In this episode of On Record PR, Jennifer Simpson Carr goes on record with Marie-Cristine Kaptan, Senior Associate at Bär & Karrer AG, to discuss her Ironman journey and maintaining balance in her personal and professional life. Marie specializes in corporate governance and legal ESG matters. She is also an Ironman athlete, most recently competing in and finishing the Ironman World Group Championship Race in 2023.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: Welcome to the show, Marie. You’re joining us today from Zurich. I’m thrilled to be speaking with you, and I have so many questions about the balance between your legal practice and your athletic career.
You are a lawyer at one of the leading Swiss law firms, a Stanford MBA, and an Ironman athlete. Can you tell our listeners about your journey to becoming a lawyer and an Ironman athlete?
Interestingly, both started with a fascination. I’ll start with the journey to becoming a lawyer because that was many years before I started thinking about doing an Ironman. Growing up, I always had this image of lawyers, especially female lawyers, to be this strong fierce person standing up for other people, being respected in society, and helping society become a more just place. I had this vision that if you become a lawyer, you make something out of yourself. Maybe that’s the image that society has of lawyers, or it’s from what I experienced as a kid, given how my parents spoke about lawyers. I don’t know. But I always knew that I wanted to become a lawyer. That fascination has been there for a very long time.
After finishing high school, it was no question for me that I wanted to go to law school, which I did, even though most of my peers thought, “This is so dry, and I don’t know how you can do that.” For me, it was clear that I wanted to become a lawyer and, fortunately, I was pretty good during my studies. I realized that this is something that I can hopefully become good at.
In Switzerland, you have this complicated procedure where you finish law school, but then you go through an intense period of completing a bar exam. After having done that, my first job was in litigation. That means you go to court, you present your clients’ cases, and you argue all the time about stuff. I realized that this was not so much for me because I don’t like fighting all the time, and I was much more interested in the business aspect of things.
I thought about maybe pursuing a second degree in business so that I could better advise companies on things that they do that are more productive because they want to develop. They have a strategy, they want to do some sort of transaction. That’s when I decided to quit the litigation practice, and I applied for an MBA at Stanford, which I would never have thought that I could get into. But it happened, and that was a 10-year dream come true, so I was extremely happy and grateful. That’s where my triathlon journey started.
I had witnessed my first Ironman in Zurich a couple of years before I went to Stanford, and that was when this spark was ignited because I saw these athletes and I could not believe what I saw. I was in complete disbelief at what these people were doing, and I didn’t even go as far as thinking about doing something like that myself. I was just in awe.
The next year, I went to volunteer at the Ironman in Zurich, and I got myself into this a little bit more. I stood there at the course and handed bottles to the bikers who came through. I still didn’t think about doing something like that myself. I was just fascinated with it. Then, at Stanford, I had friends who had completed triathlons or half Ironman before. In terms of climate, Stanford is the perfect place to start a sport like that because of the weather. You can go biking all year round. You have a pool outside. Conditions are very favorable. I thought, “Why not just try and dip my foot into this a little bit and see what happens?” Then, I signed up. Maybe it was a little bit of peer pressure, but we signed up together for Half Ironman in California. That happened right when COVID hit, so the race didn’t happen. I had purchased my first road bike just a month before, so I kept biking and training.
A year later, the first race that happened after COVID was a Half Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. By that point, I had heard about the Kona race and had educated myself a little bit. I knew that it was a very famous place. I thought, “This is now at the end of my MBA experience. This is my chance to try a Half Ironman once in my life, and if that can be in Kona, that’s awesome.” So, I signed up. I went there and I was terrified. Somehow, I got through it and I was so happy not to have drowned and to get out of that swim that I was just smiling for the entire rest of the day.
It was still quite a long day for me, because I was very slow. I was not well-prepared, to be fair. I finished it, and that was already a huge achievement and something that a few months ago I wouldn’t have thought was possible.
After the MBA, I came back to Switzerland. I continued training, even though I didn’t have any particular goals. It’s helped that my husband is in the sport as well. He started at a very similar time as me. We signed up together for a training camp. My first training camp ever. I thought it was a good idea to go to Majorca, one of the Spanish islands that is pretty close to Switzerland, and to train with other people for a week. And there I was talked into signing up for a full Ironman.
I still thought it was not possible to do something like that. I don’t know what happened during that camp, but at the end, I was signed up for that Ironman two months later. I didn’t own a triathlon bike, so I purchased the only bike that was available at that time because it was still post-COVID. We had these supply chain issues and there was just one bike available online in my size. I got it two months exactly before that Ironman. Then I went there. It was in Hamburg. I was still completely not prepared for what was going to happen, but I have this thing that when I sign up for something, I just finish it. So, I completed that Ironman. That’s when I decided, now I know I can do it and the next thing is I want to know if I can get good at it.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: That is a beautiful journey. Thank you for sharing it with our listeners. I heard you say you felt nervous and maybe not as prepared as you could have been.
