Author: f005ckb

My thoughts about this race span two timelines. First, more broadly, is the extended (and ongoing) process of building fitness. Second is the relatively short, yet remarkably full, six hours and 17 minutes of racing. As for the former: I realized while training for this race that I want to view triathlon as a perpetual element of my life. It brings too much joy for this race to have been a one-time thing. And far from just Ironman brand races, or exclusively long-course events, I can’t wait to get more familiar with the sport of triathlon in all of its forms: small, local races; sprints and olympic-distance courses; crazy, mountain-scaling adventures; and (in general) swimming, biking, and running endeavors of all shapes and sizes. I cannot wait to keep setting big goals and making plans to achieve them with a community of like-minded, hard-working, endlessly dedicated training buddies and friends. I have much more to share on these notes (likely in greater detail than belongs here). For now, I’ll stick to a race-experience reflection. Interestingly, the race itself was characterized by precisely the same themes that accompanied the preparation: happy realizations about (1) the power of genuine enjoyment and (2) the value of consistency. 

Pre-Race

Race week started out wonderfully. The timing was perfect; our first week of tapering lined up with the team’s spring training trip, which created an excellent atmosphere for quality training sessions under coaches’ direct supervision, proper fueling, good sleep, and (most significantly) a fabulous group of friends to pass time with. The “taper blues” that I’d gotten barely a taste of in the few days before our trip rapidly evaporated. As it turns out, there’s nothing like pulling the team trailer from New Hampshire to North Carolina to make two days of complete inactivity feel productive and (oddly enough) remarkably fun. Major shout-out to my trailer crew buddies. 🙂

By the time we arrived home from North Carolina (trailer intact) on a Sunday night, it was practically time to turn around and pack for Oceanside. Robin and I started classes for the spring term on Monday, squeezed in a couple of runs, a ride, and a swim, cleaned bikes, and then we were off! I focused on sleeping and fueling in those few days leading up to the race, and it seemed to pay off—at least in its effects on mindset, if nothing else. I arrived in California feeling giddily excited and grateful, with barely-discernible nerves. (This, despite losing my whole wallet—license, credit card, school ID, etc.—mere minutes before we needed to check our bikes at the Boston airport! Enormous shoutout to Coach Katie for speed-searching the car, Robin for keeping me sane while I frantically turned every bag I brought inside-out, and Noah for knowing what to say on the phone.) 

By some miracle, TSA let me board the plane without any form of identification. We arrived—bikes in hand—in Oceanside. Both of us had been warned that the pre-race expo would be full of “shiny things” and that wandering the sea of vendors could very easily sap energy the day before the race. Nonetheless, it turned out that a fair amount of wandering was a necessary precursor to picking up packets and sitting for the mandatory athlete briefing. Due to some tricky accommodation logistics, we had just a couple of hours to build bikes, ensure that they functioned, and get them into transition on the Friday before the race.

Until this point (say, 3 pm on Friday) nearly every detail of the travel process—and, honestly, even the training process—had gone largely according to plan. I felt in-control and comfortable. But Robin and I were staying with her boyfriend’s (incredibly kind and shockingly generous!) family, who insisted that we join them at their Airbnb near the finish line. I’d made an embarrassingly detailed itinerary for our pre-race plans, complete with a 30-minute ride, a shakeout run to follow, and a couple hundred yards of ocean swimming to get used to the water—all on the Friday before the race. None of these things happened. But Robin was positively glowing getting to see the people who she loved, and I was infinitely more grateful than I was frustrated about any logistical difficulties. The bikes got built, briefly ridden, and my sweet mother made a last-minute bike shop run to pick up a bike stand pump. (A note to self: the race packet says that they will have pumps available, but these are few and far between—and shared! Having my own stand pump from the get-go will be a must, moving forward.)

Once the bikes were safely stowed in transition (a gravel-looking road bike with 32mm tires looking a bit comical amidst the TT bikes and disc wheels—but we love you, Doms!), Robin and I walked the mile or so back to our Airbnb along the run course. I’d grabbed a windbreaker for the ride up to transition, and I wished I had something heavier. A strong wind whipping off the ocean was far from warm. Sunset was fast approaching; our time for a nice ocean dip had come and gone. Determined to feel the water before race day, I ran down to the ocean, still in my bike shorts from the ride to transition, and felt my chest seize up. It wasn’t just chilly. The water was frigid. Even the mist of spray that accompanied the waves stung sharply.

