Endurance Athlete: Candace Cable

March 18, 2005

EnduranceRadio.com

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Welcome back to EnduranceRadio.com.  Thanks for joining us for another interview today.  We’re going to be speaking with Candace Cable.  She is an endurance athlete and we’re going to be talking to her about her background; she’s from southern California, although she doesn’t live here anymore, she’s lives in northern California.  We’re going to be talking to her about how she got into endurance sports and what’s up for her in 2005.

A couple of things; first of all the Race of the Day is called Possibilities.  It’s a mini-triathlon put on by Willy Stewart of the Challenged Athletes’ Foundation.  It’s on April 3^rd, 2005 and you can find out more about this race by clicking on the Race of the Day link right below the link to this audio.

So we’re going to be right back to speak with Candace Cable in about 30 seconds.”

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<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Candace thanks very much for talking with today, I appreciate you taking the time.”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Sure Tim, no problem.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Talk about your unique background because I was reading the bio on your website, you’ve got a great website by the way, and you’re a cross-country skier and you just got back from one of your skiing … what do you call it?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “World cup competitions.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “There you go.  Anyway, talk about your background.”

<<Candace Cable>>: “I grew up in southern California, kind of a typical southern California girl.  I liked surfing, hiking, being around the water, but I wasn’t a competitive athlete at all, or even involved with  endurance sports, and in 1975 I was in a car accident that severed my spinal cord and I had to start using a wheelchair for mobility.  I really was pretty devastated by that, but soon after met some people in wheelchairs and they were doing sports, and one thing led to another; I tried the sports and it was a really easy way for me to feel good about myself again and also build up some upper body strength.  I got involved with any kind of adaptive sport that I could and I really fell into wheelchair racing early on in the late 70’s, early 80’s and just started to pursue the marathon with a vengeance and I’ve done over 85 marathons.  I absolutely love the whole endurance thing.  I was Alpine skiing for a little bit, sitting down, and then started cross-country skiing in 94’, and last year I decided I wanted to try to do the Ironman triathlon.  I qualified for it and went there and wasn’t able to finish the race because I went over the 10½ hour time limit from starting from the end of the bike, but I am determined to get that thing under my belt.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “So you’re going to be back this year for that?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Yeah, I’m going to try to qualify again.  We have one race that we can quality, the only one in the whole world; its at Lubbock, Texas, the Buffalo Springs Half Ironman in June, and then hopefully once I qualify there I’ll start being able to put it together again for the race in October.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Do you have a coach right now?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “I do not have a coach right now.  I follow a couple of books; its pretty funny because when I was at the Ironman I was following a book called ‘Going Long’ by Joe Friel, and he came up to me and he was Race Director of the marathon that I did in the 80’s a couple of times, so I thought that was kind of a small world coincidence, but someone that I knew from my past in marathoning was now involved with the triathlon world and writing books, so I was following his books.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “What’s your preferred sport, is it the triathlon or is it the skiing at this point?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Well they come at different seasons for me.  I absolutely love cross-country skiing, it’s a real opportunity for someone with a mobility impairment like myself to be able to get out and explore the woods under my own power.  That’s, not to sound like a cliché, but very empowering for someone with a disability, and even someone able bodied also to be able to do that.  Then in the summer time I just really like to stay active and so a friend of mine of suggested trying the triathlon.  I was getting a little bored with just running, so I tried the triathlon and I am just am hooked at the challenge of trying to get it all in and the game of the three different sports.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “So what does your training regime look like leading up to the Ironman?  Were you working on technique or just increasing pure endurance or a little bit of both?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Well last year, since it was my first ever trying of a triathlon and I have several friends that say, ‘Well, when you go after something you don’t go after anything small, you go big, you go straight to the Ironman,’ which is pretty much what I did.  Last year really was trying to figure out the equipment.  For swimming, we’re allowed to use a wetsuit, but we also need to have something that going to keep our legs straight and not bend at all to create any drag, so I had to have braces made that would keep my legs straight; trying to figure out my bike.  The racing chair I was good on, I totally had that figured out, but the bike and the swimming I spent a lot of time last year figuring out what kind of equipment I could use and then learning techniques for swimming because I hadn’t swam in years.  This year actually I’m going to just be able to settle in and get into a really consistent training program rather than stinking around with equipment.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “How many hours a day, when you’re at your peak of training, are you out either running or you’re swimming; how much volume are you doing?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “I’m working full time, so one of the things which is nice; the hours get longer in the summer so I get a little more time to be able to get out there.  For me, I’m swimming about four days a week and I’m in the water for about an hour and a half, and then I try to get in my racing chair a couple of days a week because that comes back pretty quick for me, and then the rest of the time I’m on my bike and I’m anywhere on my bike from two hours to eight hours, just to be able to settle in and feel what its like to keep going longer and longer.  My weekends are pretty absorbed with transferring from one sport to the other and trying to get two in in a day, and probably by the qualifier I’ll be up to two a day of sports.  You know it just takes us longer to do everything, so that’s a big part of it too.  Somebody’s two hour ride is really my four hour ride.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “How about strength training?  Are you doing weight lifting at all?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “I am.  I’m in the gym year round at least two days a week, and during the summer I’ll probably be in three days a week just because it’s a great balancing thing for me, because when I’m in the gym I’m really working on muscles that we’re not using so much of because everything we do goes forward in our upper bodies, so we tend to get really rounded if we don’t really work our backs and try to keep our core strength strong, so those are the things that I work on real hard in the gym.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Are you using a heart rate monitor or any other type of device to objectify your training level?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Absolutely Tim.  I have used a heart rate monitor since 1980.  I totally am hooked and in love with a heart rate monitor, it’s like my little best buddy out there.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Talk about the equipment.  Obviously people are just fanatical about their bikes; are you always tweaking to make sure you’re getting the best technique and getting the best out of your wheelchair?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “The racing chair is pretty much tweaked and topped out.  They’re really aerodynamic, we’re like little mini dragsters, they’re at the top and theres not much you can change with them.  The bike, though, is really just beginning to evolve, its not very aerodynamic yet and so that’s where get beat up most of the time on the triathlon is on the bike because we’re like a box going down the road basically, rather than a sleek aerodynamic machine that you see the cyclists zip by you.  This summer I’m hoping to be able to connect with a couple of people and see if I can get someone to take on the idea of trying to tweak our bikes so that they are much aerodynamic and more efficient for us; and then with the swim, like I said, we can use wetsuits for floatation, and a bracing system of some type that’s really light and plastic is very beneficial because it keeps our legs straight.  What I had last year was I had a set of braces made that went from about my ankle to mid-thigh, and then I had a Lycra cover that went over the two legs so it had a little mermaid effect to it.  That worked out really well and was great.  The only thing I would like to change with that is to try to keep my legs in a line with my hips and my waist because my legs, because they’re paralyzed, have a tendency to go off on their little page and maybe swing to the side a little bit too much, from side to side especially when you’re rolling in the swim, so some type of corset type thing that would keep the legs in alignment with the hips and the waist.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Sounds like maybe you have a little business opportunity on your hands there.”

