TriAptitude Coaching

I am not sure where to begin on this race report- so much happened in the week leading up to this race that final preparations were done in a mental blur and I even considered NOT racing this event. My hometown of Evergreen, Colorado suffered a devastating tragedy on September 10. There was a school shooting at Evergreen High School which resulted with two severely injured students and one who also died. Navigating an experience like this is hard even when it happens from afar but to experience this at my sons’ own former high school and in a location as peaceful as Evergreen- well it is devastating. Although racing was the last thing on my mind, I did feel like it would be mentally beneficial for me to get out of town and experience a new adventure in a spot in Washington State that I had never been before. My training had been hit or miss the past weeks leading into race day, so I was trying to convince myself that it was fine to use this as a training day for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Marbella, Spain which I am racing on November 8. That being said, I rarely hold back on a race course so I knew I would give it all I had in the tank regardless of expectations or limiters.  As my friend Amanda said as we were heading to the airport, “I don’t think you know how to race anything except balls to the walls.” That made me laugh. And laughter and fun is what I needed on this trip. I took this as a great sign for the weekend and went into the trip extremely grateful that I would have Amanda with me and we could support each other in shenanigans along the way.

We arrived on Friday afternoon flying from Denver directly to Pasco, Washington which is located only a few miles from Richland in the Washington Tri-Cities area. Travel was easy- everything went without much ado- we ended up with a car upgrade since they did not have the minivan we had requested and free gas for the weekend. Kudos to Alamo for even seeing our luggage and big bike bags and offering to grab the car and drive it curbside for us. Amanda and I drove straight to Ironman Village to check in and arrived right as athletes were being welcomed for registration. With All World Athlete status, I had priority check in and received number #63 for race day which gave me a great location in transition to rack my bike directly in front of Bike Out/Bike In. I was psyched about that as I hate to run long distances to the mount line in my cycling shoes.  Amanda also received a great spot not far from Bike Out and a straight shot to the exit.  We attended the 3pm Athlete Briefing, ran into several friends, socialized a bit and then headed to check into our Air BnB about 5 miles up the road. Our house was in the perfect location and had a ton of space for us- a huge garage to build our bikes and do maintenance on them as needed, an extra bedroom where my bags exploded everywhere with gear, a nice back yard where we ate dinner one night and could relax/read leading into the race. It was lovely.  It was also right on both the bike course and the run course so when we took a check out ride that night, we could easily navigate through the neighborhood and see where we would be racing on Sunday. Bike rebuilds went fine and all was working with the exception that I had a faulty valve core issue with my front wheel which needed to be sorted. Beyond that, we had no real concerns or issues that needed addressing prerace. It was pretty mellow and low key- we stayed at the house and out of the fray of IM Village as much as we could just to avoid any undue stress leading into the race. Peaceful, relaxing, fun with Amanda- awesome.

Saturday morning, we planned to attend the group swim on the race course on the Columbia River. The water temperature was 70 degrees and the weather was beautiful and warm- actually too warm as the high temp that day was 90 degrees. I swam without a wetsuit so that I could have mine dry for the following day and finished the swim distance in just over 20 minutes- the current was fast and with the exception of going a bit too wide and needing to make a quick turn against the current to come back to shore, it was an easy swim. This was my first down river swim in a race, so I knew it would be fast, and it definitely eased some of the prerace jitters I normally feel going into the water on race day. After the practice swim, Amanda and I did a quick check out run on the course for about 20 minutes, we racked our bikes in transition and we headed back to the house. We were relaxing in the air conditioning by 11am. And, we pretty much stayed that way all day.  We had lunch, did some reading, hung outside a bit, organized and packed our race gear for transition, took a nap, had an early dinner, watched a show and went to bed at 8pm. Very low key and relaxing.

Race morning came quickly with a 3am wake up call for me and Amanda giving me a new nickname of “clompy feet” as she thinks I am too loud in the morning. This made me laugh because I was actually dubbed “clompy feet” way back in 1993 by my best friend in high school so I guess some things never change. Once Amanada recovered from the fact that I woke her up and not her alarm clock, we hustled and had our coffee, breakfast, loaded our gear in the car and we were off the bus shuttle lot where we would be taken into transition at the Columbia Marina. All went smoothly and we arrived at our bikes in T1 by 4:30 am to set up, put our nutrition on our bikes, pump up our tires, sort last minute details and such. The swim start is 1.2 miles up river and we needed to walk to Amon Park for race start, so we left transition by 5:30am to get up there and settled before the swim started at 6:30am. I seeded myself towards the front in the 30-33 minute swim corral which is where I usually place myself.  This swim is fast, so I knew I would be much faster than that, but seeding needed to be based on what our pace is normally in a noncurrent swim in order to keep swimmers of the same ability together and the flow more evenly spread throughout the water.  As the sun was rising, albeit behind cloud cover, our race began. Earlier that morning while in transition the winds had been extreme with gusts up to 25 mph, but had died down by the time the swim started. However, as we would come to find out as we headed out on our bikes from T1, that was not to remain the case on the bike course.  My swim was uneventful- it was easy and I just cruised from buoy to buoy- I went a little wide at times due to the current and had to fight a bit against it to realign myself with the buoys as to set myself up for a successful exit into the marina- that cost me a little bit of time on the swim, I believe. But, all in all, I came out in good position as #6 F55-59 out of the water at 22:39, quickly pulled down my wetsuit and had the wetsuit peelers help me get it off, and hustled on the long run from the beach to my bike in transition. 