For most of our travel time (save the frantic wallet search) I’d been calm and eager. Honestly, nerves had been one of the farthest things from my mind. But standing in my bike shorts in the overcast dusk, my fingers numbing and the waves eerily loud, pre-race jitters hit with full force. Tomorrow was going to be filled with things that I couldn’t begin to anticipate. Intense things, perhaps—but incredible things, too! And I wouldn’t be alone. Nor was I alone in the ocean; Robin’s boyfriend and his best friend were throwing themselves into the waves further down the shoreline. Robin was a few feet away. She looked over at me, both of us shivering and beaming. Suddenly, the absurdity of the scene and the avalanche of nerves had the two of us laughing hysterically as we crawled back up the steep-ish shore of stones. Whatever happened the next morning, I decided, I was lucky beyond words to be in such a beautiful place, doing what I loved with people who I cared about. That was for certain, and that was all I needed to know.

Race Day

The Swim

To my surprise, I slept wonderfully the night before the race. Our morning was a blur of headlamps in chilly air, frenzied goo-rubbing (and ingesting), wetsuit wrangling, and the occasional excited Robin-nudge: “ohmygosh look look that’s [pro triathlete] RIGHT THERE!” By the time we padded our way to the swim start, the sky had begun to lighten. The race directors decided on a last-minute shift of the swim course, and our crew of racers—each of us with swim caps atop neoprene hoods and earplugs beneath those—tried to piece together their garbled loudspeaker announcement of the change. I’d pay for a video of us five attempting to communicate that morning. Instead of starting in the ocean, it seemed, the swim had been shifted to the harbor. We’d swim a near out-and-back, moderately protected from the high surf and allegedly colder waters of the open ocean. To me, this sounded fantastic! We wouldn’t be allowed a warm up due to space constraints in the harbor, but I thought nothing of it. “It is what it is, I guess!” I half-yelled to Robin. She laughed. (Edit: she had no idea what I said. None of us could hear a thing.) I ran through my swim plan as we filtered into pace groups and shuffled towards the start line. First: the water would be cold. I’d give myself five strokes with my head above water to feel the temperature, breathe deeply, and take a good look around. After five, head would go in. And from there? Muscle memory. The second piece of my plan was to sight excellently. I would not be pushing the pace, nor panicking if I was getting passed—I would stay calm, swim efficiently, and cut the cleanest path I could between buoys. 

In theory, that is.

Our four-tone buzzer sounded, and I jogged my way into the ocean. It did not feel like Post Pond in the summertime. Then again, my limbs and lungs were functioning! After five calm-down strokes, I felt excellent. Acclimated. My head went under. Immediately, salt water was everywhere; the goggles were almost painfully tight against my head, but for some reason, they weren’t sealed around my eyes. My next move was to gasp and swallow half the harbor. I felt my legs stall. In those few seconds of panic, the next group of athletes had caught up—and none were thrilled about my stagnant presence. One hand grasped at my ankle, and an elbow jabbed my ribs. I kicked a few times for some separation, and suddenly my head was back underwater. A neoprene-clad man was swimming over my body. I couldn’t see, let alone kick my legs or turn my head for air. But the emotion wasn’t panic. I was, rather unusually, enraged. The man splashed his way over me and I shoved the dysfunctional goggles against my face with one hand, paddling hard with the other. One more try in the water: no dice. For the third time, salt water was inside the goggles and well beneath my contacts. I dumped the excess water, set sights on the train of orange buoys, and committed myself to the strongest and calmest goggles-less swim that I was capable of. 

Now, I can say with certainty that there were countless moments of the bike and run that felt euphoric, dream-like, too-good-to-be-true—and by far more of these moments than times that felt tough. But in the water? I’ll admit that “euphoric” was far from the dominant emotion. Every stroke was a touch panicked. All of the swimming mantras that I’d practiced with: wrist as your fulcrum, pull with the back, peek at your hands, core tight legs loose, surface tension fingers, slow-to-fast arms, water back not down, power in the twist… they all lacked meaning with my head cocked awkwardly up out of the ocean and flailing limbs on all sides. Every few strokes I’d get fed up and stick my face in, only to instinctively shove my fingers against the searing eyeballs and inevitably swallow some water, all while the lost time left me a sitting duck for other swimmers to pass—elbows, feet, hands on my ankles, and water (or bodies) over my head. I couldn’t keep slowing down. At what I imagine was about 700 yards in, I decided I would stop trying with the goggles; when the water got beneath my contacts, not only was it shockingly painful, but the lenses started to come unstuck. Losing one of those would cause serious issues for my legally-blind nearsighted self—both in the swim and the rest of the race. The last couple hundred yards to the turnaround were far from calm or fast, but they were perhaps the least frantic yards of the swim. For a moment, it stopped feeling like everyone around me was caught in some rapidly flowing riptide that did not apply to me. The effects of the cold were also becoming less pronounced; I felt my breathing, which I realized had been shallow and gaspy, begin to normalize. 

