TriAptitude Coaching

I’ve waited a few days to write this race report so I hope I remember all of the details and share them with as much excitement and honesty as I can. This was a race long in the making as I first registered for Ironman Arizona in November 2019 with every expectation of racing it in 2020. I had just finished Ironman Louisville the month before and felt a little disappointed that the swim had been canceled on that one due to toxic green algae in the Ohio River. That was supposed to be my “one and done” full IM. I have always been more of a short course and 70.3 racer. Those are the races which play most to my strengths. I had finally relented and registered for a full Ironman distance race with my goal being to complete the distance and have a happy day out on course. After Louisville, I still had that nagging feeling that I wanted the complete adventure.  By March 2020, we had all been quarantined for COVID and as the months passed, it became pretty clear that our training and race season were undergoing a radical transformation in alignment with our daily lives. I deferred Ironman Arizona to 2021.  But, then, last season I ruptured the plantar fascia in my left foot at the calcaneal insertion and that took me out of racing for the entire year. Ironman was nice enough to let me defer once again to race in Arizona in 2022. So, my 2022 race season ended up being much more busy than I had ever anticipated with Ironman 70.3 Puerto Rico in March, Ironman World Championship St. George in May, Ironman 70.3 Washington in September, Ironman 70.3 World Championship in October and Ironman Arizona in November.

Many of you know that my Mom was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago and there have been a lot of emotional and physical stressors for me this past year outside of my sport.  I have not shared all of this in my blogs or on social media because I feel like they are personal and need to be kept out of the public eye. But, suffice it to say that I was not really ever sure that I would make it to the start line of Ironman Arizona.  I just was not sure I could stay focused on a big goal such as a full distance triathlon in the midst of everything else going on. It is a huge physical and emotional commitment. It can suck all the energy out of you and leave little room for anything else as you build up to that daunting distance of 140.6 miles. I decided to take some of the pressure off and simply go into Tempe with the courage and belief that I could get it done and give myself the grace of forgiveness if I fell short. No huge public declarations of wanting one of the coveted Kona slots. I was not sure I had put in the run training I needed to be able to accomplish that. I just knew that at the end of the day, I wanted to feel good about myself- good about what I have accomplished not only as an athlete on that course but as a coach supporting my athletes, as a daughter supporting a mother who is battling hardship, as a sister loving my siblings and showing my appreciation for everything they do, as a mother inspired by my three teenage sons who have battled their own challenges with courage, and as a wife who also respects and admires the dreams of her own husband. Triathlon can be an all consuming sport. Some say that it is selfish. It can be. I choose to not allow that to be the case in my life.

All that said, let’s get to the race. I flew into Phoenix on Thursday morning on an easy direct flight from Denver. I was lucky enough to get out of town before the snowstorm that day really hit so although we were slightly delayed with de-icing the plane leaving DIA, I arrived in Tempe right in time to check in and attend the athlete briefing before heading to my friend Tracy’s house in Paradise Valley.  Tracy is also one of my athletes and was also racing IMAZ so it was really nice to have a close friend on course with me throughout the day but also leading into the race and directly afterwards. Thursday afternoon and Friday were pretty relaxed for us- we did our shake out run together, cruised around Paradise Valley to check out our bikes and make sure they were ready to go and had a lovely lunch with our teammates from The Cupcake Cartel. I slept really well both nights and my recovery index and readiness profiles on my Oura and Garmin data both looked great. My body felt good and all of the fatigue and the many niggles which had cropped up during the past three weeks of training resolved. So, I headed into Saturday feeling much calmer than I had anticipated I would. I got up early and met Angela Naeth and the IRaceLikeAGirl team at IHOP for some blueberry pancakes then headed to Ironman Village to rack my bike, drop my bike and run gear bags, double check all my transition protocols and finally did my practice swim.  The 500m practice swim was a good reminder that tempe Town Lake is #coldAF at 58 degrees but also that after 50m, I always find my rhythm and warm up pretty quickly. My final note to myself for the swim was to wear my tinted goggles since the sun would be rising into my eyes for the majority of the swim east down the lake, wear my neoprene cap under my swim cap since this always keeps me warmer, and DO NOT wear booties this race since they were not comfortable for me in May at St George. I then had a short visit with best best friend Tina’s daughter Kat who is a freshman at ASU. Kat showed me around campus a bit before I headed back to find Tracy and make sure she was all settled and ready to go for race day as well. Then, the two of us headed back to her house to relax.

