2019 was my longest and most intense triathlon season up to date. The racing season itself spanned 8 months (from Oceanside 70.3 in early April to Indian Wells 70.3 in early December) but the training began in early January and was more intense than ever before (both in terms of volume and intensity). I was consistently clocking in 20-25h training weeks during winter and early spring (including about 7h of bike commuting a week, so I guess real training was 15-20 hours per week at that point). For comparison, in 2018, my winter and early spring training was closer to 15-20h/week (including bike commuting).
By the end of February, I felt pretty strong and fit and I couldn't wait to race. I briefly considered doing a half Ironman in Mexico in March but then decided that the travel would be too complicated/scary, especially without Justin, so I waited "all the way" until early April to toe the line of my first pro triathlon race. You can read more about that experience in my previous post. In summary, it was quite eye-opening. Even without the slightly disastrous swim, it showed me that both my bike and run were nothing special in the pro category (actually, below average).
I signed up for St George 70.3 only a few days after Oceanside, mostly because I wanted to have another go at a swim in the pro field (in a bit easier open water conditions). Before Oceanside I did not seriously consider this race because Justin would not be able to come along. However, I figured that I'd have to get used to going to a fair number of races by myself eventually, so I might as well do it at a race that was relatively low-key (for me) and wasn't too hard to travel to. To make the trip as easy as possible for myself, I send my bike over with Tribike Transport and flew to Las Vegas, from which it was only a 2-hour (very scenic!) drive to St George.
The race didn't go as well as I hoped for. I did have a decent swim (32:11 and I came out of the water with two other women), but it was only good for 26th place out of 30 starters. Unfortunately, I had some mechanical issues with my bike on race morning and despite trying to fix them before the start, my fix didn't really work and my front brake ended up rubbing on my wheel for the first 30 miles of the bike. (I did stop after the 30 miles and once again re-centered the brake - the main reason I stopped at that point was that I was being passed by way more people that I would have expected.) My bike ended up being the 4th slowest among the pro women (2:43:31) and I dropped back by one place by the end of it - definitely not ideal or representative of my abilities. The run went a bit better, especially considering I had been dealing with a bit of a knee/hamstring pain for a few weeks at that point. The run was also pretty hilly (over 1000ft of climbing), so my time of 1:36:42 was not too bad (for me). I even moved up two places, which has not been that common on the run this year. In the end I finished 25th and about 50min behind the female winner.
After St George, my knee/hamstring kept bothering me and as a result I didn't get to do as much run training as I would have liked to leading into Ironman Boulder. In fact, my longest run during the 6 weeks prior to the race was 90min (7 days out of the race). I did a fair amount of aqua-jogging, which must have helped to maintain some running fitness. Plus, my swim and bike training had gone pretty well. Even though I was apprehensive about the running portion of the race, I did my best to go in with open mind, do my best at the swim and bike and deal with the run as it comes. The race started with a pretty good swim (1:07:23, which was my second best Ironman swim at that point). I swam with two other women and came out of the water in 10th place (out of 11 but right behind 8th and 9th). The bike started OK and actually got better in the second half (I felt better, though my power stayed about the same throughout, which was pretty good since it usually drops as the race goes on). Even though the course ended up being 2 miles short, I was very happy to finish the bike in under 5 hours (4:56:38), which was an 11 minute Ironman bike PR for me. I knew I passed quite a few women but I was still shocked when I arrived in T2 in 4th place - much better than I expected. I suspected I would get passed back on the run and that the last 10-15 miles might be very hard. By mile 16, I dropped to 7th place but did my best to keep moving as fast as possible (about 9min/mile for the last 6 miles, LOL). It definitely helped that I didn't get any stomach issues (first time ever in an Ironman - I suspect it was mostly because of the cooler weather). For a while, it also looked like I might have been able to finish in under 10 hours (which would have been a big deal for me since my best Ironman finish up to that point was 10:04). In the end, the run course was almost half a mile too long, so I narrowly missed the 10-hour mark (with a 10:00:14). But because one of my competitors dropped out in the last 5 miles, I actually came in 6th and earned my first prize money, so that was very exciting :-)
