Another year in the White Mountains! This race was one of my first moments of dipping my toes back into the tri world when I did the half distance relay back in 2018 and it's become a staple of my race calendar ever since - I've done the half twice (twice was enough with that run course lol) and this was my 5th time racing the Olympic distance. It's super well organized and a beautiful course but also feels really welcoming and friendly - the sort of race where you see everything ranging from top of the line tri bikes to Huffy bikes from Walmart in transition, and I absolutely love it. This year, the race kicked off a 9 day vacation in the Whites for us, which made it even more glorious! I was sort of strangely nervous about this race in a way I hadn't been for Patriot - I think after making the podium last year I had much higher expectations for myself and I wasn't very confident I could achieve anywhere near my performance from last year given my training at the moment. But I kept reminding myself that it didn't really matter anyway! The point was that I got to do my favorite race in my favorite place and I was just there to enjoy the experience and start my vacation off right.
We drove up to Lincoln on Friday and got settled in our cabin for the week. Bike racking on Friday ended up being cancelled because of thunderstorms, but I still went and picked up my packed just to make the morning easier. We grabbed pizza and beer to go from Iron Furnace and took it back to the cabin for a lovely and relaxing evening of reading and settling in.
Weather on race morning was gorgeous, and with a race start of 8:30 and a commute of only 10 minutes down the notch the morning felt downright leisurely. I finally have my morning routine for these races pretty locked in - get up, eat a banana, start drinking caffeine, trisuit on, braid my hair, in this case race tattoos (and glitter face tattoos! My new favorite thing), grab my bag and go. I think Franconia Notch is one of the most beautiful places in the world to drivet through and it was putting on a show this morning with sun streaking through low clouds and a golden glow hitting the mountains.
I got my bike racked and transition set up and somehow ended up becoming the mom of my row, letting people borrow my sunscreen, answering questions about helmet stickers, the course, which side to rack on, and trying to give people just a good vibe to start the day. I felt like I had some time to kill and decided that what I would do with that time was take off my middle water bottle cage because I didn't need it, and #aero (why. Lol). There was a bit of a snafu when a guy on the other side of the rack showed up like 15 minutes before the prerace meeting and was trying to wedge his stuff in, at which point we realized the guy racked next to *him* was actually racked in the complete wrong row (and obviously, had disappeared so there was nothing to be done for it). The racking situation at the race is a little confusing because they set up the racks in sort of a zig zag order - it makes sense because the numbers are ordered by swim ability, so theoretically if you just did it numerically everyone on one rack would be showing up from the swim at the same time. BUT there are cards with numbers literally on the racks, so it's kind of hard to mess up honestly. I could probably have let it go if future events didn't prove that this guy was just a complete space cadet with literally zero fucks given for anyone around him.
ANYWAY, after sort of poodling around for awhile I abruptly realized that I needed to get down to the water if I wanted to get in before the race. The prerace email had said the water temperature was 70, so I'd brought my sleeveless wetsuit, but come to find out it was 62! I probably would have worn my full sleeve if I'd known but it actually was fine and made me feel like I need to be less of a wuss about wearing my sleeveless in colder temps in the future. That being said, I did want to at least get in the water before the race to get that initial cold shock out of the way, so I hustled down to the start and did just that. Took a few strokes just to warm things up and then it was about time to get in line. I was at the front of my line this year which was kind of fun, and made even more fun by the fact that the girl next to me was throwing her own private dance party which is my VIBE, and so I started dancing with her, which made me think of the very first time Elise and I did this triathlon together when we had literally NO idea what we were doing, and it really made me smile. There's no better way to get rid of the nerves than to dance like an idiot!
Then it was go time! The race director gave me probably one of the best high fives I've ever received in my life and yelled "let's fucking GO!" Which reach just started things off right for me, lol. I had to stop myself from grinning as I dove into the water and got started with the swim.