Race day always starts early. I knew that I wanted to get in the water early on the swim so we were up and eating breakfast by 4 am so that we could arrive in the transition in Tempe by 5am. Nothing super eventful happened in transition at first- I double checked my bike, pumped my tires, added nutrition bottles to my bike, and placed my bike computer on its mount. My special needs bags were dropped off quickly. I went to the bathroom and got everything taken care of as I normally do on race morning. I said a quick prayer for my safety and those of all the other athletes on course. I started to put my wetsuit on since it was getting close to the race start.  I was pulling my wetsuit up to my waist and inching the neoprene up my thigh to my hips when I heard a big “rip” and felt an unfortunate giving of the neoprene. Oh no. On closer inspection, there was now a very big rip in my wetsuit at the hip seam and there was not going to be any chance of repairing it. So, I just tried not to stress about it and pulled my wetsuit all the way on, stuffed some mylar under the rip and hoped that this would not cause me to be much colder than I already anticipated I would be in the water. There really was nothing more I could do except forget about it and just swim!  I walked up to the swim start which was about a 3 minute walk west of transition along the south trail of the lake. I seeded myself in the 1:02-1:10 swim group knowing that I would be closer to 1:10 but might find some fast feet to draft behind which could help me a lot. I was surrounded by almost all men so I was a little worried about getting punched around a bit in the water but I am not too nervous in the swim so just pushed those thoughts out of my head. I knew that I just needed to wait for my “beep” and run down that ramp, do a quick dive under the water to get the coldest part of the day over and find my swim stroke. Everything was smooth for me on the swim and I did find those nice fast swimmer’s feet for the first half of the course. I actually felt calm and smooth and strong for the entire swim until we came upon the final turn east before heading back west to the finish. That final 1000m was a challenge. The wind had picked up, wake and waves were pushing against me and I felt like I was going nowhere quickly. I was starting to fatigue and kept sighting my final two red turn buoys only to see them bouncing in the water and seemingly not getting any closer.  Water safety patrol was screaming- I could see kayaks and motor boats everywhere in my path. I knew I was on course but the power boats were racing around creating a huge wake. What is going on?  I put my head down and just kept swimming- I counted out 20 strokes just to stay focused and move forward. My left calf started to cramp in the cold water because I was kicking more trying to make forward progress. I finally worked that cramp out by flexing and pointing that foot several times, hit my turn buoy and pushed hard to the swim exit. I was really happy to touch the ground with my hands, pop up to my feet and stumble on numb toes along the chute. What the heck- I had no feeling in my feet. I also was trying desperately to release my wetsuit in the back but my hands did not want to work either. It was colder than I had thought it would be. I had the wetsuit stripper pull off my suit and I took off running. That was a surreal experience given I had absolutely no feeling in either one of my feet. I saw some of our friends on the sideline there yelling and cheering. I flashed a smile and kept running. Later, Nora would tell me that I had a huge smile on my face the entire time. I was surprised to hear this since my mouth felt frozen and I was not sure anything was moving according to plan 😉 I also found out after the race that 89 triathletes were rescued from the water on race day. Those speed boats at the final turn buoy were frantically trying to get to a woman in distress who almost died. Hypothermic athletes were overflowing the medical tent at the swim finish.  My swim time was 1:12:11. 5th Place AG Women 50-54.

Transition was a little bit slow which is to be expected given how cold I was and how much difficulty I was having using my hands.  I had a hard time getting on my socks and arm warmers- which were really tube socks- and gloves on. I took in some extra water in the tent. Helmet on and I decided to carry my bike shoes and run to my bike in my socks to prevent slipping on the wet concrete. I arrived at my bike, put my shoes on and grabbed my bike off the rack proceeding to the bike exit.  T1 time was 10:28.