Just as I calmed down enough for thoughts about pace to enter my mind (as opposed to the mere “survive!”), we hit the turnaround buoy. Naturally, swimmers who’d been cutting a rather wide arc adjusted their course to slide just past the buoy, and the sudden influx of bodies left me literally smashed up against the rubber. (I expected the inflatable thing to be soft. In case anyone wondered, the buoys are not soft.) I was fully vertical in the water, treading and shoving just to get myself some space. We turned the corner, and I set sights on the next buoy back to harbor. Weirdly, though, nobody else seemed to be swimming the line that I was taking. A large group of bodies took off nearly at a right angle from my path. I paused and looked again. Genuinely, I had no idea what they were looking at. It hit me that one advantage of head-above-water swimming was that I’d be able to perpetually sight! This realization made the back half of the swim measurably calmer than the first. I was still slow (and frustrated) in my awkward posture, trying not to think about what I knew was an open chafing sore on the back of my oddly positioned neck. But I was able to hold onto some shred of dignity as the swimmers who flew past me did so at odd angles—shooting out to my right in small packs, then zagging back across to my left. I was slow, I repeated to myself, but I would be slow and efficient!

The Ride

Perhaps the best part of the ride was being out of the water. I don’t hate to swim—quite the opposite! But I loved that I’d be able to execute my plan on the bike in a way that I’d not been able to do on the swim. “Resist the urge to put on a show,” had been Coach Jim’s advice about T1. More due to my own elation about having survived the swim than a desire to entertain onlookers, I found myself flying past a long trail of walk-jogging swimmers on my way back to transition. My bento box was packed with solid fuel (fig, cliff, and nutrigrain-like bars, all cut into bite-size pieces). I had just enough fuel in the box to successfully complete my nutrition plan—but there wasn’t room for extra. Uncertain whether I’d be able to stomach the solid fuel all race, I stuffed some gels and chews into the pockets of my kit in transition.

The first few miles of the bike were winding and pothole-ridden. Barely two miles in, we bumped over a bridge that dislodged about half of the nutrition I’d put into my kit. I tried to stuff the remaining gels a bit further down, realizing then that the pockets of the kit I was wearing weren’t nearly deep enough to keep them secure. A minute later, we hit another bridge, and the rest of the gels went flying. I apologized profusely to the guy behind me for the surprise debris, and he laughed. “I just feel bad for you! Maurten at the first aid station, you can get there!” It was kind. And correct! 

We all slowed to a near-crawl just before the aid station, where we’d been warned of “some water” on the course. I hadn’t pictured the steadily flowing stream of 3-5 inch-deep water at the bottom of a descent that we’d all splash through—but my bike was optimally suited for the adventure. The TT bike behind me was not so lucky; I heard swearing and a frantic unclipping. A few other members of our race crew reported fishtailing in a scary way. Potholes and water aside, though, the bike course was absolutely stunning! In what Robin described as uncharacteristic for this time of year, the rolling hills that we rode through were intensely green. It felt other-worldly. Because the course wound almost entirely through Camp Pendleton, we saw few spectators; I was content to push my watts, snack in the no-passing zones and speed-capped descents, and exchange joking expressions of pain with the crew of athletes who I’d been leapfrogging with when we bunched up at the base of steep climbs.

