Cover Story - Erin Hotvet: Water Girl - By Tom Rafferty/Photography By Brian Solano

Erin Hotvet grew up in the upper Midwest as part of an athletic family. Her father ran marathons and her brother served in an elite United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance (Force Recon) unit similar to the Navy SEALs. Her youngest brother was a recreational weight lifter. Mom and dad frequently rode together on a tandem bicycle. It seems her family was always doing some sort of physical activity so sports became simply a part of growing up. In high school she excelled in softball, basketball, and volleyball.

Erin admits that growing up in South Dakota in the 1980s with a father who was, and still is, a serious marathoner (qualifying for and running the Boston Marathon multiple times) was a bit unusual.

“He really didn’t match up with what my friends’ fathers looked like or what they did,” she recalls. “I’ll never forget—I was in junior high—sitting at a stoplight at lunchtime with a carload of my friends and here comes a group of skinny men in tiny shorts running in front of the car…and my dad waves. Everyone was like, ‘So that’s your dad?’”

While in college Erin became involved in swimming but in a non-competitive way: she was a lifeguard and taught swimming lessons to children at a local public swimming pool. It was a way to stay in shape, have fun teaching swimming lessons, and pick up some extra money.

After graduating from college, she moved to the Boulder area and decided to get serious about running, joining a marathon-training group in 2001. She injured herself slightly that summer and backed off from running in order to heal.

Then, in January 2002, she hit the wall, in a way she couldn’t have imagined: She contracted lupus as a result of a reaction to antibiotics. That, in turn, led to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

“Those were some of my darkest days as an athlete,” she says. “I was only 25 and I really thought I might not ever run again. I was in a lot of pain. It hurt just to walk across the room. I almost gave in to the pain, and that made me angry. But I was able to focus that energy on getting better. And I did and bounced back. The illness was the impetus to return to distance running and eventually run a marathon. Today, every swim, every training session, every race, is a gift.

“I ran the Chicago Marathon in October of 2002 with my dad,” Erin goes on. “That race was my punch back at the illness. My dad has always been a strong runner, and I was slow in Chicago, but I’m so glad I did it with him. He constantly boosted my morale during the race and reinforced my decision to get back into sports.”

After running the Chicago Marathon with her father, Erin continued running and started thinking about participating in a triathlon. She was confident she could run and bike, and she had always been very adept in water and swimming, though she had never had competitive swimming opportunities.

After her first triathlon, the Danskin Women’s Triathlon in 2003, Erin decided she wanted some swim training and coaching to be more competitive. A friend suggested she try a masters swimming program (being a masters swimmer simply means that you are older than 18). So she showed up at a Boulder Aquatic Masters’ (BAM) “beginning masters” course in late 2003.

“That first BAM workout introduced me to a whole new spectrum of swimming,” she says. “There were triathletes training for an Ironman churning down some lanes and fitness swimmers leisurely paddling in others. And no one was saying one way was better than the other. I immediately felt I fit in.

“The actual swimming part, now that was really hard, physically,” Erin says. “It was one of the most challenging athletic things I have ever done. We trained several times a week and I ended up staying in that beginners’ course for a year until the instructor ‘graduated’ me to the next level. I learned some good techniques and it provided a nice counterbalance to my running regime.”

Since her first triathlon, Erin has participated in a series of triathlons, working her way up to Olympic distances (1.4k swim, 40k bicycle, 10k run). She particularly enjoys supporting and participating in competitions that benefit lupus, MS, and autoimmune deficiency diseases. She is currently training for the EAS 5430 and Boulder Peak Triathlons in Boulder and last fall competed in the Nike Marathon in San Francisco.

She keeps a simple goal in mind during her training and races: “Keep it fun and keep it fresh.

“I have a core group of running friends and we get together every week to run and then catch up with each other over coffee,” she commented. “I sometimes think that the catching up is just as important as the run. It helps me balance out the training with some fun. I believe you need to really work at having a good relationship with the training aspect. For me it’s fun to train and train hard. The races, the actual competition, that’s what keeps it fresh because each one is different. But it’s also important to kick back and enjoy life too.”

One of her “kick back” outlets is music. Erin is an avid fan of the rock band Mötley Crüe and rarely misses a concert that she can get to by car or plane. In 2005 alone, she saw Mötley Crüe 11 times around the country. She enjoys many other rock shows in a variety of sub-genres, including punk rock and heavy metal. She is just as willing to travel cross-country to a concert as she is to a good triathlon or marathon. Music is just as much a part of her life as athletics and she would be reluctant to let either dominate her life.

Erin is also a strong believer in mixing up her training with swimming, running, and bicycling. She finds that swimming is a great exercise because of the low impact and the level of exertion it takes to put in a strong workout. A typical training session for her starts with 2,400 yards of swimming interspersed with intense and cool-down laps. After that, she will focus on perfecting different strokes, depending upon the BAM coach.

“Some days, the hardest part is showing up,” she adds. “But once I’m in the pool and I start swimming, it just all flows together.”

She encourages anyone interested in swimming to go to a BAM session and check it out. If you’re new to swimming or it’s been a while, she suggests one of BAM’s stroke development sessions.

“You can be competitive or you just swim for the exercise,” Erin says. “There’s no pressure. What’s important is you show up and get involved. You’ll be glad you did.”

When asked about lessons learned and the hardest thing she’s done in connection with a triathlon, she recalled a tri in Estes Park. “We had to swim across Lake Estes and the water was in the mid-50s. It was difficult to put my head down into the cold water, but I had to meet the challenge, both physically and mentally. I put my head down and told myself ‘just swim.’ I did it and ended up doing well in the race. And all that translates to life as well: when it’s painful and cold, sometimes the best thing to do is put your head down, remain focused, and just swim.”