Hillary Biscay

is our field warrior for all things clothing related. She puts each performance piece to the test during training and racing so that we can learn from her expertise and refine and tweak each article of clothing until it stands up to the rigors of a professional triathlete. Think of her as our living, breathing, and sweating R+D department.

Hillary is not only a valuable asset because she’s on the front lines of the pro circuit. We also love Hillary because she truly embodies the essence of Splits59. In addition to her natural talents, Hillary works hard, really hard, to get where she is. She earns every single finish she achieves. At Splits59, we applaud that spirit, because we know that this is about more than just podium finishes, it’s about enjoying and celebrating the journey that got you to the finish line in the first place.



Once a month Hillary writes an article about her experiences as a triathlete.

Junes Article: The Birthday Workout

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of partaking in an epic workout with two of the athletes that I coach. It’s what those of us in my training squad (Team TBB, or the group of elite triathletes coached by Brett Sutton) call “the birthday set.” I am proud to say that some of my athletes are also now familiar with the term, which refers to a modified version of the workout that we do at our training camps. At Team TBB training camp, we have a tradition of swimming 100x100 meters to celebrate each person’s birthday; so last year, I decided to start a similar tradition with two of my star athletes, Jon Schwartz and Alma Loya, who have their own little swim squad in Santa Monica, California.

Last March, Jon and Alma celebrated Jon’s birthday with a swim workout of 100x50 yards. At the time, this workout of about 3 miles was their longest swim to date; luckily for them, Alma’s birthday came just a couple of weeks later, and they had the pleasure of celebrating again by repeating the same 100x50. J I believe that at one of these workouts, my little overachievers even had the added fun of having to do the last 20 or so faster than instructed, as they were in danger of overstaying the pool’s designated lap swimming hours--and after doing 97x50, there was no such thing as “good enough.”

After my athletes conquered last year’s “birthday set”, we set the goal of doing it bigger and better for their ‘08 birthdays. However, it happened that this year, Jon and Alma celebrated their birthdays early in March by competing in the Ironman in New Zealand. (If you are starting to get the idea that these two are hardcore, you are right. I should also add that in addition to doing epic training sessions and races for fun, they both have pretty intense day jobs: Alma is a radiologist and Jon runs a company that you may have heard of-- called Splits59!). The timing of the race meant that they had a bit of a training break which coincided with their birthdays; this was excused, especially since Alma had managed to qualify for the Hawaii Ironman World Championships in October.

It was thus that we arrived at a belated birthday celebration in May. I happened to be in Santa Monica for a day of photo shoots and meetings for Splits59; I was booked all day and had only the early morning to train. Being accustomed to doing at least three training sessions per day, only being able to do one workout makes me an unhappy camper. Thankfully, training is my job, so these days don’t happen very often. Nevertheless, so that I would not be absolutely miserable to be around all day, I knew this Monday morning’s workout must ensure that I “gave it to myself,” or pushed myself to the point that I could be certain that something had been accomplished that day.

I did the math and figured out that I could give it to myself alongside my athletes: we could do the birthday set together if Jon and Alma swam 75 yards for every 100 yards that I did. I am very proud to say that they completed 100x75 yards, which was exceeded the longest swim they had done previously by over 2000 yards--and they finished being able to see that 100x100 is a realistic goal for next year. Most importantly, Jon and Alma proved to themselves that they had many more laps in them than they had thought--that given the opportunity, their bodies could go further than they had imagined without falling apart.

For my part, I survived a day of a kind of “real world” work because I took my limited training time and put it into one epic session. I use these sort of sessions frequently whenever I need a boost in morale or motivation. For me these sessions are more about the mental benefit than the physical; I am always training pretty hard and consistently, but just to be sure, and remind myself of my fitness, I enjoy doing the workouts that are most difficult to wrap my head around. For running, this might mean running a marathon on the treadmill, and for biking, it might mean doing a long ride that includes climbing up Tucson’s Mt. Lemmon, which is 25 miles uphill.

I thought I’d share about my love of “epic sessions” because people often ask me how I stay motivated--and doing workouts like this is one of my key strategies. I know that swimming 10, 000 yards or running a marathon on the treadmill might not be realistic goals for everyone, but the concept of the epic session is. What comprises an epic session is relative to the individual; it is about setting a new personal precedent in one’s training. It might mean taking one of your three 30-minute treadmill runs each week and using it to see how long you stay on that machine; aim for 35, then 40, then 45 minutes. Or it could mean using one of those runs each week to see how high you can take your speed for that 30 minutes . . . Or maybe next time you finish a spin class, see if you can’t hop on the treadmill and jog a mile immediately afterwards . . . You might be surprised at how quickly it becomes “easy” to hop on the treadmill for 30 minutes after spin class . . .

You can read her previous articles here.

     Getting Started       Winter Training     Getting Your Head Together

For more information about Hillary please visit her website

HillaryBiscay.com