Encouraged by my result in Boulder, I thought I had a decent chance of doing well at Ironman Canada 7 weeks later, especially if I put in more run training. The training went quite well, so I felt pretty confident going into Whistler, despite having to switch to using my old time trial bike only a week before the race. (The new bike that I had been riding since the beginning of the year had a major mechanical issue that couldn't be fixed before the race) Ironman Canada was also the first Ironman (out of 11 up till that point) that I traveled to alone. I once again shipped my bike with TriBike Transport, so the travel itself (2h flight plus 2h drive) was not too bad. Also, Whistler was pretty easy to get around but still, I definitely missed having Justin around. The race had a pretty competitive field (it was a female pro only race and it paid 10 deep). I had a very good swim (1:03:50 - 2.5min PR) and got out of the water in 12th (out of 16), together with 10th and 11th. I rode quite strong, at least based on my power, which was the highest up to date. My bike split was not too shabby either (8th fastest among the women) but it only moved me up 2 places. On top of everything, my hamstring/glute started hurting the last hour of the bike - probably because I was not used to riding my old bike any more. Fortunately, whatever caused the pain on the bike was not an issue during the run, though it still took a few weeks post-race for the pain to go away during cycling. I was not too happy with coming to T2 in 10th since I suspected that a few of the women behind me were going to outrun me. I ran very strong for the first 10 miles (maybe a bit too hard), after which I got passed. This definitely discouraged me and combined with some stomach issues and side stitches, things unraveled pretty quickly. By the end of the race, I dropped 3 more places and finished 14th (with the slowest run out of the pro women). Needless to say, I was quite disappointed.
I didn't have any more race plans immediately after Canada. I went back and forth contemplating Ironman Wisconsin and Ironman Chattanooga but in the end I didn't feel mentally ready to do another Ironman (Wisconsin) only 6 weeks after Canada and because of some more mechanical issues with my bike, I scrapped Chattanooga too. I reluctantly signed up for Santa Cruz 70.3. "Reluctantly" because I was a bit worried about the ocean swim and also because based on my experience at Oceanside and St George, I felt like I was way too slow to be any good at a 70.3 distance. Fortunately, Santa Cruz is only 90min drive from San Francisco, so I was able to do two practice swims on the race course (as well as pre-run the run course) during the month preceding the race. The race went pretty well. Even though I once again didn't make the 29-minute swim pack (probably mainly because I didn't handle some minor surf at the start in the best possible way), I had a pretty strong swim by myself (31:04, which was also a small PR, I think). Strangely, both my power meter and my heart rate monitor decided not to connect to my watch during the race, so I had to do the bike and run by feel only. The bike was OK (very windy), though nothing special. I only moved up 2 places (from 13th to 11th out of 14 starters). The run went very well (1:32:29, which was 5th fastest in the pro field) and I surprised myself by finishing 7th, which was only one place (and a bit over 2 minutes) away from prize money. Also, my overall time of 4:42:02 was my second fastest 70.3 time up till then.
I wanted to do at least one more triathlon race between Santa Cruz (on 9/8) and Ironman Arizona (11/24), ideally a half Ironman. I briefly considered Waco 70.3 in Texas but then decided against it since it would have required a bit too much time without my bike if I used TriBike Transport and I would have to travel by myself once again. Instead, Justin and I decided to do a local almost-70.3 distance race near Las Vegas called Las Vegas Long Course Triathlon (not exactly "local" for us but drivable). Since we were planning to drive to Ironman Arizona in the fall (and possibly also to Indian Wells 70.3), we thought driving to Vegas would be a good rehearsal for that too :-D We split the 10h drive across 2 days in each direction, which worked out pretty well. The race was a refreshing change from my other races this year. It was a very small field (11 women and 23 men) but since we did 2 loops on both the bike and run and shared the course with sprint and olympic distance races going on at about the same time, the course was reasonably busy, though definitely NOT over-crowded. Sadly, Justin and I started in different waves, so I was not able to swim on Justin's feet, which was our original plan. I wasn't able to find a good set of feet in my wave, so I swam by myself in a pretty average time of 33:12. Surprisingly, this was enough to be second female out of the water (though the first female was almost 6 minutes ahead) The bike was hilly (over 3000ft across 48.5mi) and windy (at several points, I wished I had a shallower front wheel since the cross-winds were making me pretty uncomfortable). My power ended up being pretty low (about 20-30W lower than what I've been doing at 70.3s lately) but I still somehow ended up with fastest female bike split and second fastest bike overall (behind Justin), so I guess it wasn't /that/ bad. Still, it took me almost the entire bike leg to make up for my deficit after the swim. The run was two out and backs (uphill out, downhill back) with about 5 miles total on a loose gravel road, so a pretty challenging course as well. When I ran into Justin on the first loop, it looked like he was at least 2 miles ahead of me but was already struggling a little. He greeted me with "you are going to catch me". I thought "no way". But since he already gave me the idea and I was putting more and more time into the rest of the female field at every turnaround, catching Justin ended up being my next goal ;-) In the end I crossed the finish line 30 seconds behind Justin but since his wave started 4 minutes before my wave, I beat him by 3.5 minutes and won the race. (Justin still finished first man overall, so it was a good day for both of us :-))
