The Pauole Sport Triathlon Team is a close-knit, friendly and outgoing team in Seattle, WA. They enjoy training and racing together and the main requirement is you have fun, do your best, and support your fellow teammates. Pauole Sport has team members of all ages and abilities, from elite athletes qualifying for the Ironman World Championship to beginners training for their first triathlon. The team is made up of an outstanding group of coaches, team leaders and athletes who are supportive, encouraging and help athletes reach their athletic goals. The team’s knowledgeable and experienced coaching staff offers a wide variety of services including: personal triathlon/swim, bike, and run coaching, swim clinics, team workouts, social events and support at all team races.
Head Coach Kainoa Pauole-Roth was born and raised in Hawaii and her personal philosophy is to “Live with Aloha”. She explains:
"Aloha is a way of living, an attitude and expresses guidelines to help us in our lives – kindness, patience, compassion, respect, togetherness, affection, empathy, peace, & love. The Pauole Sport Team is Ohana (family) and we support each other in training, racing, and life! The team embodies all of this and is why we have such an amazing team that we are proud to be a part of."
Learn more: www.pauolesport.com
Pauole Sport Featured Athlete
Paul Weinstein
Paul is a strong, positive, and encouraging team leader and a valued member of Pauole Sport. He came to the team about 2.5 years ago with very little triathlon experience but in a short time has improved tremendously in all three disciplines. He has improved and PR’d at every race and continues to get stronger and race smarter. Paul is highly motivated, works hard day in and day out, and is committed to reaching his goals. In 2018, Paul improved his time by over 20 minutes at IRONMAN 70.3 Victoria (4:58:37) and had an opportunity to compete at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in South Africa. Last year, he also placed 1st in AG at Eastside Triathlon and 2nd place at Lake Tye Olympic. This earned him a qualification to AG National Championships this year.
Just Breathe - a useful swim tip from Paul:
When I began my triathlon journey at 43, I hadn’t ever been a “swimmer”. Sure I could swim in a pool with my kids, but laps, open water? No way! On my first open water swim day, in my borrowed blueseventy wetsuit, I joined the Pauole team for one of our bi-weekly open water summer swims in Lake Washington. The first part of the workout is an “easy” warm up swim out to a dock and back. A total of about 600 yards. The team took off, with me right behind them.
After just 100 yards, I was out of breath and light headed. I couldn’t keep going. I grabbed onto one of the docks and caught my breath. The team had continued a little further along the shore of the lake. They were out of sight. I was alone. I struggled my way back. I wasn’t even close to being able to keep up, or even continue the swim. The team, and our coach Kainoa, returned a few minutes later. This is when almost everything about the swim changed for me. Kainoa gave me two pieces of advice:
- Just breathe on one side, every two strokes. Don’t worry about bi-lateral breathing when you start. One of my problems was that I had no consistency in my breathing cadence. I was breathing every 2, 5, 3, 2, 5 strokes as I swam, not giving my body a consistent flow of oxygen.
- Exhale underwater with your mouth wide open, not with your lips pursed. Be relaxed as you breathe out, and exhale entirely underwater before taking another breath. Don’t force the breath out at the last minute, instead, start breathing out slowly right away.
With this advice, I took to the water again. In all my years as a coached athlete (in other sports), never have I seen such a dramatic and immediate improvement in performance from two simple pieces of advice. Without exaggeration, heeding this advice I was immediately able to keep up with the team on the next set.
Since that first day, I’ve continued to work on my swim technique and improved my speed so much that I’m now in the lead pack of swimmers for those summer open water swims instead of clinging to a dock catching my breath.
And it started with simple, yet powerful advice: breathe.