The first half of the ride was powered by adrenaline and novelty. Everything was exciting. My heart rate, though, was in a good place; it averaged 152, much lower on the flats. It wasn’t until mile 38 that I first glanced down at my headset with the intent of checking mileage. Before that point, I’d been enjoying the views, hammering a bit above my target wattage, and trying to see if I could get aero enough in my decidedly less-than-aero setup to pass TT riders (while keeping watts in check). The solid food in my bento box was going down just fine. In fact, at mile 40, I felt like I could’ve sprinted it home. Which made me nervous. I saw myself cooking it and leaving my poor legs out to dry for the 13 miles that would follow. Trusting our plan, I upped cadence and stuck right at my target wattage for the rest of the ride. After the last aid station, riders started to fly past me. So many riders. But none of them were females who appeared to be in my age group. I was here to race; I had my eye out for 18-24 y/o women. If I thought I saw one, I’d make an effort to bump the wattage just a tad and see if I could hang. There was one whose name I wish I knew. We passed each other back and forth too many times to count, and she laughed with me when I grabbed an aid-station Maurten gel, attempted to swallow it, and visibly recoiled in shock. (The oyster texture! It was just so new to me! I could not handle it and returned gratefully to my fig bars.)

The last half mile of the ride was a slow and winding soft-pedal over the carpeted chute that ran from one end of transition to the other. I remember running on that carpet post-swim and looking around for the bike-in, absolutely certain that they couldn’t have us ride the hairpin bends and little roundabout turns that we’d run. Apparently, they could! I remember a fleeting thought about how my comfort on those twists was an encouraging finding ahead of some potential spring term crit racing. I also remember feeling guilty for my far-off cycling excitement when I should’ve been mentally preparing for T2. The bike shoes came off, running shoes on, and it was go-time.   

The Run

The run was the biggest unknown of the race. I felt certain that I’d enjoy the ride, and I knew I’d at least survive the swim. But my running legs are still fairly new to me—which feels funny to say! I was captain of our cross country and track teams in high school. Running was my thing! But in truth, I was injured on and off for almost the entirety of high school. My best workouts back then were probably our weekly races; I’d stay off my knee (or feet, or calves, or whatever the issue was) all week, minus the occasional required soccer practice/game, and then race all-out every Friday on nothing but dregs of base fitness from the summertime. It was an odd way to train. The result as I entered college was a love for running and familiarity with the sport, but next to nothing in the endurance department. Finally healing my legs and getting to train running in a dedicated fashion with an excellent coach was hands down the best part of the HIM build. 

This is all just to say that I had little idea what to expect when I headed out of T2. I was beaming on post-ride endorphins, a sea of friendly faces outside transition, and relief about relying just on my own two legs. The first mile felt floaty—bizarrely effortless. Adrenaline! It does wonderful things. I have less to say about the run than I do about the bike and the swim, because I truly believe that fewer thoughts crossed my mind. That floating, bouncy feeling didn’t disappear until the start of mile 11. Until that point, I’d been trying to negative split the back half of the run (and was having some success)! But a sharp uphill and lack of shade suddenly made me very conscious of my searing quads and vague nausea. I pulled back a bit for that second-to-last mile, baby jogged the final aid station, and vowed to make the last mile my fastest by a long shot. (It was!) 

The intervening miles (2-10) flew by. There was an aid station each mile, and I took a couple of seconds at all of them to dump water on my head and take a quick sip of coke/redbull/gatorade. (Favorite? Redbull, hands down. To my great surprise.) The course was two loops of a 5k out-and-back, which meant that we ran the same stretch of beachfront miles four times. So, four times, I cheered for the guy dressed as a dinosaur, waved at the angels spraying us with their garden hose, high-fived a little kid in a wagon, and yelled “banana man!” everytime I passed the athlete who was racing in a banana suit. Robin and I saw each other twice (!!) running opposite directions, and I can mark both instances with an excited little jump in my pace. For the first 7 miles, I stuck as close as I could to our planned 8:20-8:30 minute miles. To my surprise, the pace—and consistency at that pace—came easily. In training, I’d find myself exerting significant effort trying to keep my “race pace” runs at a consistent speed. The number would fall and I’d overcorrect, bouncing wildly from 6:50s to 10:30s (probably failing to account for the lack of flat roads at this College on the Hill). My paces would average out, usually, to a mediocre approximation of the goal, but I remember feeling frustrated that I couldn’t ever pace myself “by feel.” On race day, though, I was shocked by the consistency of my pacing. So shocked, in fact, that I did a watch-face double-take (at least three times) to see if the time was still running, completely certain that I’d accidentally paused. I add this as a note to my future self. Training works, and hard work comes through (even when attempts might feel futile)!