<<Candace Cable>>: “You never know, its just starting to grow, its adaptive equipment for the triathlon.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Talk about your nutrition plan that you’re doing.  Do you have anything in particular that works that you can share with us?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “For myself, I really try to stay pretty clean, which then creates a pretty simple diet for me.  I did notice for myself that I have a little bit of allergy to wheat so I try to eliminate that and find other sources of complex carbohydrates that aren’t made with wheat.” 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “How did you know you had the allergy?  What did that feel like?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Well, I was feeling stuffy.  My nose would feel a little stuffy after I would eat it.  I didn’t pay much attention to it for a while, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m guess I’m getting a cold,’ or it was cold outside.  A friend of mine that’s a chiropractor and also a nutritionist said, ‘You know, you might have a little bit of an allergy to wheat, so why don’t you check it out, eliminate it for a while and then add it back,’ and that’s what I did and I noticed it right away and he said,’ Its really minor, its probably not going to hurt to you,’ but its probably irritating to know that you’re kind of stuffy and maybe not breathing as well.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Well sure, especially during a race I guess that would be more of a problem as well.”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Yeah, and plus you start hacking and stuff.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “What’s in it for you in 2005?  What are some of the goals you’ve got?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Well by the time people hear this I will have competed at World Championships for cross-country skiing because I ski on the US disabled ski team, and those are in Maine this year.  Then the next thing will be that short triathlon in the beginning of April; qualifying for Ironman is in June and then Ironman competition is in October, and in between that I’ll probably do some local stuff in the northern California area.  I really like competition, I don’t know where it come from and I wasn’t a competitive person before, but I just love the whole aspect of everybody being in an event together no matter what their ability level, and then our goal is the same thing of trying to complete this event and just myself against myself the whole time has always been very exciting and inspiring to me.  I’ll probably get in some local stuff, we have a Donna Lake triathlon here and we also have the Donna Lake swim and I’m really enjoying open water swimming so I’ll probably do more of that.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “What kind of things specifically are you doing for the World Championships in cross-country skiing right now?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “I’m starting to taper down a little bit because it’s in a couple of weeks, in the middle of March (when people hear this it’ll be over).  I actually went out.  Theres a ski race here on Sunday called The Great Ski race and it’s a 30K cross-country ski race, and it’s a 10K climb, I mean you climb over 1,000 feet in 10K, so I climbed that path today just to see the course again; I’ve done it a couple of times, and then of course it’s the wicked flying descent, that’s always there too.  So I have that coming up.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “How do you gauge your team’s chances here at these championships?  How do you look?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “I think we look really really well.  We have a really solid team this year as far as cross-country skiers.  We have four sit-down skiers, like myself, we have three stand-up skiers; two of the guys are missing a leg below the knee and one of the girls is missing her arm, and they’re all really coming into their own right now.  They’re just really doing well on the World Cup circuit, so it’s really exciting.  I think we might win the overall team trophy this year.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Do you get a chance to go back and talk to people who were in your position after the accident that you had, and maybe give them a little bit of hope that I’m sure you may have not had right after the accident?”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Yes Time, absolutely.  I take every opportunity that I can get to be able to speak to people with new disabilities, and also people without disabilities, just to tell that, ‘You know, its doesn’t really matter what happens in your life, theres are always options, there are always possibilities.  You have the ability to create your world by how you perceive it, and if you perceive it as something that has a lot of options then that’s what’s going to happen in your life,’ and I want people to know too that with a disability people have an old stereotype idea of what someone with a disability is or isn’t capable of, and those are being shattered daily by people that are working within their disabilities.  So any opportunity I get to be able to address an audience I’ll take it.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “That’s great.  Well that’s the motivational speak side of you right there.

So listeners, you can go to Candace’s website, we’ll link to that and you can read all about her.  So Candace, thanks very much for talking with us, I really appreciate it.”

<<Candace Cable>>: “Sure Tim, thank you for having me on.  I’m psyched.”

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