When I did my first pro race in April 2018 (Oceanside 70.3!), I went into it with my eyes wide open. I remember being in a room with Jan Frodeno thinking I had made it to the top level of 70.3 triathlon. As I picked up my drool, I noticed Jesse Thomas on the other side of the room.
“Two gods walking the earth in front of us mere mortals?!” I thought.
I thought I see these two at every race, like they’d appear with the consistency of Tribike Transport and way too much Ironman swag. I placed 14th out of 22 Pros in that race. I was stoked to finish mid-pack. I didn’t have any post-race interviews, podcasts, or any after-party invites. I remembered thinking those days would come if I started posting up decent results.
Well, I’ve had 5 top 10 pro finishes at Ironman events, and let me tell you, I still feel like my invite to legitimacy got lost in the mail. Three weeks ago, at Boulder 70.3, the field was so deep that 8 of the top 14 women who finished ahead of me had already earned their 70.3 Worlds slot. But enough about the depth of the field, let’s jump to race day.
I was fortunate to have shown up in Boulder 4 weeks prior to the race. Colin and I drove our new van there and stayed with friends. I trained as much as I could (about six sessions per week) with my coach, Julie Dibens, and my teammates. I worked full time at Citi while sustaining a high training load, and I was starting to feel like a part of the pro triathlete community.
Back to race day. They did call-ups for several women with numerous accolades. I ran for a few minutes and headed to the swim start. The water was significantly warmer than the air, and a lot of pros hesitated to get in for the swim warmup. The race was being streamed on Facebook Live, and several Pros with well-known YouTube channels and a personal media crew were racing. Cameras were everywhere, yet not a single one was ever in my direction. I seemed to have an anti-magnetic field with these cameras. (Trust me, I pore over the footage; I’m not even in the background). I felt invisible, like the last kid picked in gym class. Half of me thought “hey, no pressure, I’m the dark horse!” But even dark horses can be bet on.
After the swim warmup, both women and men had to exit the water for 5 and 10 minutes, respectively. The wind was picking up, and lots of women started shivering. I ran back to transition to retrieve my hoodie. When I returned, all of the women had Mylar blankets. But these blankets were barely larger than a sheet of legal paper, so some women had two of them, stuffed on either side of their bodies. They looking like the very beginnings of a paper maché project. I did some strides on the side, out of camera view, thankful to have my warm hoodie.
While I have no desire to compete in the amateur field, it can be pretty disheartening to feel like a nobody in a sea of established professional athletes. Even when setting up my bike in the morning, I had to ask an age group athlete walking by to borrow his pump. “Wow, I didn’t realize this was pro,” he said, until he saw the low numbers.
Why is our sport so democratic that the pros are barely differentiated from the age groupers? Why don’t we have pumps or a place to store our bags the day before a race? Is it a bad thing that we race on the same course and at nearly the same time as age group? Are we even aspirational? I didn’t even tell my parents that the race would be on Facebook Watch. My dad still watched anyway and, as I expected, reported back, “they only showed the top three.” Is this how we are getting more people interested in the sport? Would they be more or less impressed if they knew that one of us maintained a full time job at a corporate bank?
I don’t say this to pity myself or give excuses, but I wonder if someone in my position is more relatable to an amateur athlete. If earning a full time salary while training 16 hours a week is more likely to get someone into the sport. Or, if it would be more aspirational if I were getting top 5 finishes but holding a part time job. Or, if I’d draw more attention getting podium finishes and hawking merchandise on my YouTube channel. All of these examples require work and a passion for the sport, and what will sustain the sport is getting more people into the sport than riding a personal wave of fame and glory.
OK, so let’s get to the racing, because I’m an hour into writing and race-wise, I’m still in a hoodie. I had an OK swim in the Boudler reservoir (33:12). It was non wetsuit for Pros, and I had the draft of exactly one woman. I tried fruitlessly to latch onto the chase pack of women swimming away from me.
I started the bike course with one goal in mind: stay on 190 Watts or GTFO. There were some tweaks to the course, including the first mile around a parking lot and over speed bumps 😠. If you live in a residential neighborhood with cul-de-sacs and speed bumps, this was the course for you!
Once out of the reservoir obstacle course, I was focused on keeping the power up. In addition to riding some of the course the past few weeks, I had done Boulder 70.3 in 2018 and 2019. I knew this course better than the first 100 digits of Pi, which, if you know me, is very well.
I rode the course 8 minutes faster than I ever rode it before (2:21:44 for 23.8mph). I started the bike in 20th and finished in 16th. I heard my mental performance coach, Shannon Mulcahy, in my head over and over, saying that being uncomfortable is okay. Racing is uncomfortable! I was really happy to discuss with Shannon the race plan my coach Julie and I put together. I’ve been working with Shannon for a year now, and this was the first time I had such an in-depth race plan with my coach that Shannon could complement perfectly with a mental performance plan. I’m 2/2 in in-season PRs while working with Shannon, and I cannot say enough wonderful things about her guidance!
I glanced at my power meter every few minutes, and if it didn’t say 19X, I always found the oomph to get it higher. I channeled the pain and focus of my 30 minute time trial up Lefthand with the JD Crew. I thought of dialing the race efforts with Romi just a few days prior. But all the oomphs compounded once I was off the bike…
Encouraged by Colin’s cheers in transition, I had a swift T2 and set off for the run. I immediately put my sunglasses up because it was so smokey outside, but the fine particulates in the air irritated my eyes, so I put my glasses back down. I trudged up Monarch, the 1% incline on gravel with a headwind felt like I was wearing a parachute. I ran 6:39 pace for the first loop of 6.5 miles. Around mile 8, I caught up with a guy from EMJ (I later found his name is Sebastian!) and hanged on for dear life, using him to shield some of the gnarly headwind. Bu this point, the wind and smoke were picking up, and the sky became hazier than an IPA.
I kept pushing the second loop with Seb, and 6:40s felt like 6:10s. I knew with my bike split that I’d PR in a 70.3, so that kept me pushing; I couldn’t see any women close behind me on the out-and-back on Magnolia. I also thought I could catch some women ahead of me, but that never happened. I did the second half of the run in an average of 6:46 pace, for a half marathon of 1:27:25 (6:41 average pace) and an overall time of 4:25:33, finishing 15th pro woman.
15th doesn’t sound that great, but this was “Boulder 70.3 Worlds” after all. I known people say this about every race this year, but the field was stacked, and it catapulted me from #226 to #156 in the PTO (Professional Triathlete Organization) World Rankings. It’s a rule that you HAVE to be happy with a PR (unless the course is short, hah), and I’m super proud of my race.
Next up for me is Timberman 70.3 in two weeks, on August 22. It’ll be the closest turnaround between 70.3s, but I’m excited for a hilly bike course and a hometown race. It’s only 1.25 hours away instead of 30!
