LA Triathlete

AYOOOO! Look at me writing this post so quickly after a race! So unlike me.

So yeah! I did Indian Wells 70.3 and I had a great day. I PRed my 70.3 by 7 minutes and it was my first PR since Oceanside in 2022 which is actually insane. I mean, I get a great 2023 Oceanside too, as in my run was really good, but I did not go my fastest 70.3 time overall.

ANYWAY. It really felt like everything came together for a perfect day!

I woke up on Sunday morning at 3:20am. I somehow managed to fall asleep at like 8pm on Saturday night and slept great. I got like a full 7 hours which is unheard of for me. Usually it’s like a solid 2 hours of stressful sleep the night before a race for me!

I had some overnight oats for breakfast that I had made at home and brought to the race. This has been my go-to breakfast everyday for months now, so I figured it’s best to stick to it! In my oats I usually do oats, almond milk, a little greek yogurt, frozen mixed berries, honey, chia seeds and peanut butter. The perfect mix of carbs, sugar and protein!

Overall, the whole morning was so relaxing. My friend Chelsea was coming to the race with her other friend, but she agreed to be my sherpa too! Plus I had the perk of having a pro parking pass, meaning that we could drive straight to the start and park there, instead of having to park at the finish and take the shuttles over with everyone else.

I parked at the finish line in my car around 5am and Chelsea met me out on the street to pick me up and drive me in her car to the start. That way my car would be at the end of the race, and she would have her own car to get back home!

So this race is a two point transition, meaning T1 and T2 are in two different locations. The day before the race, you’re required to drop all your run gear off at T2 (you don’t have any access to T2 on race morning so you better not forget anything!!) and you have to drop off your bike and bike gear at T1. The other thing you have to do the day before the race is decontaminate your wetsuit. This is also done at T2. You literally just dunk the wetsuit into a pool with a chlorine solution. This is done to keep any invasive species out of the lake.

Essentially everything you need for the race has already been checked in and ready to go. So on race morning, you really only need your body and your tri kit! Which makes for a very relaxing morning!

Anyway, I got off track.

THE SWIM

We got to the start and parked at around 5:30am. The race didn’t start until 7am, so this was plenty of time to get my nutrition onto my bike and get my wetsuit on.

IW 70.3 is notorious for having one of the coldest swims. The water temp was around 58 degrees F on race morning, which is cold but it definitely could have been worse! There is an initial shock when the water touches your face and you get a brain freeze type of headache for a little bit but I got used to it pretty fast!

The pros have an in-water start too which is also very nice! This means we were able to get in the water and get used to it before the start. We were also allowed to stay in the water until the start. So we didn’t have to get out and stand around all wet and cold until we started.

I got in the water around 6:50am and splashed around. The men started at 7am and the women started at 7:05am. After the men were off, the pro women were allowed to line up at the start buoys. I found a nice deep spot where I could tread water and warm up my body even more.

Then we were off!

The swim is always relatively anticlimactic for me. I got right on someone’s feet and basically sat in her draft the entire swim. I could tell that there were a lot of bunched up into a big group, but I didn’t know how close all of our times were until later.

My only complaint about the swim was that the sun was started to rise right before the start, so we were swimming straight into the sun for like half the swim. It was really hard to see anything. But since I was just sitting on other peoples’ feet, I followed them and hoped they were going the right way LOL.

As we finished the swim and ran out of the water, there were literally like 10 of us all finishing at the same time! After looking at the results later, I think pretty much everyone was within 20 seconds of each other (oh except one girl who swam like a 25 or something. She was a 3 full mins ahead of us hahaha)! I swam a low 28 minute which I was super happy with! That’s over a minute faster than I swam it last year! I feel like my swim times are ALWAYS right around 29 or 30 minutes and I never get faster. But with my new coach, I’ve been swimming 3 times a week so it was exciting to see improvement!

T1

At this race, all your gear is in a bag that hangs up right outside the lake. So you grab your bag, then run through an area with a bunch of chairs for you sit on if you need to, then you run into transition to get your bike.

