Skip to content

Training

I have been training for Oceanside 70.3 throughout the winter with my dear friend, Audrey. Last fall we were looking around for half Ironman races and thought “what could be better than the promise of California to get us through a cold New Hampshire winter?” Training was equal parts wonderful and challenging. Having Audrey as a training buddy was a blast. So many Saturdays we ventured out together into -36 degree weather or snow storms in search of an open pool, face-timed during our many hours on the trainer, and lay on the cold floor of the locker room after a long day of training laughing and debriefing. 

On the other hand, winter training during a Dartmouth term was a bit tough. I was taking four classes, and although I could balance training early on, my body got increasingly worn down throughout the term. I got a series of viruses that lasted three weeks.  I also struggled to get adequate nutrition. Keeping up with training-level nutrition is logistically challenging in college, especially as a vegetarian in foco. I also struggled with body image and some restrictive eating habits from my past. I hurt my knee biking in December, meaning I could not run for the first month and a half of training. Although I was putting in my hours, I felt like my fitness just continued to move backwards, which was frustrating. While training in the summer, there was a clear correlation between effort invested and progress. As a type-A person, I found that to be incredibly satisfying. It provided me with a sense of control and forward movement during a time when I felt out of control in other areas of my life. I discovered that the qualities that make many endurance athletes can be a double edged sword: focusing on control of fitness metrics can easily lead to frustration when fitness naturally ebbs or training does not have the desired results. Pain tolerance, even a seeking out of pain, during strategic workouts can lead to overtraining and overly restrictive diets that hurt the body rather than help it. Competitiveness can lead to being overly self-critical. I felt like I was fighting my body, not working with it or nurturing it. 

As I headed into race week, I sat down and reflected on lessons to be learned from my winter training. All my frustrations had obscured the primary reasons I do this sport. 1) To have fun. 2) Friends and community. 3) Pushing my body (in a healthy way) to discover what it is capable of. 4) Learning how to apply myself towards challenging goals, whether in sports or in life. 5) Embracing gratitude for my health and able body.

As I proceed with this sport, I want to be driven by these motivations. I want to be wary of the ways my competitiveness, type-A personality, and pain tolerance can become unproductive. Nutrition is of the utmost importance. There are no shortcuts. Sometimes this means fighting deeply ingrained intuitions about how to eat and what my body should look like as an athlete, which will be an ongoing process. If I want to become stronger in the long term and continue doing triathlons, I must eat a lot and well. I want to reflect on the psychological reasons that I fall back into restrictive eating habits when I am struggling. It is also important to keep in mind the larger picture: fitness ebbs and flows, injuries and illnesses happen, and personal challenges arise, but I am only at the beginning of my triathlon journey. My A-race this year is in August, so I still have many months to continue building fitness and focusing on nutrition. Beyond that I have years, even decades, to continue enjoying this sport and seeing what I am capable of. 

I cannot control my knee injury, viruses, or choices already made about nutrition. What I can do is focus on taking care of my body right now, soak in every moment of this adventure, and head out to that start line ready to have a great time. 

Now onto the race itself! Audrey and I headed down to Boston Wednesday night and stayed with the wonderful Katie and Connor. Katie helped us with all the logistics, packing, food, and pre-race advice. We embarked for Logan airport the next day with bags strapped on front and back, rolling our unwieldy bike cases through the airport. Friends and coaches from Dartmouth tri team wrote the kindest pre-race notes for us that had me tearing up on the plane as I read them. We stayed in an airbnb with a huge crew of lovely people: my boyfriend, his whole family, three sets of family friends, his childhood best friend, my mom, and Audrey’s mom, eight of whom raced or relayed! The parents treated us to a delicious home cooked meal the night before the race. It was wonderful to feel embraced by such a good group of triathlon-loving people. 

Morning of

I woke up at 4:15 am, chamois buttered, sun-screened, bundled up, and headed to transition. It was chilly out and the water was a brisk 56 degrees. The whole group was stationed at the same spot in transition area. We passed around Vaseline and hyped each other up. It was nice to know what to expect my second time around at an IronMan event. I had familiar butterflies being channeled into the swim chute. I reminded myself that I was here to have fun. No worrying about metrics or competition, just focusing on doing a sport I love in a beautiful place.

Swim

I was worried about the water temperature, but it was surprisingly comfortable with a thermal cap, wetsuit, and ear plugs. They changed the swim course the morning of and there was no map to review. Navigation was easy enough for the first half of the swim. I felt smooth and strong. The sun was rising over the harbor. There are few things more invigorating than starting a triathlon in the early morning and watching the sun rise as you swim.  When I turned around, the sun blinded me, and I could not see anything, much less buoys yards away. I tried to follow the pack, but many people split off and I soon noticed I had gone pretty far off course. I returned to the course and followed the side of the harbor from buoy to buoy back to transition. Not my finest swim. But a good reminder to practice in open water with similar conditions before the race to check for goggle compatibility. 