Once on the bike, I felt strong from the start and the sun was already warming me up within the first few miles. I could tell that this had the potential of being a really great day for me on the bike. I was ready to go. The wind kicked in from the beginning but I was not worried. I had a power plan and my legs felt solid. I was passing people from the get go and was thrilled to be on the bike. I took my last right hand turn onto Bee Line Highway and was met with a strong headwind which definitely made me work a bit harder. The road was congested with cyclists due to the three loop course so it was hard to stay out of the draft zone but I tried my best. There was a large amount of drafting going on in that action of the bike course. I caught myself pushing too hard on the bike a few times and dialed it back knowing that I would pay for it on my run later in the day if I let the wind get the best of me. Making the U-Turn at the top of Bee Line and heading back was a welcome relief as the tailwind allowed me to pick up my pace from 16 mph to 28 mph on that first loop. Although I did not know for sure, I felt that I had come out in great position after the swim in my age group and knew I was holding well on the bike so I was hopeful I was in the top 10 in my age group. I took that right hand turn onto Rio Salado around mile 30 and headed back to the loop turn around in Tempe when my bike started making an unusual sound. Then, finally I heard the dreaded “hisssssssssss”. I looked down to see to my dismay that not only was my front tire flat but also my back tire. I pulled off far to the left to avoid other cyclists and several police officers showed up right away to keep me blocked from oncoming traffic.  I got off my bike and inspected my wheels to find two pieces of glass in both my tires puncturing through to my tubes in both cases.  I panicked for a minute but then remembered that I did indeed have two spare tubes on my bike but what ended up really delaying me was that I did not have my valve extender. I needed that for my back wheel and somewhere along the way, it had fallen out of my bike bag. As unlucky as it was, I was grateful that I had control of my bike to stop and that I had not crashed. It could have been different if I had been going faster on a different section of the race course. Changing the two tires and working through the issue with the valve took me about 45 minutes but I am really proud of myself for not giving up and just quitting. I knew that I would no longer be in contention for a top 10 spot in my age group with a delay such as this but I also knew that I did not want to quit without giving this race a real shot.  I wanted to run down that red carpet no matter what my day might bring.  Once my bike was repaired and ready to go, I jumped back on with my police friends yelling, “Go Courtney!!” (they were so awesome- thanks guys), and headed back for my next two loops of the bike course- 80 miles to go!  I found out after the race that I had been in 3rd place when I got my flats. By the time I fixed them and started riding again, I was down in 25th place. I rode harder than I probably should have for the final miles of the bike but I really wanted to make up some time.  When I came into transition, my bike computer said 5:43 ride time but 6:23 total time so I was definitely down at least 40 minutes. But, I sure was proud of that bike split of 5:43 and knew that if things had been different, I still would have been up top in my age group.  Bike Time (official)- 6:24:03 22nd AG 

I dismounted coming into T2, grabbed my run bag and headed to the change tent. I took off my helmet, cycling shoes, socks and rinsed my feet from the grass on the ground. I put on fresh socks, my running shoes, my visor and my sunglasses. I grabbed my race belt and strapped it on as I ran out of transition and I was on the go. I could have saved some time here but I was not moving as quickly as I should have been. T2 time was 5:34

Okay- so the run. I knew that I had overcooked the bike a bit after my flat tires and when I reflected back on my power data after the race, I did indeed carry far more power on the bike than I should have for a faster and more efficient run. I could feel the deep fatigue in my legs within the first mile of the run but they started to revive a bit around mile 3.  I stayed on pace for about the first 10K but noticed that my leg turnover felt slow and flat and my time was decreasing a little bit every mile. Nutrition, electrolytes, aminos- I tried to remain focused and take in my nutrition as planned but my stomach was just not feeling well. “Come on, Court. The run is always hard, you know this, wrap your mind around this discomfort and just GO. Shut up legs. Go. You’ve got this”.  Although it was not the run I hoped it to be, it was the best run I had in me at the time. Ironman is a long day- everything builds upon your previous experiences to define your moment. My moments on the run were impacted by that cold swim and the cramps in my calf, the flat tire on the bike and then my pushing harder on the bike afterwards, the mental games that my mind played on me after setbacks on course. There were dark moments on the IM run course as exhaustion set in. There are for everyone. I knew I had to stay my course and just keep moving forward. I had to get in the nutrition I could and stay on top of my sodium to keep me functioning and running as well as I could. The last few miles were a mental battle but I knew I was close and I also knew that Tracy was close behind me getting ready to finish. She was having a super strong run so I anticipated that she would come up on me within that last .25 mile stretch as we hit the finish. I was right. Thrilled, we had the chance to run it home together and hear Mike Reilly call our names one final time over the microphone. Run time was 4:58:43. 21st AG.

Total Race Time 12:50:57 17th place AG

I had hoped to come in under 12 hours and I believe I would have if I had not had those flats. So, I am really pleased with how my race day unfolded. This particular race had extra Kona slots for the women so I was lucky enough to snag one of those as well and I will be heading to the Big Island in October, 2023.