What was going through your mind during the race to help you keep moving forward and accomplish this great achievement?
It was a little bit different in Kona versus Hamburg because the half-distance Ironman is much more manageable than a full Ironman. For me, it took a little bit more than six hours, and at the end, I had to run a half marathon. I had run a half marathon before so I knew essentially this was something that I could do because I had done it before. I was just so happy to have gotten through the swim. I couldn’t do freestyle. I did the entire thing in breaststroke, which is very unusual for an Ironman competition. It was in the ocean. It was my first ever ocean swim, but I was just so happy to have done that. I knew that nothing could happen anymore because during the first part, I was not sure if I would get out of that water and afterward, I knew, “Okay, I’m not going to die. It’s going to be fine. I know I can complete it.”
In Hamburg, that was a marathon at the end. When you are at the beginning of a marathon after exercising for about seven hours, it feels like that’s going to be a really long time. Also, I did not fuel, so I did not eat anything during that entire Ironman because I was uneducated. I thought I cannot eat while exercising, so by the time the marathon started I was completely empty. It was no surprise that after about two miles or four or five kilometers I thought, “I cannot continue.”
In Hamburg, I was not alone competing. My husband competed there as well. It was his first Ironman too. One of the main people who had talked me into doing that Ironman who I had met at that training camp was competing as well. Her name’s Maria Fernanda. She’s from Ecuador originally. I saw her at the beginning of that run course in Hamburg, and I was a little bit faster than she was at that point. I passed her on the way, and I told her, “Maria, I can’t do it. I have to stop.” I seriously believed it at that point. She said, “No, you can do it. Just continue.”
Seeing her there continuing and feeling the same kind of pain was what got me through it because I kept thinking about those words for the rest of the marathon course. It was a few hours. It’s not just 10 more minutes and you’re done. It was about three and a half more hours. During that first Ironman, it was her who got me through.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: It’s wonderful to have people in your life who support and motivate you. I’m so happy to hear that you found someone that you have such a connection with in this community.
As an Ironman athlete competing worldwide, how do you balance the demands of a legal career with the rigorous training required? Are there any lessons from your athletic pursuits that you apply to your work as a lawyer or vice versa?
In terms of balancing the demands of training with my work, there are a few factors that help me do that, and I think the most important one is organization. I have to organize my week and usually I do that during the weekend when I get my training plan. I have a coach who writes my training plans, and I see in advance what my training sessions are going to be during the week.
Then I make sure that this aligns with my work schedule, which is sometimes a bit chaotic. I try to make my schedule work for the week. Then I have to be flexible during the week. It’s possible that my work schedule gets in the way of my planned training, and then I have to be flexible enough to reschedule things and do the training session at another time.
However, what is also important is that I have this no-compromises approach. There’s not even a question if I complete my training session. It’s going to be completed no matter what. Once you start internally negotiating, “Do I really want to do it? Do I want to get up at 5:00 AM and go to the pool?” you already lose, so when the alarm clock goes, it’s not a question. I get up. I do my early morning training.
I found early mornings are the best time to get in my most important training session of the day, because that’s usually a protected time where I know that neither clients nor my bosses or peers need me or want anything from me immediately. Then I often do a second training session over lunch because I know that many people do respect lunchtime or they’re busy having their own lunch plans.
Another important point that I came to realize over these few years is that exercising helps me perform better. Sometimes when I have very long work days and I get to a point where I feel my concentration decreasing and I notice that it takes me longer to complete something, I know that probably if I now take a break and do my exercise, I’m going to be super sharp again and I can get back to being efficient. For me, exercise and work balance each other out quite well, because one makes me better at the other and vice versa.
I think one of the most important learnings that I got from this Ironman journey is the importance of recovery. Recovery is hugely underestimated in our business and work life in general. People don’t sleep enough. They don’t eat well. They don’t put any importance on these things. I had to learn the hard way through my exercise that without recovery and proper fueling, your body’s just not going to perform.
I see massive differences in my early morning training session depending on how many hours I slept or what I ate the night before. This even led me to some injuries in the past and now I’m well again. Recovery was not easy and I think that this also applies to work life. I don’t think that anyone can argue that recovery and fueling are important for your body, but not for your mind. I’ve learned that my work is much better if I’m recovered. I therefore try avoiding these all-nighters and things like that that are still part of business life, big law firm life, consulting, and other industries and sectors. I think they’re really not useful at all. If ever possible, I try to incorporate recovery into my work life and exercising life.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: That’s a fantastic lesson that spans personal and professional and one that is really important. I completely agree with you that many people don’t prioritize that recovery, rest, and fueling for your mind and body.
Marie-Cristine Kaptan
Learn more about Bär & Karrer AG
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-cristine-kaptan-6961a480/
Instagram: @marie_ck_burger
