Posted on Jul 27, 2016 in Uncategorized
My coach has given me the nickname the honey badger. It not just a nickname but the way I approach all the challenges in my life. I don’t have unflappable confidence and am not really really ridiculously good. For me, it’s always come down to grit – hardheaded, stubborn, down and dirty, blood sweat and tears, grit. So in my typical badger style, I took my Lyme disease diagnosis this June with a stubborn desire to preserve yet another challenge in my path. It is only through grit that I am here racing professionally at all. I wasn’t born with ridiculous talent in fact I was born with a hole in my heart, a mitral valve prolapse with mitral regurgitation of blood and deformed heart valves. Now this isn’t uncommon. But it is not an advantage to have leaky valves allowing blood to rush backwards every time my heart pumps. Add to this my bad hips and their two torn labrums and early osteoarthritis, my ten stress fractures, feet with plantar plate tears, and bad knees, it’s only with grit and a lot of duct tape that I make it out the door to train every day. I wasn’t born with ridiculous luck either. Start with my ill-timed broken collarbone and shredded AC joint a month before Kona in 2013. Add in a similarly ill-timed crash caused by a convicted doper in an ITU race three weeks before the Olympic Trials in 2008. Not to be outdone by a dog attack resulting in a puncture wound while riding my bike, not a big deal except when the dog has not been vaccinated for rabies so a month long rabies vaccine protocol is required. And finish it off with a low speed sailboat drive by hit. I know you can’t make up this stuff. Who gets a hip contusion from a sailboat cruising slowly through a pack of swimmers? But all this bad luck only made me more determined to get to the next starting line with typical honey badger stubborn perseverance. I wasn’t born with studied forbearance. The obstacles above have been tough but the challenges that have truly tested my grit have required patience. I’ve had to take a step back from my normal urgent gritty stubbornness to get past Mono, years later Epstein-Barr virus, and now this summer Lyme disease. Taking a step back to recover requires a placidity and intelligence that is difficult for me. But despite being forced to step back, I never considered stopping. As I reflect on my strengths and weaknesses, I can see where my stubborn determination has both helped and hindered me in reaching my goals. My only ambition this year is to put Lyme disease away and take every race as an opportunity to unleash raw honey-badger courage. With that in mind, I will tackle my first race in many...
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Posted on Dec 1, 2015 in Uncategorized
In the spirit of off-season adventure seeking, I am tackling a crazy daunting challenge. In four short days, I will be running the North Face Endurance Challenge, a 50 mile trail ultra marathon with 10,000 feet of climbing. To say I am nervous would be an understatement. I feel like I did treading water on the start line of my first Ironman back in Klagenfurt in July 2011. It is a feeling of apprehension mixed with excitement: not knowing if I am ready for the race but eager to test myself against the course and competitors. After Kona in October, I was in dire need of a mental and physical break from the myopic focus of triathlon training. In my hiatus from the tri-world, I hoped to find a new challenge that spoke to my heart. As soon as I read about the North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile event, I immediately wanted to enter. (My bucket list of life adventures has always included some ultra marathons like Comrades, Hard Rock, Western States, and UTMB to name a few.) The race hit my adventure target with 50 hard undulating miles along the gorgeous trails in Marin county with amazing views of the ocean, bay, and city that are sure to take my breath away if the hills don’t. As soon as I entered, after struggling through a four hour long run, I questioned my sanity. Who enters a 50 mile hilly trail race as their fun off-season activity? But now with only four days until the race, I am excited for the challenge, can’t wait to test myself on the amazing trails, and of course my main goal is to finish with a muddy, tear-streaked, but smiling face. Enjoy your off-season adventures! I look forward to seeing you all back out there rested and refreshed to tackle your triathlon-ing challenges in...