I dropped my wetsuit, cap and goggles at my bike, put my helmet on and clasped it, cycling shoes put quickly on my feet and I was running out with my bike to the mount line. Ready set go- I was on my way and expecting a pretty fast bike course with a few big hills but some really fun descents.  Transition time with the long run from beach to bike- 2:56 – which bumped me up two spots in the age group and had me in 4th place getting on the bike. Although I felt FAST coming out of Columbia Marina, within a few miles on George Washington Way, I realized that today was not going to be the bike day I had planned for – the winds were already starting to pick up and the skies were looking ominous. I looked at my bike computer and my power output and although I was right on target with wattage, I could already see that this was not transferring to the speed as expected because I battled the head winds. My thoughts at that moment? This might be a longer bike day than I anticipated- and maybe even a little scarier if these winds did not let up. But, we are all battling this together so stay within yourself and focus- safety, consistent power output, control. The bike course itself is beautiful and winds through the countryside and vineyards.  There are a few nice climbs- nothing dramatic- but definitely some efforts that required appropriate gearing and pacing if you did not want to burn matches and quad muscles. The descents were fun for me- I love descending- but they were not as fast and controlled as I would have liked due to crosswinds and varying road conditions. Luckily, I was fast enough on the bike that I was not caught in the downpour of rain that many athletes faced a little later in the morning- but we did have some drizzle in the final 10 miles of the course as we headed back into the marina and back to T2. My projected bike time was 2:47 with my race pace power dialed in- I nailed that to the minute- but my legs definitely felt more fatigued than they normally might have given the extra effort needed to maintain speed in the headwinds. I had to carry a higher power to meet that speed.  Without the wind factors and given my training at altitude, I am sure I could have come in closer to 2:43 if the weather and conditions had been calmer. I also lost my right Shimano aero shifter halfway through the bike when a piece of my plastic attachment shook loose. Not sure what happened there but changing gears from then on  had to happen from my base bar. Regardless, very happy with a #2 finish on the bike for F55-59. 

Rolling into the marina once again and I was following two male riders as we approached the dismount line.  A car turned out of the parking lot and mistakenly came directly into the bike lane we were riding in on and almost took all three of us out head on. There was a lot of screaming and cursing and swerving of the bikes and a woman looking mortified in her SUV as she slammed on the brakes when realizing what she had done. I have no idea where our traffic crew was at that moment- the rest of the day they did an amazing job- but that could have been a real disaster. Luckily, all three of us made it safely to transition. I racked my bike once again, switched into my run gear- with my race belt, hat and glasses in hand, I ran out of T2 as I was putting my gear on so I could save time.  I was pleasantly surprised as I started to run that my left glute and adductor which had been feeling tight on the bike had loosened and felt fine as I ran through the chute from T2 to the first turn of the road. I found my stride and race pace and felt surprisingly strong running off the bike.  Transition time here: 2:18 and I remained in 2nd place to former Olympian and World Champion Juliet Hochman. Not a bad position to be in 😉

Well the run was pretty uneventful and I love that. I found my race pace quickly and racing down at sea level (almost) while my home base is located at 7400 ft is always a bonus. It was cool and rainy for the run with drizzles starting from the beginning and rain getting steadier by the end of the 13.1 miles.  I felt good throughout the run and although I was surprised that the salt tablets that I had carefully put into my race belt had somehow disappeared, I did not let that derail me from my focus on the run. I knew I would need to be diligent about nutrition intake and make sure I supplemented sodium via electrolyte drinks at every aid station since I did not have my salt pills. The run course goes North along the Columbia River on the path and continues through the neighborhoods of Richland, through the campus of Washington State University and then hits a turn around where we double back along the river. On race day, the weather had cooled tremendously from the day before so it was perfect for running and this also helped me since I did not have my supplemental sodium supply on which I usually depend to prevent cramping in hotter conditions. Not much else to say except that I stayed in the moment and focused on my mental positivity from mile to mile- the distance was passing fairly quickly and my legs felt strong- when I checked my pace it seemed to be staying consistent as did my heart rate. I saw Amanda as I was heading into mile 11 for my run and I knew that if I could just stay strong, I had a good chance of breaking the 5 hour finish time. It was going to be close but it was within reach if I stayed on pace. This was one of the few times when I never let up- even for an instant on the run. Realistically, I knew that I would never catch up to Juliet- she is just an amazingly fast woman. But, I did know that I could potentially make up some time and hopefully have a great result for myself. All smiles, I hit that finish line as the rain started to really come down and I was thrilled to see my final time on the timing board as 4:58:49. Yes, it was a fast downriver swim, but regardless of that, this would still be a PR for me based on what a typical lake swim time usually is for me.  So, I was thrilled.

As the day wound down and the athletes finished, the adjusted age group results became finalized. Ironman now has a new qualification system for World Championships which adjusts results based on age group to align the participation and performance results equally across both the women and the men. This gives a more realistic understanding of the performance and comparison of  performance across age groups. Based on this analysis, I was the 2nd woman overall for the race, which earned me an automatic qualification to the 2026 70.3 World Championship in Nice, France next September.  My final results were: 2nd AG F55-59, 18th OA F, 164 OA, 2nd Female age adjusted.