Victoria Shubina: the work of a coach is a great responsibility

In the sports language of amateur triathletes, the phrase “Luck has smiled on you” can be safely translated as “Shubina has smiled on you”. Choosing a good coach and mentor on the way to your first IRONMAN is really a great luck. I met Vika back in April at a training session at World Class Capital City and it took me three whole months to decide to become a part of the most beautiful and strongest triathlon training team #IronShubaBaby.

You discover something new at every training session and in person, but there are always those “hows” and “whys” swirling around in your head. Why, and most importantly, how did such a petite and feminine Vika Shubina overcome 5 IRONMAN distances? On the way to the open water swimming training we managed to talk about her first sporting passion, conscious choice of triathlon, the right worldview, and most importantly about the constant desire to live in motion.

– Vika, how did sport in your life begin?
– If to start with some mark, sport in my life began in the first grade, when Lyudmila Filippovna Zhuravleva, my first coach, came to our school. She was a cross-country skating coach, and she recruited girls to her section. I was very small and thin then, and she didn’t pay any attention to me. But she paid attention to my friend Natasha Yakovleva, Natasha was a head taller, and she was invited to the first lesson. But I wasn’t. I was offended, but I was a very brazen child (smiles) and said that since she was my friend, she would not go anywhere without me. That’s how I got into the cross-country skating team. By the way, Natasha didn’t like it and didn’t go to trainings afterwards.

– What was that very significant first training session like?
– I remember that we came to the open day at SDYUSHOR, now I can’t even believe that it happened: I’m talking about SDYUSHOR, and about one open day (smiles). We went shooting. We were taught there how to disassemble and assemble the gun – it was very exciting. And then we went in for training to Lyudmila Filippovna, who invited us. At first we ran very fast and overtook the girls who train there… then these girls with a proud look ran past us. This of course was very humiliating to my dignity.

And at that moment, when I had almost given up the section, Lyudmila Filippovna called my parents and said that she had one place in a sports camp in the summer, my parents agreed and I was taken to the sports camp. That’s where it all started from. At sports camp, I was totally blown away.

– How did your parents react to your choice?
– In the evening, when I came home, my parents met me at the door, because they didn’t know where the child had disappeared to. I was very much afraid that I would be punished for it, so I quickly began to tell them that I had chosen my own section and was in the SDUSHOR. Then my dad put me on a chair and my parents told me: “Choose. If you want to be psychologically stable, go into shooting. If you want an equine sport, go into skating” (laughs). So I chose skating and started practicing.

– In skating, did you train for results right away?
– At first I didn’t train seriously, I didn’t do much. In winter on skates I felt like a bear on the ice. Skaters have a very specific form of skates, they are different, long. So I gradually lost interest and almost stopped going to trainings. And at that moment, when I almost gave up the section, Lyudmila Filippovna called my parents and said that she had one place in a sports camp in the summer, my parents agreed and I was taken to the sports camp. That’s where it all started from. At the sports camp, I was totally blown away.

– What happened at camp?
– There was everything I love: physical training, running, constant training. Plus, I won something there, they put a medal around my neck, which finally won my heart. Since then, I started training more consciously. Maybe I didn’t reach some crazy heights, but I was a leader in my team and that’s a fact. Later I even fulfilled the candidate for master of sports.

– How long did cross-country skates stay in your life?
– I practiced them practically until the last grades in school. It’s actually a very long period of my life, in which there were many turning points. For example, when I was in very good shape, I suddenly got hepatitis and ended up in the hospital, and all the guys left to train at a sports camp. I was blowing the doctors’ minds and blowing up the hospital, I think they were so happy the day I was discharged. Because of my illness at the time I got better, it was just the transition age. It was a big stress for me because I had always trained a lot and I was tiny, they even called me a pocket child.

Then it was already clear that I was very employable. Everyone could eat blueberries in the forest, and Shubina was running cross country, because I needed a result, and I worked for it.

– How was the return to the team?
– It was very difficult, I went back there, slowly recovered, trained with myself and when I reached the same certain level, made all the rivals, I calmed down and somehow let this sport go, because then the institute began.

– Don’t you think that if you had chosen the sport a little later, not in the first grade, it would have been something else?
– I don’t think about it at all, I lived amazing moments in skating. It was a very serious experience. On the one hand working in a team, on the other hand the first stories with leadership, because it was very important for me to be a little bit ahead, to be special. Then it was already clear that I was very employable. Everyone could eat blueberries in the forest, and Shubina ran cross-country, because I needed a result and I worked for it.

– Did your sporting history continue at the institute?
– I entered the Lensovet Institute of Technology and started studying to be a chemical engineer. There were already a lot of different sports at the institute: I ran, swam, and did poleotlon. Everywhere I was given food vouchers (smiles), so I was a very popular person. You understand, the nineties, perestroika, it was very hungry, and I fed all my group at the institute with these coupons. That’s how I met my first husband. He just couldn’t resist: think about it, a girl may not cook for herself, but she has a lot of tickets (smiles).

People bought tickets to come and dance with me.