As I was running with my bag towards the chairs, I could NOT get my fucking wetsuit sleeve off over my Garmin! This has never happened before! But it’s a new wetsuit so the sleeves must have been tighter or something. I spent like a solid 30 seconds panicking trying to get it off.

Finally I managed to pull it over, but in the process I accidentally switched the Garmin from transition mode, to cycling mode which would have fucked up my bike times. So as I ran to my bike, I saved my swim, then restarted my watch in triathlon mode, skipped through the swim back to transition mode, and we were back in business. Although it was slightly chaotic for me.

ANYWAY, I ran to my bike carrying my socks and shoes because it was a really long run through the transition area and I didn’t want to ruin my cleats.

When I got to my bike, my hands were FROZEN because it was so cold outside! I really struggled getting my shoes on!

THE BIKE

The bike course at this race is EXTREMELY flat. There’s like one little hill right out of transition and that honestly might be the ONLY hill in the whole race. Really the only concern during this race is the possibility of high winds since it’s in the desert.

But we got so lucky. The weather was absolutely perfect. There was still some wind but nothing unmanageable. We had a tailwind for the first half and I was easily pushing 23-25mph and I felt great! Since it’s so flat, you can kind of turn your brain off and just go. It’s also easy to continue to take in nutrition since you’re not constantly thinking about the next hill, like at Oceanside.

My only beef with this course is the amount of U turns. I think there are like 4 or 5 U turns throughout the course, which really slows you down! And one of them was so tight I had to unclip because my bike has such a shitty turning radius. I would have ran right off the road!

BUT, one cool part of the course is that it goes onto this little car race track. It’s only for like a mile or two, but is really curvy and fast in there!

After the race track, the course heads back to T2. On the way back, I could definitely feel that there was a slight headwind. I was only going around 20-21 but was still putting down solid power. Despite that, I was pretty sure I was going to come veryyyyy close to my 70.3 bike PR, so I pushed as hard as I could through the last few miles.

As you near T2, the course is on a main road that is still open to cars. Cyclists still get a whole lane that’s coned off from the cars, but we were going counterflow to traffic in that section. And it was a pretty busy road. So every time a car flew past as going the opposite direction, I would get a pretty gnarly little gust of a headwind. Despite that, I still pushed on!

I looked at my watch when I was only a mile from the finish and saw that I was going to cut it really close to my PR. I was literally talking to myself and saying “you better PR bitch.”

That seemed to have worked because when I rolled into T2 and stopped my watch, I saw that I went a 2:35 which was a 2 minute bike PR! WOO!

T2

It was a pretty long run again from the bike dismount to my spot in transition, but I got there quickly and threw on my run gear.

My spirits were high coming off a great bike and I was ready to take on the run (which is usually NEVER the case for me)

THE RUN

I don’t necessarily LOVE this run course but it’s fine. Whatever.

It’s a 2 loop course that takes you out onto a road, then into a golf course where you run on these curvy and undulating cart paths, then back out onto the same road, right to almost the finish line, then you go back and do it all again.

The part that I hate is that there is very little crowd support because people can’t really go into the golf course section to cheer. I also HATE the stupid little hills in the golf course too. They aren’t that big but they really add up!

I started the run just a bit too fast and I think I paid later on for it. I mean, nothing was terrible but I definitely slowed way down!

Right as I started the run, I made sure to eat a pack of salt pills and I’m so glad that I did. My back started to feel like it was going to cramp around mile 8 but it never did! I think thanks to the salt pills!

After starting off too hot in the first couple miles, I started to die a little in the golf course. I pulled my pace back just a tad and settled in. At one point in the golf course, I saw another pro woman who was off to the side and stretching. She didn’t seem okay so I asked if she needed some salt pills and she said she was fine. She told me that she was going to pull out of the race after the first lap because she had just moved 3 days before the race! Moving is so mentally and physically taxing, I’m so impressed she was even there at all!

She ran next to me for the rest of the first lap. We didn’t talk much but that was okay. I really didn’t want to talk. It was just comforting knowing she was there next to me.

