“I was like, ‘I don’t want to bring the bike. That’s going to be a huge burden for everyone, and I’m a guest.’ But they were like, ‘No, you should bring it,’” Marquardt says. “My coach and I talked about it. We’re like, ‘Look, really, we just need to keep the volume up. You don’t have to do anything super crazy while you’re on the cruise.’ And that’s pretty much all we did. And then I came back and did a week of good training, and then headed to Australia.
“I think it was a great lesson for me and hopefully for others too, that you don’t have to be perfect going into a race to still put together a good race.”
“Just get it done” has been something like a mantra throughout Marquardt’s journey as a pro athlete/med student. He documented his training on the cruise on his Instagram page (which you should very much follow), and it was an excellent look into his problem solving process. Fortunately there were treadmills on board, because the on-deck track was only 200 meters long and had “more turns than an F1 track.” His bike and trainer fit neatly in his room (or on his balcony for some heat training), and for the swim, he purchased a bungee cord off amazon, strapped it to a sturdy pole, tied the other end around his waist, and swam until his mind went “numb” early during the mornings while the rest of the ship was asleep.
