40 - Davin Main

Everyday Ironman Podcast

In this episode, I speak to Davin Main. Davin is an elementary school teacher from Sacramento, CA. He and his wife, who is also and endurance athlete, have a 16 year old daughter along with a few pets.

After giving me a quick US Geography lesson, Davin and I compare stories of on the benefits of being a teacher in a small town. My wife can’t go anywhere without being approached by a former student and Davin declares he’s James Marshall famous.

From the ages of 16 until 36, Davin admits to being a gym rat. He would “pump iron” 60 – 90 minutes a day, 5 – 6 days a week. Until 1 day he got bored and decided to something completely different and choose triathlon. Davin explains if you manage your time right, you can get a 90 minute workout done in 70 minutes.

Davin reveals a philosophy lesson that he shares with his students. Having a Growth Mindset is when you recognize that progress is made over a period of time. He compares his 1st 500 yard swim that took him 24 minutes to complete to the 500 yard swim he completed in 9 minutes recently.

We get into a conversation to determine who was the worst swimmer when we started training, Davin introduces me to a new term. Being a crocodile swimmer is when you swim for multiple strokes before lifting your head to take a large breath and repeat.

Davin shares that his secret to swimming faster came at a cost last year while rehabbing from knee surgery. He was able to set a PR in 100, 400, and 1000 yards within 3 weeks but his already budging lower back discs didn’t appreciate all his hard work.

Since we are both self-proclaimed slow swimmers, I ask Davin what he considers to be the definition of average person fast. Davin first acknowledges that everyone is at a different place on their journey, and we should only be concerned about being faster than we were but says that 1:30/100 is fast.

We discuss the advantage of learning proper pacing. We talk about the pros and cons of learning how to do a flip-turn. We compare a paranoid feeing that we share when swimming with others at a public pool. Davin shares that he swims more than the average to give his knees a break from running. Hs goal is to swim 160 miles this year. He’s already at 32 miles at about 10 weeks into 2022.

Davin explains that because he knows his body’s limitations, he is really limiting his running. He is following a 10:1 bike to run ration with his training volume in the 1st half of the year. As his A race gets closer, he will shift to a 5:1 ratio.

When I try to get Davin to commiserate with me on my inability to swim straight on the pool, he tells me that not only can he swim straight in the pool that he swam so straight during Santa Cruz 70.3 he only clocked 1.1 miles on his Garmin. To be fair, Davin explains that he speeds time during strength training including paddle work to even out his stroke.

When we get around to talking about training for the bike portion of triathlon, Davin acknowledges that he is also an indoor rider. He has completed 112 miles in one session. Davin plants the seed that I need a direct drive trainer.

Davin shares that his goal at every race is to minimize pain. He lists some of the tools/techniques that he uses for management and recovery. We talk about his experience last year at Santa Cruz and Davin explains his plan for Ironman California this year in Sacramento.

Davin was originally signed up to race Ironman California last year. He unfortunately was having knee pain with 2 weeks to go and was able to defer to 2022. He still had plans to volunteer and talks about what it was like to morning of as the Race Director made the decision to cancel the race just before start time. We agreed that as disappointing as it must have been for all, it did appear to be the right call.

We talk about the advantages of short course racing and laugh about what it would be like if Ironman ran the ½ and full d