It can also be hard on the first lap of the run because being a pro and starting before everyone else in the race, there still aren’t a ton of people out on the run course yet. Most people are still on their bike when I start the run. So a lot of the people I see out on the course are really fast age group men who come flying past me as I die lol.

However, during lap 2, there were WAY more people out on the course which helped to motivate me! There were a ton people saying hi to me and telling me they love my Instagram, which made me so happy and really made the second lap not suck as bad!

As I plodded along on the second lap, I was doing mental math trying to figure out if I could go under 5 hours. That was my whole goal for the race. But math is really hard when you’re that tired. Around mile 11, I knew I was going to at least PR the race unless I basically crawled the last two miles. But I knew I would come veryyyyyyyyyy close to 5 hours.

At mile 12, I really gave it all I had. I knew that if I didn’t give it my all and just missed going under 5 hours, I would be mad at myself. So I ran really as fast as I could (which was literally like a 7:40 pace lmao like the other pro women are out there running sub 7 min miles easy) to the finish line. As I crossed the line and looked back at the timer, I saw that I went 5 hours and 1 minute. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?

IT’S FINE. That was still a 7 minute PR for me! It just hurts a little to come SO CLOSE to a goal and just miss it. But I really did give it my all. I think I would have died if I had gone much faster!

I am so happy with my results! I recently hired a new coach and it’s always good to see improvement when you’re spending your hard earned money on one!

After the race, I slowly but surely packed up all my shit into my car, drove straight to In N Out, ordered a double double animal style, animal style fries, and a milkshake, then made the 2 hour drive back home to LA. I didn’t even have a chance to shower before I left since I didn’t get a late checkout at my hotel. How gross is that? By the time I got home I was just covered in dried salt and sweat, plus I had In N Out sauce all over my hands and face. DISGUSTING.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Well we are going into the 2024 season now and I still don’t really know! I definitely will do Oceanside 70.3 as always, but as far as the rest of the year goes, I’m not sure.

I wanted to race a lot this year. But then I got unexpectedly got engaged so now I have a wedding to plan. WHICH IS AMAZING AND I AM SO EXCITED! But that means racing is going to take a back seat. The wedding is in September and our honeymoon will probably be in October.

This is also my last season with my pro card unless I requalify (which lol that’s not gonna happen) and the list of pro races in the US isn’t very good. And they have only released races through August. Since I have a full time corporate job outside of triathlon, it’s kind of hard for me to travel for races. I mean I get 4 weeks of vacation and 3 floating holidays. But when you factor in 3 days or so for the bachelorette party, 4-5 days for the wedding, then like 10-15 days for the honeymoon, it really starts to add up!

I also thought maybe I wanted to do a full Ironman as a pro but I really just don’t think I have time to train for that. Also, let’s be honest, do I even like full Ironmans? I feel like as a triathlete, we’re expected to do these crazy long races every year. But I just really like Olympics and 70.3s!!

So as of now, it’s looking like Rose Bowl half marathon in a few weeks (registration sold out already ugh so I have to run unregistered lol), Oceanside 70.3, MAYBE St. George 70.3? I have never done it before but it’s driving distance from LA and I’ve heard it’s a fun course! Also, Boulder 70.3 may be an option. MAYBE. It’s one week before my future sister-in-law’s wedding in Ohio. That might be a lot of travel. Or I could even fly from Boulder to Ohio too.

I would also consider Santa Cruz 70.3 if it’s a pro race. It would be a couple of weeks before my wedding but I think that’s okay! If it’s not a pro option then I’ll do Mammoth Gran Fondo again because that was SO MUCH FUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. There’s also a chance I could do Indian Wells 70.3 in December depending on when my honeymoon falls but TBD.

I’ll also most likely do the San Diego Triathlon in June if I don’t do Boulder. And the Long Beach sprint in July! Also, what happened to the LA Triathlon!? That’s where I got my pro card in 2022 but they didn’t have it this year. I really liked that race!

ANYWAY. As you can see, there is a lot up in the air! I have yet another very exciting year which is so great, but just not a ton of time for triathlons.