The time has come for me to write an actual blog post. I have been procrastinating too much!

I know it’s been LITERAL MONTHS since Santa Cruz 70.3 but I’m finally going to do a race recap.

This race was going to be big deal for me. My very first big race as a professional. I’ve done a few races since getting my pro card, but no Ironman branded races. I had actually only done one other race since getting my pro card, the San Diego International Distance and I was THE ONLY person in the pro category LOL. So I raced against no one.

However, despite all that, I told myself that this race wasn’t that big of a deal and to not put too much pressure on myself, but secretly and subconsciously I was nervous as hell. Like I really didn’t want to come in last place amongst the pros. Spoiler.. I definitely came in last place. BY A LOT.

Pre-race

The day before the race we had the pro meeting. My first ever pro meeting. Miranda Carfrae was in the room. Then there was me. This little peasant who just got her pro card, who thought she doesn’t deserve to be there (we need to work on the confidence).

ANYWAY. The meeting was pretty cool. We got some insights into the race that they don’t give out at the normal race meetings. Sorry I can’t divulge this super secret information!!!

(jk they literally just told us what the alternate swim course would be if there was too much fog on race day).

For this race, I stayed at my aunt’s house in San Jose which was so much fun. My mom flew in for this race too! And my friend Jonathan stayed at my aunt’s as well. We had a whole crew. Honestly that whole situation was a 10 out of 10 and despite my awful race, it makes me want to Santa Cruz every year.

Race day

Fast forward to race morning. Jonathan and I hopped into his Tessie and headed down to Santa Cruz. We got there quickly with plenty of time to spare before the start. It was so cool setting up transition next to the other pro women and chatting with them. I came to find out that a lot of them focus more on shorter distance racing and have never done a 70.3 before! They still whooped my ass though LOL. But that just shows the caliber of athlete these amazing women are!

OH ALSO I found out that pros get THEIR OWN porta potties right by transition that no one else can use. I think this was reason enough to get my pro card lol.

Eventually I made my way to the swim start where I found my mom, aunt and cousin. They wished me well and I headed down to the beach for the start. Apparently the pros actually line up in front of the starting chute, instead of in line with everyone else. I won’t lie. This felt hella bougie.

Swim

For this race, I think there were 14 female pros total. It was nice to line up with such a small group and not have to worry about getting run over in the swim.

The gun went off and we ran into the water. It was so cold! I did a warmup swim the day before, so I knew how cold it was going to be. BUT STILL. Nothing prepares you for that icy water to hit your face.

The swim was amazing though. There were absolutely no waves or any noticeable current. I finished the swim in the middle of the pack and my time was 26 minutes! Which is actually a swimming PR for me in the 70.3 distance!

The transition from the swim the T1 is SO LONG. And so painful. It’s about 1/2 a mile (maybe?) and entirely on concrete. Then at one point it switches to almost like cobblestone with giant rocks jutting out of it. I was running as fast as I could but I was absolutely DYING. I’m pretty sure any pro that I beat in the water passed me on that run.

Bike

T1 was easy. I was in and out in a very short time. Then came the bike, which is normally my strongest leg.

This bike course is an out and back down Highway 1. You know, the road that runs right along the ocean? It was so beautiful! The course is pretty hilly with rollers the entire way, but no super steep climbs. I like hills too, so I was ready!

On the way out I felt okay. My stomach was feeling a little weird, but it always feels weird during races. I chalked it up to nerves but tried to force down nutrition along the way. I had two bottle of Gatorade Endurance, 4 gels, and a pack of Clif Bloks. (Or at least I thought I did. More to come on this later)

I just felt like my legs were not pushing enough power. Like they didn’t necessarily feel bad, but I felt kind of sluggish and I don’t know why. The day was VERY hot and humid, so I think this definitely contributed. I was sweating like a pig under my helmet. Sweating more than I’ve ever sweat during the bike leg. The sweat was getting into my eyes!

On the way back during the bike, I kept looking at my time and trying to calculate how fast I needed to go to PR the bike course. My 70.3 bike PR is from Oceanside in April and it was a 2:37. That was also a hilly course with a couple very steep climbs, so I was sure I could beat that time during this race.

But looking at my watch, things were not looking good for PR. This made me mad, so I started pushing as hard as I could, maxing out my HR and really tiring out my legs.