– What other stages were there in your life? What was Vika Shubina like in different periods of her life?
– I have a favorite phrase: “You are who you want to be today.” It doesn’t matter who you were. I don’t consider myself a skater now, it’s been a long time. I’m doing something else now, and in between I had a lot of different stages: I was quite seriously into dancing, I got a second higher education related to sports, I taught physical education at the technical school on Rustaveli Street in St. Petersburg. I still remember it, it was cool. Then I became a trainer in a fitness center, because it was my dream. I was very fond of aerobics, step, dance directions.

– I can’t get it into my head, tell me about your passion for dancing?
– Everyone asked me then: “Vika, what is your dance education?”. I answered that I had none, and continued dancing, because I liked it very much. Naturally, I spent a lot of time in training and preparing my master classes in dance. Then I became interested in belly-dance separately and for three years I was actively practicing, teaching, traveling to conventions. People bought tickets to come and dance with me. It was so great!

– And what happened after dancing?
– Then there was yoga, I was really into it. I went to India, studied some basics. It can’t even be called a separate hobby, over time it all became parallel stories in my life.

– And why yoga?
– Yoga seemed very interesting to me. I took up yoga for myself, for my health, for my body. Because I started to realize that something was going wrong somewhere: it was starting to hurt, it was malfunctioning, so I had to react to it somehow. That’s when I discovered yoga. Yoga really has a lot of interesting things: stretching, breathing practices and a lot of opportunities to hear yourself, to restore the inner balance.

– How has yoga influenced your worldview now?
– Now I realize that strength is in balance. I really like this word. Because the laws in all their manifestations – work, personal life, social sphere and the laws that work inside our body are very similar. It is obvious to me, as a chemist-technologist. Have you seen an atom? All its compounds are like a small universe. For me the human body is very multifaceted, it consists of thousands of micro universes that need balance.

Everything is so interconnected that sometimes trying to solve some questions about fitness but not working with your head will just waste your time.

– What does balance look like in sports?
– At some point I realized that if you develop only yoga, you will develop one thing. You will become flexible: physically and mentally. If you only do endurance sports, your cardiovascular system will of course feel very good, but, your body or muscles will start to suffer. I guess this focus on one thing always develops us from one side only. If we want to be functional, there has to be development on strength, endurance, and flexibility as well. This is obvious to me now.

– How has your attitude to sports, to health, to your training approach changed recently?
– One of the things I’ve noticed in myself lately is that I’ve added the mental side to the physical side. I started paying attention to the fact that you can’t consider any physical qualities without paying due attention to the nervous system and psyche. Everything is so interconnected that sometimes trying to address some physical fitness issues but not working with your head will just waste your time.

– What does a trainer’s job look like? What is it like?
– A coach’s job is a lot of responsibility. Let me tell you a story. At one time I was doing group classes in St. Petersburg, I worked very hard and there could be up to 20 trainings in a week. Naturally, I also ate a lot then, I needed energy. And once after one of the trainings I went to a cafe near my work. I asked the girl: “Can I please have five pies (they were small) and tea… two teas”. The girl looks at me and says, “Do you want some to take with you?” I reply, “Why with you? Here.” She looks at me so indignantly and says, “Actually, I’m practicing with you.” The situation is comical, I’m very funny, I turn to her and I say, “Well then, let’s have three with you.” In fact, you can’t remember everyone at group trainings, so you have to keep an eye on yourself everywhere, the coach is also a public person.

– What was the period when you decided to run your first IRONMAN?
– It was in 2009 or 2010. At that time I had so much energy and so much desire to get into running. Maybe it was a kind of running away from myself, but it saved me at that time. And the story was very simple: I was approached by a client at World Class Krestovsky club who asked me to help him prepare for a triathlon. I was very interested and agreed to help him, we started to prepare together. And we flew to the very first competition together.

– What was your first start?
– When we arrived at the first competition, I had a support group of my students, clients of the Krestovsky Island club, who came to cheer for me. They brought a red Mercedes, on which it was written: “Vika Shubina is the champion!”. I was scared out of my mind at the time, because I didn’t understand why they did it. Everyone was walking around and asking: “Who is Vika Shubina and why is she a champion?” (laughs). And I started, at each of the stages I asked myself the question: “What am I doing here?”. I was very hard and scared. In the water, someone ran their hand over my lip. Then on the run, I blew out both my legs. But I ran, I was in a hurry, because all my life I thought I was running slowly. And in the end I became the first among girls, and in the general classification among men I became the seventh. I stood on the podium and realized I wanted more. At that time it was a sprint in the woods and I couldn’t even imagine that one day I would be able to do a long IRONMAN.

– Could you have guessed then in first grade what you would be now?
– Probably not, I couldn’t. I’ve always wanted to be something special though, I guess that’s what most people want. I’ve always had it in me, but I didn’t think about it then. Then I had only one thought: to beat these girls who are sitting across from me (smiles). And I succeeded, because I worked hard and worked hard. And in general, a person can succeed in anything he can think of. If it doesn’t work out, it means you don’t want to do it well!