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Posted on Nov 16, 2015 in Uncategorized
As a professional Ironman triathlete, Kona is the holy grail. If you perform well in the lava field, your season is a success if you fail then what? Having given myself 40 days to consider my performance, I haven’t come any closer to the answers. I started the world championships in Kona with an aim of finishing on the podium, but I ultimately struggled and managed only a distant 13th place on the back of my slowest ever marathon. Like Plato in the cave, I can’t see what led to my failure but I can determine what didn’t go wrong. I wasn’t injured. Thanks to Brett Sutton and the entire TriSutto team especially Robbie Haywood and Susie Langley. I started the race in the shape of my life. I wasn’t unprepared. The TriSutto team was acclimated in Jeju. I should have been completely ready to race. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t get food poisoning or a bug or get sick really the entire season. I can’t blame some unnamed illness anytime during the entire season for my defeat. I didn’t have any equipment failures. There were no mechanical issues in the swim, bike, or run that resulted in my demise. I didn’t have anyone interfere with my race. I wasn’t penalized and didn’t see any other athletes who unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged by the race conditions. I didn’t make any huge mistakes during the race. I always swallow seawater and get sick on the bike in Kona but that didn’t impact my race. I knew to expect it. My pro fluid bottles were frozen and I wasn’t able to get anything from them. But again that didn’t impact my race, as there were plenty of aid stations on the run course. I just had to take aid like every other age group athlete or like I would at any other event. I didn’t have any GI issues during the race. I didn’t puke or have to use the porta-potty. Seeing what didn’t happen leaves me with one one outcome. I went for a podium finish and wasn’t good enough on race day. Whether I simply had a bad day or whether I am not good enough is the real question. With my swim and bike performances, I only needed to run a 3:15 to finish in the top three. If I was given that information before the race, I would have said done and backed myself for a podium every time. I don’t regret that I went for the podium and flamed out on the day. My only regret is that all the hard work and support of my entire team didn’t get rewarded. This is a selfish pursuit and our team from family and friends to sponsors and coaches is what makes it all possible. When you don’t succeed, the team doesn’t always get the credit they deserve...
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Posted on Nov 13, 2014 in Uncategorized
The final race in my Tri-ple Triathlon crown was the Ironman World Championships in Kona. After 70.3 Worlds, I flew home for a week then headed out to Kona early for a heat training camp with Siri and the team. The block in Kona couldn’t have gone better. My injury healed up and by race week in Kona I was acclimated, healthy, and ready to fly. To help illustrate my race day in Kona, my trusty best friend Keiki offered to act out the day in illustrations for me. I got up just before 4am and forced down some bread and eggs. I was so excited to get going and race morning started with some extra drama as a centipede bit Eric on our way to Starbucks. When I did arrive to the pier, I got stuck into the process of getting my bike ready for a long day. I did a little pre-race jog to loosen up things and the necessary pre-race toilet then got into the water. I lined up to the far left all by myself. I had a good start as I learned the creep from the best, Julie Dibens. Into the swim, I felt good sitting behind what I thought was the two leaders except I was being bashed by the swimmer next to me every stroke. I fought for my position but Ms. Basher wouldn’t let me go ahead of her so I settled behind her. On the way home, I was disappointed to see the swimmer in front of me had lost the feet. I pulled around and swam hard the last 900 meters to try to keep in contact with the leaders. Out of the swim, I was pleased to see that I wasn’t too far behind. It was time to ride. This race being the first Ironman I have ever been rested for I went a bit nut-bar during the first 10K of the bike where I am usually pretty conservative. I bridged up the gap to Jodie in the first two miles of the bike. When I pulled ahead to take the lead, Jodie was having none of it. She let me stay ahead for maybe a minute then re-passed me yelling that I wasn’t to go to the front if I was going to slow. Properly chastened yet again by Jodie, I let her take the lead knowing that I could help take the lead later in the race when she finally would let me go to the front. After another 10K Meredith went to the front and again I could tell Jodie was having none of it. Only this time, I could see the official eyeballing Jodie who eager to get the pace back up was sitting a hair too close to Meredith for a hair too long. I didn’t have long to ponder that as...