The run wrapped up in a sea of spectators and undeniable bliss. A wild physiological finding: one minute I was running down the finish chute at a sub-7’ pace, and literally thirty seconds later (post-finish line) I could not bend my legs. Or my back. I’d felt my back tighten sharply after the first 400 yards or so of swimming with my head up out of the water, and I definitely recalled standing up and trying to stretch it out on the bike while we coasted down a speed-capped descent. As soon as I stopped running, though, I could not twist side to side nor even begin to bend down and pick up the bottle I’d dropped. Mildly alarmed but wildly excited, I hobbled towards a beaming Robin. 

Post-Race

Without question, one of the coolest parts of this race was that I was excited to go home. A race like this one is fun; it’s bound to be. The views are stunning, the energy is unmatched, and there are professional triathletes everywhere you look. I can’t say exactly the same about every training ride, run, or swim (of course). But I had so much fun building up to the race—running on healthy legs, slowly learning the ropes in the pool, and working harder than I ever have on the bike. Doing all of these little things everyday, with excellent coaches and my very best friends, was nothing short of wonderful. So when it was time to pack up and head home, I was grateful for the experience and excited to fall back into a training rhythm (after some rest, of course). When I say that I’m ready for more triathlon, I’m not sure yet what that means. Perhaps another 70.3 (definitely at some point; the question is when!). But in the immediate future, I can’t wait to prep with the team for our spring sprint race. (Yay, Polar Bear!) It feels like every day I get a bit more excited about the prospect of SBRing with this top-notch crew of athletes and coaches in Hanover for another few years. 

As a final note: I debated adding the following section, and I’m still not positive that it belongs. But in the hope that it’s a helpful thing for someone to read—or even just mildly interesting—I’ve left it in! I also have so many more thoughts on the topic, if anyone feels like chatting. I’ve learned a ton and am always looking to learn more!

I’ve struggled with chronic bone bruises, cartilage erosion, and amenorrhea for about as long as I’ve been running. Even after I received treatment for a severe eating disorder in my last two years of high school, chronic underfueling in the name of looking “like a runner” was preventing me from running at all. Last summer, after seven months of rest and no indication that the bone bruises in my femur and patella were healing, I was forced to face the fact that my ED recovery was far from complete. On some level, I think that I was well aware of this. The difference was that now, I had concrete athletic goals to pursue, a community to pursue them with, little-sibling athletes to influence, and a self-made ultimatum: it was time to solve this fueling thing. For good.  

Physiologically, the doctors explained, energy deficiency and a lack of sufficient estrogen (due to prolonged amenorrhea) was one of the few explanations for my persistently weak bones. The diligent work that I was doing—physical therapy, cross training, stretching, rolling—would be unlikely to yield results if I didn’t fix my fueling. So, in the summer of 2022, I dug in. I resumed appointments with my long-lost nutritionist and promised to be honest with myself. The plan was to fuel for athletic performance. It took an uncomfortable several months of genuine (and rather invisible) mental effort, but I went from walk-running on perpetually swollen knees to beginning a full—and painless—HIM build in December of that year. While I’m sure a number of factors were at play, the only variable that shifted significantly was my decision to work with a licensed nutritionist, gain weight (!!), and fix my amenorrhea to help my bones heal. The complete disappearance of knee pain that had been around for nearly as long as I can remember is still a bit shocking to me; grateful doesn’t begin to express what I feel. This first 70.3 marked a number of mental transitions, but one of the more significant of these was a final nail in the coffin for the concept that lighter would inevitably mean faster.

Now, a final (final) note: To Robin and all of the training buddies/best friends who I’m so lucky to have in my life: THANK YOU for the adventures! More to come! And to my family, who only sometimes questioned the absurdly long winter-break trainer rides / pool trips, you guys rock. So much. I’m also ridiculously grateful to Coach Jim for the daily words of advice and encouragement (let alone the stellar training plan), to Coach Katie for the above-and-beyond support (even when I wasn’t “her” athlete!), and to Coach Jeff for helping me believe that I could be a triathlete before I could even swim 50 straight yards. I hope they all know that it means so much. 🙂 

Just for fun, I picked out a few pictures that are relevant to the parts of the story that I talk about in this reflection. Here they are! 

About the Author:

Audrey Herrald is a Dartmouth ’23 from Thornton, CO majoring in Neuroscience. She’s excited to attend Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine next year and to keep SBRing in Hanover with friends old & new.