After Las Vegas, I did 3 more weeks of pretty intense training before I started feeling a bit worn down. I'm still not sure if it was more mental or at least partially physical but in the end I had to take a few days very easy to recompose myself to hopefully finish the season. Besides Ironman Arizona, I also planned to do Mt Tam Trail Half Marathon and possibly the Berkeley Half Marathon (as a training run). (I signed up for both Berkeley and Mt Tam last year but they got canceled in 2018 because of bad air quality caused by wild fires, so I deferred my entries to this year instead.) I'm happy to report that I did both races and ended up winning the Mt Tam Trail Half Marathon (for women) by a significant margin. It was the first trail race I did in California and first mountainous trail race ever (around 3000ft of climbing). It was quite tough in the second half (I did walk a bit on some of the uphills) but overall quite fun, so I might do more trail races next year!
The race week of Ironman Arizona was rougher than I thought it would be. I didn't feel too great during many of the race week workouts and I didn't feel like racing. I usually do get moderately bad pre-race jitters but this felt significantly worse than normal. The 12-hour drive to the race did not help. Fortunately, once we got to Tempe and I saw and talked to some familiar faces, my mood improved and I was more or less ready to give it my best and see what comes out of it. I didn't have the best swim start, mostly because I was tinkering with my watch right up to the start. I obviously missed the ~60min swim pack but a few minutes into the race I noticed that there were 2 women about 25m ahead of me. As far as I could tell, I was all by myself, which was not ideal. I started swimming as hard as I could to hopefully catch them. It felt like it took a good 10-15min to bridge the gap but it was definitely worth it since it meant I got at least some draft for most of the rest of the swim. Despite starting almost half an hour before sunrise, we only got a 5min headstart to the age group field (usually we get 8-10min), so I got passed much more (and much earlier) than usual, which made it hard to gauge how well I was swimming. In the end a 1:06:07 swim was not too bad (my second fastest Ironman swim), especially since most people seemed to have swum slightly slower than usual. I was out of the water in 12th (out of 18) and out of T1 in 11th. The bike went ok, even though the second loop was a bit too crowded for my taste. The third loop was pretty reasonable in terms of crowds, but my brain felt quite fried from dealing with the crowds on 2nd loop, so I was looking forward to getting off the bike. 5:02:11 was not too bad of a bike time (8th fastest pro female) but it was not enough to catch even a single other pro woman, which was a bit disappointing. I was still in 11th coming out of T2 but moved to 9th by mile 4 because two of my competitors dropped out. I ran very strong for the first 6 miles (possibly a bit too fast for me - around 7:30/mile) and subsequently got a pretty bad side stitch, which took about a minute of walking to improve. After that, I ran much more cautiously (around 8:00-8:30/mile) since I was worried the side stitch might come back otherwise (and who am I kidding - eventually my legs started feeling quite heavy anyway). Around mile 12 I got passed by very speedy Ashley Paulson, who ended up running the fastest marathon of the day. And at mile 14 I got passed yet again and moved back into the dreaded 11th place (first outside of prize money). Even though I felt like I had nothing to fight back the pass, I did not become completely discouraged and just kept chugging along at a reasonably challenging pace. I guess it helped knowing that as long as my average pace for the final 12 miles didn't creep above 9min/mile, I should at least have been able to finish under 10 hours, which seemed like a good achievement by itself. I kept about the same pace for the rest of the race (8:30/mile with no mile slower than 9min, which was a first for me in an Ironman). Even though the gap to 10th place stretched up to 2.5min at one point, it was supposedly back to 1.5min with 3 miles to go (big thanks to my homestay family for cheering me on and providing me with a few splits!). Knowing that I was so close to 10th place gave me an extra boost for the last few miles. It was the first time ever that I finished an Ironman strong, even though my "strong" was not particularly fast at that point. In the end, I still finished 11th (80 seconds behind 10th) but I finally got the sub-10h finish (9:55:21) and also a very decent run (3:37:34, which was my 3rd fastest Ironman marathon and first sub-3:40 one in 4 years).
