go full steam into sessions but balanced this approach with strict limits on the lower stress sessions. Mike also evolved how he built the key interval sessions, opting to develop most as progressively building effort over the intervals or set of intervals. This progression set Kinga up for success in these sessions and also limited the total stress she placed on her body. As a result, Kinga built confidence but didn’t over-stress herself.
The Power of Nutrition and Fueling
The bad habits Kinga picked up after her move to America weren’t helping fuel her body for the demands of her training. Working directly with Scott Tindal, a Purple Patch-recommended Nutritionist from Fuelin, Kinga received a custom nutrition and fueling plan to optimize her body composition and maintain her energy levels during training and racing. With her improved nutrition and fueling, Kinga could train harder and recover quicker than ever before.
In addition to the interventions listed above, Kinga took advantage of all the available athlete resources at Purple Patch, like participating in the live and on-demand training sessions, attending camps, and embedding herself in Purple Patch’s athlete community.
The Results
“Working with Purple Patch Fitness completely changed my mindset about training while working a demanding job. It was also the platform for me to quality for the World Championships.”
After training with Purple Patch and learning about the effects of nutrition and hydration on performance, Kinga finally started getting the results she deserved.
She cut an hour off her previous personal bests in running and biking.
She earned IRONMAN 70.3 World qualifier slots in her last three races and a coveted IRONMAN Kona slot.
At the 2021 IRONMAN 70.3 Oregon, Kinga had a personal best of 4:36 and showed significant improvements in all disciplines of the sport.
At 2021 IRONMAN 70.3, Washington Kinga brought home the 3rd spot overall, only narrowly missing out on 2nd by 5 seconds.
Kinga’s most significant takeaway from all this work was the evolution of her mindset. She learned to enjoy the training journey and trust the process instead of simply going hard on every workout and chasing an accumulation of miles. She also discovered that consistency and strategic training were vital to getting results.
Kinga accomplished all of this without sacrificing work, life, and relationships — the gold standard of our philosophy at Purple Patch. Kinga continues to improve her athleticism today and is determined to continue smashing personal records and inspiring others the way our community inspired her.