By the time I got to T2, I was 3 minutes slower than my PR and I was absolutely wrecked. I fucked up lol.

Run

I was a little mad at myself about the bike but I thought maybe I could redeem myself on the run. I mean, I did hire a new coach back in June who has been having me work on my running A LOT. I was excited to see how fast I could run, even though the run is by far my least favorite leg.

Immediately into the run, there’s a pretty big hill which is very discouraging, but I still pushed through and ran the whole thing instead of walking. Right after the hill at mile 0.5, both of my quads started cramping severaly.

I’ve never had cramps like this before. It was my lower inner quads above my knees and they would seize up during every step. I stopped to stretch them but it didn’t go away. Since I was only 0.5 miles in and this was an out and back run course, I considered just calling it quits and turning around.

I considered this for the next 2 miles. But by the time I got to mile 2.5, I figured I was too far away to turn back. I knew I had to keep going. And I won’t lie, I cried like a little bitch. I was in so much pain but I didn’t want to walk the entire 13.1 miles because that would take forever. So I tried to run for about 50 meters, then I would walk again when the cramps got too bad.

I also cried because I was ashamed to be wearing a bib that said the word “professional” on it. How embarrassing for this ‘professional’ to be walking and crying during the race. At one point, I folded my bib up under my belt so no one could see it.

Around mile 3 my friend William who was also racing caught up to me. He saw me crying and asked what I needed. I knew I needed a large dosage of salt to help with the cramping. Unfortunately he didn’t have any salt, but he gave me some of his salted caramel flavored gel. Then he told me we were already halfway to the turnaround point. That made me feel a little better.

I ran next to William for as long as I could and bid him farewell as he continued his run. Then I continued my painful run-walk slog. The cramps in my quads weren’t getting any better, but they also weren’t getting worse which was good. I was trying to drink and eat anything with salt at each aid station.

Eventually the cramps started creeping up in new places, including my arms and my feet (arm cramps? wtf?). I remember thinking if I saw a medical tent, I was going to go in and tell them I can’t finish. But I didn’t see one, nor did I ask for one.

By mile 8, I tried to just focus on finishing. Obviously it was too late to quit then. Plus, the run course is kind of downhill from then on, so I sucked it up and just tried to run as much as I could.

I finally got to the point where I could see the finish line. I was only about .5 miles away! I saw my aunt and my mom, both wearing their hot pink shirts that said “@la_triathlete” on the back LOL. As soon as I saw them cheering me on, I immediately broke down and started sobbing.

My mom was so worried about me. She told me after the race that she thought I was in the medical tent or something because my tracker was barely moving.

When I started sobbing, my aunt was so sweet and jogged next to me for as long as she could and cheered me on to keep me going to the finish.

I crossed the finish line at 5:29. This was much slower than I wanted to go, but honestly it was still a good time. Like if I had gone that time a few years back, I would have been so proud of myself!

I was just disappointed in how poorly I did considering it was my first pro race (I was the slowest pro by FORTY MINUTES). And I was also upset since this was my very first 70.3 race with a coach, so I expected big things.

However, this wasn’t my coach’s fault. This was certainly a fueling issue. I clearly had not taken in enough sodium during the race. This was especially important considering how unexpectedly hot and humid the race ended up being.

After cleaning my bike and removing my gel wrappers and water bottles from my bike, I noticed all of my gels were still half full and so were my bottles. I don’t know why that happened? I think maybe a combo of my stomach feeling gross and also being so focused on trying to PR that I just didn’t focus on nutrition? Who knows. But next race, I will sure as shit be making sure there is not a single drop left in those gels!

After

Afterwards, I posted about the race on IG and I got an outpouring of supportive messages. I really can’t thank everyone enough for their kind words! It made me feel 10000 times better about my performance. A few people even told me that pros will often pull out of races if they’re having a bad day, but I kept going (maybe dumb I kept going considering my health was at stake haha).

Anyway. I’m so glad I persevered and finished the race despite everything. There were a lot of lessons learned and I’m hoping I got all those “first-time pro” nerves out of my system for Indian Wells 70.3, which is in just a few short weeks!

One week after Santa Cruz, I did the Malibu Olympic which ended up being such a good race for me. I’ll write a post on that one soon! Thanks for reading!