Bike

I headed out to the bike course. A bit frazzled from the swim, I managed to forget my glasses, a rookie mistake! It turned out to be just fine, with the exception of a large bug that flew at my face. I spent the first few miles trying to lower my heart rate and get some nutrition down. The beginning of the bike course had a number of potholes, a flooded region of road, some tight turns, and narrow bike paths that made it challenging to pass. My goal was to keep my heart rate under 160 bpm, but it kept rising up while I was passing people early on in the bike. The bike course went through Camp Pendleton, which is usually closed to the public. It was absolutely stunning. The mountains were an unusually luscious green from recent rain. There were views of the Pacific. And the sky was cloudless. I focused on the joy of flying through such a beautiful landscape on a bike. I tried to moderate my effort more towards the later half of the bike. I struggled to maintain a consistent power without a power meter (I will have one soon!). Most of the elevation gain was within 20 miles and it was steep. I could feel that my fitness was not what it was for my first 70.3, but I tried not to focus on that. I expected my fitness to be a bit lower going in, and that is okay. On the way back to transition, I tried to pedal at a low power and high cadence to flush out the legs, which helped. Nutrition went well: I ate or drank my planned 60 grams of carbs per hour, which mostly consisted of 5 whole packs of salted watermelon chews (somehow the only thing I can get down when my HR is elevated). This was also my first race riding with aero bars, which were surprisingly comfortable and easy to handle with. Looking forward to the possibility of racing a TT bike in the future! 

Run

As I started the run, I instantly knew I had pushed slightly too hard on the bike. My legs were quite sore, unusually so, and my heart rate was creeping up. Still, I managed a decent pace for the beginning of the run. I downed either some water, coke, or Maurtens gel at every aid station. The race energy was wonderful: so many spectators cheering on the sidelines. I tapped a sign that said “for an extra energy boost touch this!” And smiled. Smiling goes a long way. One guy was spraying athletes with a hose. Others were playing pump up music or speaking into a megaphone. As the run wore on, it got more and more painful. I calculated every imaginable fraction of the way I was through the run course to distract myself. “1/8th, 1/4th, coke is yummy, 5/12ths, the ocean is beautiful, 5/8ths, oh hey there’s a guy in a banana suit, 3/4ths, its Audrey!!, 11/13ths, I am having fun, right?, 12/13ths, thank god there is the finish line!” 

Post Race

Overall, a great, great experience! I am mostly grateful to have had the opportunity to race this course with people I love on such a beautiful day. I got to watch Audrey absolutely crush her first Half Ironman after months of hard training, and it made me so happy! I am reminded how much I love the energy of a race environment. I love chatting with and cheering on the other athletes. I love the enthusiasm, solidarity, and grit seen everywhere on the race course. I love the challenge. I love the satisfaction of pushing my body. Most importantly, I had fun, which was my main goal! And as a bonus I laid eyes on Chelsea Sodaro, and I placed 4th in my age group and got a cute wooden plaque. After the race, we relaxed in a hot tub at the Airbnb while the sun set over the Pacific and ate a huge, delicious dinner together — the dream! Grateful for this beautiful whirlwind of a weekend and for everyone who made it possible: Audrey, the best adventure and training buddy a girl could ask for, Coach Katie for her constant support, coaching, thoughtfulness, and generosity, my amazing friends who listened to my frustrations and offered support at every step, Dartmouth tri team, my mom and dad, Andrew, Kris, Rena, Bill and crew who beyond being wonderful humans also organized, transported, cooked, and cleaned, all of the IronMan volunteers, the list goes on… I have many lessons to take away from this race and training process as I move forward with triathlon. On to the next! 

About the author:

Robin Sandell is a Dartmouth ‘23 from Palo Alto, CA majoring in philosophy. She's a Dartmouth tri team enthusiast and also loves to rock climb, backpack, paint, and travel.

Published Oct. 2, 2022

I plastered a smile on my face, looked up at the cloudless sky and sparkling lake and thought, “I am so lucky to be able to do this.” It really helped. I felt joy radiate through my body to give that extra push through the last few miles.

I signed up for Timberman in April and trained over the summer in California. This was my first Half Iron Man and second triathlon ever after Season Opener in the spring. The week prior to the race, I managed to feel both exhausted from week 1 madness and antsy from the taper. I got increasingly nervous for the race, having expected to feel a lot better the week of.

I drove to Laconia on Friday night where I met my Dad and my boyfriend, Andrew, who came to support my race. On Saturday, we drove the run course and parts of the bike course. It helped with my peace of mind to be able to visualize my exact trajectory for race day, including swim in, bike out, and run out from the transition area.

