Most people that know me would tell you that I’m kind of a nerd (but they always add… it’s a compliment… Hmm, sure!) I do love math though, I love numbers and I love analyzing them. So I thought I would start my 2017 triathlon season recap with a few numbers. This year I spent a total of 454 hours swimming, biking and running, and a few more strength training which is almost 19 complete days of just training for triathlon. I traveled 9700 km (6023 miles) which is the equivalent of running from Seattle to Miami and back!
Bike Run Total Time (hours)
I raced one half marathon, 2 sprint triathlons and 3 half Ironman, in which I ranked in all of them, including two division first place, and two top 5 overall. I’d say this season was a success and I’m proud of it even though my critical mind cannot push away all the fails, negative and steps I have to make in order to be better! This year was also my last season in the 20-24 years old age group and even though I’ll be 24 for almost the entire season next year I’ll be racing against girl 5 years older than me, but more importantly 5 years more of experience behind their belt. (That’s a lot of days and km of training!)
During one of the many long training rides
Let’s revisit this season’s major goal:
Qualify for Ironman 70.3 world Championship in Chattanooga, Tennessee (CHECK)
Race different length event and more than last year (Half CHECK, race the same amount)
Sub 5hrs Ironman 70.3 (NO)
Run a sub 1h40min half marathon in an Ironman 70.3 (Almost, 1h40min15sec)
Have fun and improve (CHECK)
Managed and keep a balance between training, working, grad school and life (NOT BAD)
Now I’d say I did OK in terms of my goals, I qualified for Worlds, but I didn’t have the race of my life there as I was still tired from Maine 70.3 13 days prior. One of the problem I had last year was my lack of motivation and enjoyment at the end of the season. I think it was mostly due to the fast that I was so focus on the Ironman that I barely raced anything else. This year I wanted to race more and not end up in the same position. I raced the same amount of events and I did found the last few weeks before Worlds hard as I was having trouble finding the motivation to train hard and push myself. This is a goal that will be on my list again next year as I want to find that balance of fun but also be competitive and push my body to the limit. And most importantly, not feel over-trained mentally and physically at the end of the summer.
Training camp in Lake Placid with the
I did have a lot of fun this year, a few strong moments were racing with my entire family at Maine 70.3, the training camp in lake placid, the Harvest Sprint triathlon where I had to fight against 2 of my teammates for a podium spot, and the list could go on forever. As for the balance it’s probably something I will have to work on and tune up for the rest of my life as responsibilities change and my life evolves, but that’s OK.
Between moving to Boston, going to grad school, working full time and trying to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life, this year has been pretty packed and I had to get creative and organized myself well in order to be able to train and achieve my goals this year. Being surrounded by people that believed in me and pushed me to get better definitely helped and I wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of it without my coach Jorge at E3coaching, and the entire team, my boyfriend Spencer who woke up with me plenty of times at 4am to come to the races with me and take amazing photos, my parents who have been supporting me from the beginning and still do from afar and all the people I trained with, and met this summer. This years has been full of surprised, unforeseen events, challenges, but also victories and personal accomplishments. While I’m already starting to train for next year, my race schedule is not yet finalized, but I can’t wait for new challenges, maybe some different type of events and a lot of fun with teammates, fellow triathletes, friends (and of course, my bike!)
The End of a great season
Thanks for reading all the way to the end and for taking interest in this part of my life. Cheers to a great 2017 and to an even better 2018!
I will write about my 2018 plan and goals in my next blog post.
2017 Season Recap Most people that know me would tell you that I’m kind of a nerd (but they always add… it’s a compliment… Hmm, sure!) I do love math though, I love numbers and I love analyzing them.
