“We do not get unlimited chances to have the things we want. Nothing is worse than missing an opportunity that could have changed your life.” Anonymous
Even writing the title of this race report puts a smile on my face and makes me so grateful for this journey. I can’t believe it’s been a couple of weeks already. This race has my heart so full. I had 15 Coeur Sports teammates and a bunch of friends race with me in Nice, it literally felt like we were back home somewhere in the US.
The days leading up to the race were all about trying to sleep, shaking out the jet lag, swimming in the Med, getting my bike adjusted and spending time catching up with my teammates. I opted to not try to run again – I tried to run a couple weeks before we left and my foot was not happy about it. So, I did not want to make it worse for the race, specifically the swim with the rocks and the bike when we had over 4K of climbing.
Race day:
Since my wave was in the middle and didn’t start until 7:44 I basically got to sleep until 5AM! I love late race AMs! 😉 Once the alarm did go off, we got up, I ate my breakfast and made the walk to transition to put my bottles in and pump my tires. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, when I got to T1, I left my bottles in the fridge at the flat. Thanks to Z for running back and grabbing them while I pumped up my tires. Transition was pretty easy as we had to turn in all our gear, like a full, the day before and were not allowed to touch the bags race AM. I hit the porta john line and ran into Amy and Amy, which was a nice welcome as I was starting to get nervous. After I said my goodbye to Z, I got in my wetsuit and had some zen time down next to the start.
I’m so fortunate to have such amazing teammates, Amy came running out of the water, gave me one more quick hug (which was needed even though she didn’t know) and ran into the starting corral. Then Ash headed down, we sat and chatted, before doing a warm up. Then we saw the women pros come out of the water – which was really cool. After, we made our way out of the water and to our corral with a final hug.
Soon, we were all entering our way into the water, in a rolling, wave start. There were about 8 of us that entered the water at the same time. Generally, I thought it would be smooth, but somehow it wasn’t. Maybe I placed myself wrong, but I felt like I instantly started passing people. Almost immediately my L goggle start slowly filling, I stopped and emptied it and hoped it was a fluke – of course it wasn’t. My goggles filled with water a total of 4x during the swim. Swimming out to the first turn buoy felt pretty good. I felt strong but that was short lived – swimming on the far side of the course was pretty choppy – I was having a hard time staying on feet and swimming in a straight line for that matter. This was the theme for the rest of the swimming coming back into shore. I reminded myself to stay strong and that I was swimming in the freaking MEDITERRANEAN.
Once back to shore, I glanced at my time, annoyed at my effort vs the split and thought “guess I’ll go ride my bike up a mountain.” So, that’s what I did.
Bike:
Ran down the LONG T1 after grabbing my bag, and calmly thinking of what I needed to do while also chatting a bit to the other girls grabbing their gear, hoping they all felt the same way I did about the swim. Leaving T1, I immediately noticed my HR strap was not working.. so the bike was going to be effort. Leaving Nice there are a few punchy climbs, which I was grateful for knowing the climb to the Col de Vence wasn’t going to be nearly as steep. It was so much fun, the climbing, the all women race, the spectators and the volunteers. I couldn’t help but just smile the entire time. After all, we were racing in France at the World Championships. To give perspective – I had about 3800ft of climbing in the first 26 miles of the race, I believe my avg mph was 13.5. I laughed out loud ha! I took in the views on the climbs, enjoyed the switchbacks, and just pretended I was riding with my friends. I thought a lot about riding up Palomar at Coeur Camp, and then riding up Whiteface with Amy and friends. With those climbs, I just kept my cadence up and just kept pushing on the pedals. At the top of the climb there was an aid station – I did not want to use on course nutrition, so I stopped and had these wonderful French boys (who did not speak English) help me fill my bottles with water and pour in Skratch. They were so amazing and when I was done kept screaming Allez! Allez!