The 2 weeks between Ironman Arizona and Indian Wells 70.3 went by pretty fast, especially with the long Thanksgiving weekend between the two race weekends. We also had fellow pro triathlete friend Melanie Baumann visiting us in SF between the two races, which was fun and I enjoyed having a training buddy for most of my workouts :-) Together with Justin, we all did a local 5K running race the week after Arizona. Melanie kicked my butt and won the race for the women (despite my time being 45 seconds faster than when I won the same race last year). Even though this was just a small, not very important race, I was pretty happy with how (relatively) fast I was able to run (19:31) - it's been a few years since I ran a 5K under 20 minutes.
I was much more relaxed and in a better mood during the week leading into Indian Wells (than I was for Ironman Arizona) - probably also because Indian Wells was more of a bonus race than the main focus of my fall training. The race started with a bit of a mediocre swim (33:28). Even though I did my best to stay focused at the start (for one, by starting my watch almost a minute before the gun went off), I once again didn't have the speed (and maybe also the best position on the start line) to get into the 29-30min swim pack. Instead, I swam pretty much by myself (I might have pulled another woman along, which I only noticed as we exited the water). After a rather clumsy transition, I was ready to make up at least a few places on the bike. The bike was very fast - dead flat and mostly straight other than a few 90-degree turns (which I took very carefully since the pavement was not the smoothest or cleanest - all but the last 10-15 miles of the bike plus a few miles on a car racing track were on pretty rural farm roads). It took me a good 25 miles to start passing people but in the end I made up six places on the bike (mostly on the few miles on the car racing track between mile 35 and 40, which was more of a coincidence - I don't think I rode particularly well on the track itself). My 2:23:13 bike split was a 6min 70.3 bike PR for me and also the 5th fastest pro female bike split of the day (only about one minute behind the second fastest bike split - Paula Findlay crushed everyone else on the bike by 6+ minutes). I didn't really know my position coming into T2 but I knew there were quite a few women not too far behind me who could run a bit faster than me. I started the run at a pretty ambitious pace since I had nothing to lose, even if I faded badly later. I was surprised I ended up holding a more or less consistent pace throughout and was even able to break 1:30 (with a 1:29:17 - a 3min PR) on a course that had quite a few rollers and twists and turns since about half of it was on a golf course. And I did hold off all but one of the runners chasing me :-) I was very happy with finishing in 4:32:09 (8min 70.3 PR!) and in 7th place (out of 18). Sadly, I was once again one spot away from the prize money (for the third time this season) but honestly, I wasn't that sad about it this time.
Overall, I'm happy with how my first pro triathlon season went, especially given some of the challenges I had with my running injury early on, various mechanical issues with my bike and with feeling a bit tired towards the end of the season. I'm very glad I was able to meet and make friends with a few other pro triathletes. I'm also very grateful I was able to switch to working part-time (mid May) to make more time for training, recovery and travel. I still have ways to go with getting more comfortable with traveling to races that are not exactly local and also not letting pre-race jitters get into my head as much. And of course I have lots of work to do to become faster across all three disciplines.
Big thanks to everyone who supported me in 2019, especially my husband Justin, my coach Mary Beth, my bike fitter and sponsor Pedro, all my homestay hosts (Melissa, Jacque, Josh, Tom and Nancy) and TriBike Transport.