Although I was feeling pretty poorly on Saturday, I woke up Sunday feeling energized- –a reminder that good sleep two nights before the race is more important than the night of. Dad and Andrew made me a fantastic breakfast burrito (I highly recommend this as a race morning breakfast). Setting up at transition was straightforward. I felt some nerves, but mostly genuine excitement for a race I had been looking forward to for so long. I thought about the day as just another “unlimited energy day,” a day in which I get to move my body and enjoy being outside.

(From left to right: Ryan Brown '23, Carlos Ohler-Garcia '24, Elena Luria '25, Robin Sandell '23)

* * *

It took a little effort to push to the front of the swim lineup, but I’m very glad I did. I went out a bit fast but quickly got my breath back under control and settled into a sustainable pace. Finding someone with good navigation at the right pace to draft off of proved tricky, so I mostly swam by myself. I got little glimpses as I swam of a gorgeous sunrise over Opechee Bay. It went by remarkably fast. I ran into transition with Andrew screaming, “You’re in first, you’re in first!” 

The bike was the best leg of the race for me. I was aiming for 18 mph and averaged 19.6 mph. As a newbie to biking and not having a power meter to rely on during training, I really focused on maintaining a consistent power over the crests of the hills and turns. I also was able to get down quite a few solids early in the ride, which was essential to having energy on the run. Somehow my body seemed to forget how to swallow food. Coaching myself through swallowing a bite of a snack bar while barreling down the road was a fine moment.

Passing people was difficult because, especially early in the course, there were a lot of bikes on the road often bunched up around the base of hills. I took the effort to pass people if it allowed me to maintain a consistent power, even if they ended up passing me later. Thanks to my concerted efforts at hydration, I had to dash to the porta potties in T2. Unfortunately, the girl who ended up in first place was ahead of me by roughly the amount of time it takes to strip off a tri kit and frantically pee in a porta potty.

The beginning of the run felt really solid. I continued to eat goos every couple miles and drink water and Gatorade at every aid station. This involved chucking Gatorade in the general direction of my mouth as I ran and hoping some went in. The loop around the lake was pretty fast, with punchy uphills and long extended downhills during which I really tried to pick up momentum. By mile 9 or so, my body was really hurting and I was slowing down. Based on training I had expected to reach this point a lot earlier in the run. 

At this moment I returned to my “Why’s”: 

Why am I training for and running this race?

I plastered a smile on my face, looked up at the cloudless sky and sparkling lake and thought, “I am so lucky to be able to do this.” It really helped. I felt joy radiate through my body to give that extra push through the last few miles.

* * *

Robin crosses the finish line of the IRONMAN 70.3 Timberman, second in her age group (F18-24).

I was euphoric and relieved to cross the finish line! My time was 5 hours :29 mins., 30 minutes faster than my goal time, and I finished second in my age group.  A slot at the Finland World Championships next August was the cherry on top. This day was truly everything I could have hoped for. I felt overwhelmed by gratitude for an able body, for the privilege to train and race, and for all the loving people in my life who supported me in reaching this goal. A special shout out to Coach Jim, my Mom and Dad, Andrew, and the Dartmouth tri- team whom I adore. 

There is always room for improvement, but this is just the beginning of my triathlon journey. I am absolutely in love with this sport and this community of athletes and cannot wait to see where it will take me. 

* * *

Takeaways

Trust my training. I got nervous during the taper when I felt slow and tired instead of energized. It took a little while to shake off the cobwebs from the taper, but once they were shaken off, my body had the fitness and knew exactly what it was doing. 

Control what I can and do not stress about what I can’t. This is a classic lesson but cannot be overstated. Every time I felt stress arising in my body before and during the race, I quietly asked myself, is this over something I can control or not? If it was, I methodically went about making the necessary change to set myself up for success. If it was not, I took a deep breath and moved my focus elsewhere.

Have a list of “Why’s.” Training for and completing a half iron man brings with it many moments of physical pain, moments when everything in my body was screaming for me to stop. In these moments, I needed to return to the reasons I initially signed up for this race. I wanted to see what my body was capable of and experience the very edge of my physical and psychological capabilities. I wanted to dive deeply into a sport that brings me so much genuine joy and satisfaction when I reach my goals.  I wanted to celebrate the gift of an able body. I wanted to honor those in my life who do not have this gift.

Love and gratitude are my greatest motivators. I know this sounds cheesy, but cultivating these two emotions in my training and on race day gave me a more profound reason to push my body than achieving my physical goals. I was motivated by my love for my twin sister, which overwhelmed me in the most physically painful moments. All throughout my training and on race day, I kept looking around and pinching myself: “I am out here in a beautiful place doing a sport that I love. How lucky am I.”
(Pictured: Robin and her father, pre-race)


Robin Sandell is a Dartmouth ‘23 from Palo Alto, CA majoring in philosophy. She's a Dartmouth tri team enthusiast and also love to rock climb, backpack, paint, and travel.