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Posted on Nov 8, 2014 in Uncategorized
The hard competitive race in Hyvee left me like a wounded soldier shot in the butt. I hobbled around the entire week before 70.3 Worlds not sure if I would be able to bike or run. At the start of the week, Siri and I decided to table the issue and what and see what happened. As the week wore on I was getting treatment and finally able to bike almost normally and start jogging very slowly by Thursday. Siri and I decided to give it a try on race day and go as long as the pain didn’t get any worse. Race morning was cold and crisp more fall than summer. I woke up early and made my way to the bike transition. At least the swim looked warmed than the air with a nice steam coming off the scenic lake in Mt. Tremblant. The wetsuit swim would be nice and cozy both temperature wise and congestion as neoprene usually promises that things will be bunched together. I lined myself up at the far right side hoping that would help me stay out of the fray. It worked and I was able to get out fast and only saw Annabelle out faster to my left. Then as the faster swimmers pulled through I was able to slot in sitting comfortably behind Jodie and Helle. Out of the swim, I saw that we had a great group of strong athletes who I knew were all amazing cyclists. Right away the pack was very aggressive and I had trouble getting to the front. When I did, it only lasted for a minute as both Jodie and Daniela weren’t have any of it. I settled in for the long hard course in Mt. Tremblant as I knew the short hills in town were my strength but the stronger girls would make me suffer out on the highway with the longer less steep grades. I struggled as I thought I would on the way home and was completely dropped off and had to slowly work my way back up to Jodie and Helle only to be dropped again. I ended up riding the majority of the second half of the bike on my own at some points seeing the other girls but mostly chasing solo. It was a relief to pace the bike myself and meter out my energy to have enough to ride strong through the roly-poly out and back section that composed the last 20K of the bike ride. I averaged 235 watts for the bike ride, and was so pleased to see that I held the power through the entire ride. Off the bike, I noticed that my glute had really tighten up and wasn’t sure if I would be able to complete the run. I shortened my stride and tried to just increase my cadence and not push...
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Posted on Nov 6, 2014 in Uncategorized
I love racing in Hyvee; the organization and event team do an amazing job every year of putting together an incredible race for the professionals. I was there in 2008, 2009, and 2010 when it was still an ITU race. This year was my first trip back to Hyvee, and it was just as memorable as a 5150/WTC event. Siri and I approached Hyvee with the goal of coming into the event very fit but un-rested since our target races were 70.3 Worlds and Kona. While it may have impacted my top gear, the body is incredibly resilient and often even without much rest I can still get a very hard effort out on race day. As a bonus, Hyvee is one of the few truly professional races where there is no downside to racing as every professional competitor walks away with a great paycheck at the end. Almost makes our sport seem well professional! Race day in Hyvee was exciting. The short races are always full-gas from the gun especially with super-fish in the race like Sara McLarty and Lauren Brandon. I had a decent swim getting only a bit bashed around a bit at the first buoy, but I was able to get past the fray with some dolphin diving on the way to the second buoy. After the first two buoys the swim settled down and I got into a comfortable rhythm sitting on feet. I raced onto the bike and went full gas from the start. My legs didn’t feel bad but I didn’t have the spark in my legs that I had in Kansas. I was very impressed with the bike legs of Jodie Swallow and Alicia Kaye. I wasn’t able to keep their pace as they bridged up to the leader Helle Frederickson. I rode solo the first two laps of the bike with some girls behind. During the second half, we picked up some of the faster swimmers and Lauren Goss pulled up to ride staggered. It was perfect as she kept our pace high during the end of the bike. Onto the run, I saw we only a small group and had a nice gap to the next girls on the road. Off the bike, my run legs felt average at best and a bit more sluggish than I would have liked. II did my best to push through the run – happy it was only 10K. With about two miles to go, all the pushing can back to bite me as I felt a strain deep in my glute. All year I have had some trouble with that muscle but I managed to train and race gingerly to not aggravate the issue. This time I was not so lucky. The last two miles of the run were a bit tough as the muscle strain prevented me from pushing and extending...
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