When Gwen Jorgensen launched her triathlon career in 2010, the former University of Wisconsin swimmer and runner knew a key to her success would be her commitment to cycling. As it turns out, one cyclist’s commitment to her proved just as crucial. Jorgensen, now 30, met Patrick Lemieux, now 29, in 2011 on a group ride in Milwaukee. She was still a full-time accountant; he was a pro cyclist visiting from St. Paul, Minnesota. The ride began with Jorgensen picking Lemieux’s brain and ended with the two making dinner plans. Before long, they were juggling a relationship with their frenetic racing schedules, a tall task that ended the day Lemieux announced he was retiring from cycling to become Jorgensen’s one-man support crew. “Gwen was a better athlete than I ever was,” Lemieux says. “I knew there was more she could accomplish.” Leaving logistics to Lemieux, whom she married in 2014, Jorgensen focused on her athletic career. She ramped up her training to include annual stints in Australia and Spain and went from rising star to world champion. Her crowning achievement came in Rio, where she won Olympic gold, four years after a flat tire had deflated her medal hopes in London. After the 1.5K swim and 38.5K ride, she leaned on her strength as a runner to win the 10K road finale. “We put four years of work into one day,” says Jorgensen, who is made her marathon debut at the New York City Marathon earlier this month, finishing 14th in 2:41:01. Here’s how the couple balances the workload.
The Decision
Patrick: “I was really pragmatic about where I was with my career and felt like I’d maxed it out. I knew my understanding of what an athlete needed to succeed would be really beneficial to Gwen. The decision to be done bike racing and look after Gwen was really a no-brainer.”
Gwen: “He had flown to one of my races in Madrid and he told me. It came as a complete shock. At first I tried to convince him to change his mind, afraid he might regret it. But he had thought about it for a really long time.”
Workout Routine
Gwen: “In-season I’m training every single day, and Tuesday through Saturday it’s three sessions a day: swim, bike, run. A normal week might be 20,000 meters swimming, 200 to 300K on the bike, and 25 to 50 miles running.”
Patrick: “I try to ride six days a week, an hour or two a day. If I can do three hours on Saturday, that’s great. I tried running once. I felt like I was getting worse at riding and marginally better at running. It didn’t pan out.”
Another Surprise
Patrick: “A month later I bought the ring, a unique one without a big diamond protruding from it but with diamonds embedded in the band, since she’s always swimming and running and changing clothes. In December 2013, I proposed on a bike ride, since that’s how we met.”
Gwen: “I was surprised! A week earlier Pat had planned a ride for us and I thought he might propose, and he didn’t. I came home bawling. On this ride it was the first big snowfall in Minnesota, and he asked to stop and take a picture and got down on one knee…I actually took a step back and slipped and fell.”
Morning Ritual
Patrick: “Gwen always wakes up before me. If we need to be up at 6 a.m., she’s up at 5:50. She’ll go for her morning run while I make her breakfast.”
Gwen: “Breakfast is always oatmeal. On a nonrace day I’ll add a poached egg, nuts, and fruit. We travel with a rice cooker and Pat will make the oatmeal in it.”
Patrick: “Laundry. Maintaining the bikes. Getting her water. Doing the dishes. Managing our budget. I don’t think there’s anything super sexy about my job, but I’m always on call and always within earshot of Gwen.”
Gwen: “What falls into my lap? Nothing. I train.”
Grocery Tips
Patrick: “Six times a week. I’m very organized and I think months in advance of a race for mechanical things she’ll need for her bike, or planning the logistics of our trip. But I hate planning ahead for meals.”
Gwen: “This past year, in-season, I went once. I do enjoy baking in the off-season.”
Race Day
Patrick: “I’ll make her breakfast, wash and check her bikes, and depending on when the race is, maybe make a second breakfast or lunch, then check the bikes again and send her off. At the race I make it easy for her to know where I’ll be. I might say, ‘I’ll be outside the athlete’s lounge, over by this tree, and I will not move until your race starts.’”
Gwen: “On race day it’s about me needing him around me at all times. He’s there to play music if I want music, or sit and read next to me.”
The Advantage
Gwen Jorgensen says her coach, Jamie Turner (at right in center photo), and husband, Patrick Lemieux, were key to her gold-medal performance in Rio (1:56:16). It’s the first time an American has won gold in the Olympic Triathlon.
Patrick: “When I’m out bagging bikes [packing them] for an hour and a half, I know that Gwen is resting while her competitors are doing the work I’m doing.”
Gwen: “Pat always says, ‘Getting groceries or cooking one day won’t tire you out, but these things add up over time.’ I come home from a swim and lunch is on the table. I’m taking a nap before my competitors have sat down to eat.”
Golden Moment
Gwen: “I was so focused on running to the finish that I had no idea I had a huge gap. I looked back with five meters to go and saw no one there and started smiling uncontrollably. I crossed the finish and cried. It was a mixture of disbelief and joy.”
Patrick: “It was so cool to see her cross the finish line. I was really overwhelmed and totally relieved. No matter what the result had been, there would have been no regret in the work we did—however, the feeling of winning was much better than the feeling of losing would have been.”
Better Together
Patrick “I really look up to Gwen’s work ethic and commitment. In the work I do now and in the work I’ll do in the future, I can ask myself, ‘Do I have the same drive Gwen has?’ If I do, I’ll be successful.”
Gwen “I’ve become dependent on him. I say his name so many times in a single day. The reason I could train abroad and made the changes I needed to in order to become successful is that Pat said he would be there for me every day.”
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