The End of an Era

Wow!  2 blogs inside of a month...must be a lot going on over here at Team Healey HQ. So we will get right into it...

If you're reading this, you most likely just saw the above announcement about our #epicmerger with Renegade Endurance.  And although we announced this well over a month ago to our tri club, I hadn't yet "let the cat out of the bag" with the whole Facebook/Instagram world.  It's not that I wasn't excited, I just wanted to get through Ironman North Carolina, let the season wind down, and let myself have time to process everything that has been this season and put it on paper.  It was a huge and monumental decision for me. My husband very eloquently put it in a pretty typed letter to the tri club, but ya'll know I always have more to say soo...are you surprised?

So how did we get here?  To this #epicmerger...let's start at the beginning.

2 years ago (and it's actually 2 years ago on the 24th), my life flipped upside down when I left the place where all my fitness journey's began and went out on my own.  It was a super scary time but that's when "Team Healey" was born.

In 2015, we had an amazing triathlon season.  Though we started our club in 2014, we had never opened it up to the public.  It was just a small group of our girls (and a couple guys too), that had run with us over the years that had shown interest in triathlon.  Kristofor and I were always nervous about expanding and "coaching" triathlon, but after no one died and everyone had a good time in 2014, 2015 we were ready to party.  And party we did!  We had a super active club that got together for practices, went to lots of races together, and was growing but tight knit. We had kick ass uniforms and got our first taste of some sponsorships. We had an awesome time! We ended 2015 with a bang and a 2nd place in our division with USAT.  We closed out the year with an awesome party with awards and spinning trophies.  And even though we had announced that we would be moving, we had a plan in place to keep everything going. The enthusiasm was high even as we said our goodbyes in December and headed towards San Antonio.

So we moved.  And all of December, I was busily reaching out to sponsors, building a website (which was so hard to do), trying to create buzz for new San Antonio triathletes, working to start kit designs, etc.  I wasn't working as a trainer much because I hadn't quite found where I was going to land yet. I had lots of time to devote to getting Team Healey Multisport off the ground for 2016.  We opened up registration January 1 and we were off like a rocket!

And then January happened.  And I am going to tell my side of the story because I haven't and well...It's a free country.  January happened.  Another club popped up to take our place in the RGV and it created a really big conflict of interest for a lot of our members.  With USAT rules in place, they couldn't technically be on our team and the new team, there could be situations where people could be disqualified for trying to do so.  Eventually, I had to draw a line in the sand and I had to say "choose." And a lot of our club did.  It was like all of the air was taken out of my balloon.  All the enthusiasm and hope and plans that I had worked super hard for in December to make sure that 2016 Team Healey Multisport was going to go off without a hitch was slowing deflating like one of those inflatable finish lines when the generator runs out of gas.  And it was awful.  I cried so much in January, by the end of the month I almost didn't have any tears left.  Every time I got the call from an athlete that they were going to do the new local team, my heart broke.  What's more heartbreaking?  I understood.

We had moved.  I didn't live in the Valley anymore.  I wasn't there to coach them at the pool or ride my bike next to them.  And many of the athletes we coached were super used to be being there all the time.  I understood the need for many of them to have something local.  But it didn't take the sting out much.  And I had this gut feeling that because the new team and ours would be at a bunch of the same events throughout the year, it would probably make for some awkwardness.  And it did...and I won't go into that.

So in January we lost about 20 of our team members. And it was super sad.  But things always start to turn around.  In February, I also started to meet new people in our new home and started planting seeds for new triathletes. So I got some hope back and we charged into our first event in our snazzy new uniforms, took 3 podiums and we were off like a rocket once again!

Galveston 70.3 came and went, we had an epic day at Ironman Texas, a day that wasn't at Cap Tex Tri, and I think it was sometime after Tri for Old Glory in July when it really started to hit me.  I took a deep look at where I was at with my personal training business, and I took a really hard look at all the time I had been spending doing all things tri club, and I had a bit of an A-Ha! moment.

As much as I love and adore our tri club, and because I love and adore it so much, it takes up a lot of my time; my physical time, and my emotional time.  This year, I did it pretty much on my own as well.  Kristofor has been traveling for work A LOT in 2016.  He's about to hit Hilton Platinum because he's spent like 2 months or more in a hotel.  In the month of October he was home like 5 days... So all of the tri club responsibilities went to me.  And let me tell you, there's a lot of responsibilities if you want to do it right and to right by your athletes.  Running a club is NOT easy. And since my personal training business is my main gig that helps support my family, I had to take a hard look in late July about where I was spending my time. I A-Ha!ed that things hadn't been picking up as much with Personal Training because I had been spending all energy on the tri club.  If that was going to change, I was going to have to make some tough decisions.

So in early August, I grabbed the bull by the horns and decided I needed to stop resting on my laurels and get things really moving with my business.  I found a place to rent, I spent one big weekend painting and getting it all outfitted.  I ordered more equipment from Amazon than I could keep track of, and I opened the doors of Lakefit.  I started putting some serious time into marketing my business, which in my market means, passing out fliers business to business in our county, hanging flyers in neighborhoods, talking to people and networking.  As my roster grew and I started to spend more time at my studio, I realized that balancing both the tri club and hopefully a really full roster of training clients come January 1 would be a stretch.