After the climb, there’s a short descent (almost like a false flat) – a big shoutout to my teammate Cathy for giving me the heads up that it’ll feel like I’m not going anywhere and that it’ll feel like you have a flat. That sure was the case on how was I feeling! We had a little more climbing in this little town before we had the big descent all the way back to Nice. Yes, this ride was basically straight up, then straight down and it was AWESOME. The descent was tricky, but my only goal was to make it back to T2. I was cautious, however I felt I descended the best I could have. I rented a road bike with disc brakes for this exact reason. The days leading up the race, I just practiced the brakes and I had 100% confidence this bike would stop and it did. I felt in complete control and safe coming around the turns. I followed the line of the ladies in the distance and I felt complete confidence with the ladies near me descending. Besides the random CAT that RAN IN FRONT OF ME on the descent, there were a few ladies we caught that made me nervous. One thing I did not count on – it was SO cold descending that my hands started to turn white and when I could I tried to warm them up. Fortunately, there was a bit of a flat part where the sun was out and really it helped warm me back up before we finished the descent. Before long, we were back on the flat about 5 miles left and rolled into T2!
Run:
Well, here’s where I was prepared to walk. It was a game time decision and scramble with new shoes and I was hoping for the best. I loaded all my stuff, dropped my bag off, hit the porta john and thought “here goes nothing..”
And there was NO PAIN. I had the biggest, goofiest grin on my face. There was some European guy who commented on my smile and said I needed to find him after the race. In my mind, I wanted to tell him he had NO idea why I was smiling so much. I rolled with it. I kept my effort in check with the goal of a long run effort because I still had no HR and it was literally my first run in 8 weeks. I wasn’t sure how it would play out, but I knew I’d cross that finish line. I saw so many of my teammates and all were so encouraging and seemed excited that I was running! I saw Zach and gave him some big waves of excitement. I continued being realistic and trying to keep my effort under control. Somewhere around 5k, I started feeling like I was going to bonk and stopped at an aid station where I shoved a banana down my throat and chugged some coke. It was this moment that a girl wearing a Wyn kit looked back at me. We had passed each other back and forth for the first few miles. I said, “I’m sorry if I’m annoying you, this is my first run in 8 weeks to a stress fracture and I don’t know what to expect.” She said she was getting over an injury in her shoulder and she didn’t know what to expect either. So, we ran together, Holly and I – THE ENTIRE WAY. It was amazing. We learned that we live about 2 hours away from each other and we have mutual acquaintances. I was and am so grateful for Holly, she kept my mind from freaking out about my foot, and I guess maybe I helped her continue to run strong.
We ran stride for stride over the next 10 miles. Around mile 10, she started to feel off and I kept offering encouragement and told her I wasn’t going to leave her. At mile 11, I started to feel my foot, but like so often, told myself I have 2 miles left – I’m going to finish this thing running. We pulled each other along over the last few miles. We hit the finishing stretch and I backed off to give her some space, which then she looked back and encouraged me to catch back up and we finished together. These words show enough of the emotions that went into the run. How in the world would I have met someone so close to me, on the other side of the planet if it wasn’t for triathlon. This sport is so wonderful in so many ways. Once through the finish line and after grabbing our gear, we chatted some more where I caught up to a bunch of my teammates and Holly and I parted ways.
This race was a celebration in so many ways, a celebration for what my body can do, a celebration for what I’ve been working my butt off for and so much more. Sure, there were moments when I was sad I couldn’t race my best against the best in the world, but this was the path I had to take this year. I had my best race this year and I also had my most fun races this year. That makes me excited for the future and happy with how this year went.
Post race – we all got dressed up for wine, cheese, pasta and gelato. I love this team so much.
A big thank you to my Coeur Sports teammates and company. This was by far one of my favorite experiences with some of the best people. I couldn’t have asked for better teammates. To Mettā Therapeutic Massage & Wellness – thank you for the mental support, the amazing massages, and for acupuncture to get my body across the finish line. To Skratch Labs, Drink Simple for the nutrition and hydration to keep my body going. To Normatec for the amazing boots I was living in. To Roka for helping my find faster this year with a huge PR in MT and to being able to see the HUGE JELLYFISH in the Med so clearly ;). To Fast Splits for my favorite TT bike EVER. To my family and friends for encouraging, supporting and providing me with so much love over this year and previous years. To Z for the never-ending support, for always being up for an adventure, and carrying my boot around all over France ❤
Next up moving on to 2020 but first, I’m going to rest up, enjoy riding on two wheels and slowly start running again and enjoy the end of 2019!!
run, tri & smile 
Congrats lady!! I think I had just as big of a grin on my face reading about your run as you had!! I’m so glad you didn’t have to walk and your run was better than you could have imagined!! Cheers to an even better 2020!!
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Beautiful! Thank you for sharing your experience.
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