Kristofor and I started to really look at what we would need to do to make 2017 successful for our team.  2016 had been great;  we had grown our numbers, taken 2 podiums for Ironman Tri club, had several AG National Qualifiers, and things were going well.  We decided that we would just ask everyone what they wanted.  If we were going to be making decisions about what to do, it was important for us to ask our athletes.  They are what make the team a team. Together, we came up with an online survey where everyone could anonymously answer some key questions about what was important to them when it came to the club, their plans and goals for the next season, and what they wanted out of their support system.  Over a week or so, we got a lot of answers, and not all of those answers cam from the surveys. As the feedback rolled in, we knew we needed to make some big decisions.

What we found was that our team was kind of in different places, at a crossroads really.  We had a couple dozen of our team members that were super excited about 2017 and racing as a team, having team uniforms, taking advantage of our coaching services, and were ready for another year.  A few stated they planned to take the next season off to explore and do other things. But we also had several of our members that stated they were ready to move on and explore other team options, not just the local team that was available in the RGV, but as ambassadors for gear and clothing brands, and onto super teams that are run nationally. The sport of triathlon has changed immensely in the last 3-4 years.  When we started in 2014, it was smaller and more intimate club settings that seemed to be "the thing".  As the sport has grown, so has the interest in larger clubs and the attractive sponsor packages they bring to the table.  Going into 2017, there seemed to be a consensus that some of our members were looking to make changes and move on, but there was a healthy number of us that were still excited to move forward as a group.  Our team had definitely changed in the year since we moved, and that was to be expected.  So what was next?

As we started talking about everything that came in on the surveys, we started to think about possible options.  Did we want to try another year and risk having another heartbreaking January as people went their separate ways?  Did we want to sit the next year out and not do a club at all?  Did we need to change our format and go with a different team name that allowed us to be more of a brand? **let's face it...in the Valley it was easy to be Team Healey because we had such a strong relationship and history with most of our athletes...but in the new market we are in, not everyone wants to join a team and wear my husbands last name. ** We had another A-Ha! moment and insert Renegade Endurance.

Renegade Endurance or RE, is a club that we raced with earlier in the season for a Ragnar Relay.  They are a club that runs and operates much like ours does, but they have 5 people helping do all the work instead of one, which is amazing. And we love them.  We love the Renegades! They are awesome.  It was a group that Kristofor and I just gelled with right from the start.  And there's strength in numbers. Couldn't we do so much more if we worked together?  This could be awesome!  So we called Ryan Byers, one of their founders, and we asked what they thought about merging.  A week or so later, we had a long conference call where we went line by line through every part of our clubs.  We compared and contrasted and talked about how it all would work. In the end, it was the perfect fit and the solution we were looking for.  We could still have a club to train with and race with. Kristofor and I would oversee the Central and South Texas Chapter, and I wouldn't have to try and juggle everything all by myself. It was the perfect fit!  All I really wanted was to be able to still support and coach the athletes that wanted to move forward with us, put on camps, have team dinners and enjoy the tight knit camaraderie that we had come to love.  Joining with Renegade Endurance allowed us to have everything we wanted, and I was so relieved we had found our solution.

And I will say this, I love and adore the Renegade spirit the most.  As I've become a part of their message board and got to see what more of their team was doing, I was really really proud.  Because all of their members are really really proud to be Renegades!  They wear their gear to every race, they are 100% devoted to their team, and they are all so supportive of each other.  And that kind of spirit is what keeps a club going for a long time.  It's what grows a team and keeps a club close knit.  I've had a lot of peace in knowing that we are joining hands with a team that has such a strong spirit and love for each other, just like we do with our Team Healey athletes.

So it's the end of an era.  A short one, but also a really important one.  Team Healey Multisport will always hold a special place in my heart.  And I am absolutely going to miss it. Team Healey meant so much to me when it started, and I have so many memories of the 3 seasons as the leader of the pack.  The friendships I've made out of that group are some of the best friendships I have, and I'm excited for this new chapter and where it will take us.

Overall, I can say that 2016 has been a total life changer for me, and its not even over yet.  I learned a lot about myself as a business person and a person this year.  Number one takeaway being, its ok to not be able to do everything.  Lacy last year would have powered through another year not really looking at the big picture and really asking what is the BEST option for everyone.  I don't want to pat myself on the back, but, I think I made a breakthrough. And I'm hopeful that next year I'll be able to balance being the best Personal Trainer/business owner, the best coach to the athletes that trust me with their journeys, and the best Renegade that I can be.  And I might add another big thing to that resume too. Time will tell.

So Team Healey Multisport, over and out.  It's been a wild ride, an experience of a life time, one of the best things I've ever been a part of, and one of my proudest accomplishments.  To any athlete that ever donned our kit, we love you. Thank you for being a part of our team...but more importantly...

#areyourenegade ?

www.renegadeendurance.com