Swim - 27:54 (1:43/100), 38th OA, 12th F, 1st AG
The swim was very uneventful! Which I suppose in many ways is what you want from a swim. The water was chilly but actually felt kind of lovely once I got going, and I found myself really just locking into my stroke and grooving. I really haven't been swimming a whole lot this year but I just continue to prove to myself that my body has one swim pace that it loves, and will swim regardless of my actual fitness. My sighting on the way out for both loops was pretty solid; the way back was another story. I think I was getting so caught up in looking at Cannon that I started pulling towards it into the center of the rectangle, because multiple times I would come up to sight and be like, in front of a paddleboat and nowhere near the line of swimmers, lol. I tried to draft a couple of times but I still have yet to find someone to swim behind where that actually works for more than a couple of seconds! My splits were super consistent and I never really ran into traffic. Soon enough the beach was in sight and I was running up to transition. The crowds along this stretch were great - in general, there seemed to be a TON of spectators this year - and it was fun to have kids holding out their hands for high fives and generally just a rowdy scene helping to power me up into transition.
T1 - 2:59, 24th OA, 8th F, 3rd AG
OK, when I look at my placement maybe this wasn't as bad as I originally thought (I think the entire run up the hill counts as part of this transition time) but boy oh boy did this transition feel like a MESS. Someone (*I have a suspiscion as to who*) had jostled the rack and my helmet was on the ground, after considering not wearing crew socks I had decided to wear them and somehow ended up putting one on UPSIDE DOWN and additionally was just having a really hard time wrangling them on my wet feet, I literally got to the mount line and realized I needed to tighten my shoes...etc. It wasn't great. I feel like T1 is something I never practice outside of races and that is probably why I suck at it lol. Oh well, it happened, on to the bike!
Bike - 1:21:32 (18.3 mph), 24th OA, 4th F, 1st AG
Can I first of all just take a moment to say that placement wise, my bike was basically the same as my run?!!! Am I finally becoming a triple threat?? Well that's pretty exciting, hah. We just continue to confirm that climbing is what I'm good at, whether I like it or not. I do also think I know this course REALLY well at this point, and that helps me to sort of prepare and plan in a way that helps me measure out my effort. It's a simple course, really: 5 miles of screaming downhill, 7 miles rolling uphill, 7 miles rolling downhill, 5 miles straight uphill.
We all know descending is not necessarily my special strength, but I barely was on the brakes at ALL this year and I was really happy with how much I enjoyed the descent - I literally yelled "I'M NOT AFRAID ANYMORE!!" A la Home Alone at one point, lol. I did have to pass a couple of people which was unfortunate and forced me to be a bit more cautious at points but whatever, we made it, 32+ mph and all. I actually felt pretty terrible the entire out section from Franconia - I think I always forget that this section is mainly uphill and there are actually a few nasty little kicks in it, because compared to the end of the course it is "flat" (it is not flat). So I was a little mean to myself, only to see my 10 mile split come through and realize that I was still riding *plenty* fast and I needed to give myself some grace. I passed quite a few people through this section but was also looking at the people starting to come back on the other side and somehow convinced myself I was in like 12th place for women. I think at that particular moment I was maybe in 7th or 8th, as I would pass a couple more women on the second half of the bike, but I also just had to remind myself that like, why does it matter what place you're in right now? Additionally, I saw a BABY highland cow at the farm on the out section and when I screamed hi to him he looked RIGHT at me!! So things really weren't all that bad.
To solve my little mental turmoil I did what I always do which is start looking for moose and start cheering for people. I LOVE getting to yell at people heading out when I'm coming back in this race, especially because like I said earlier there tend to be quite a few newer racers and it just makes me happy to give them their flowers for the fact that they're out here crushing a VERY hard course. That entertained me for awhile, then I started leapfrogging back and forth with a woman who I'd passed awhile back and who had now reappeared. Soon enough the fun downhill stretch back to Franconia was over and it was time to head into the real teeth of the course with the big final climb to transition. I had drank a full bottle of high carb during the first 20 miles and then took a gel right before the hill and switched to regular Skratch which I think was smart and gave me a little more oomph particularly for the second half of the climb.
The KOM segment sucked, as it always does. I thought I was riding SO slow and my last gear down on Bheithir has this irritating habit of jumping after about 15 seconds, so I kept having to try to manage that. It turned out I actually did the steep section of the climb pretty much exactly the same as last year, so that was a victory especially considering my hill training has been somewhat lacking! I finally think I've gotten a handle on the rest of the climb after the steep part (mostly the fact that it exists, and you're just stuck with it lol) so I felt like I was able to find a better gear and a better rhythm to handle the remainder of the course that I have in the past. I passed a woman at the top of the climb after the freeway underpass and made some comment like "I always think this will get easier, but it never does" and she sort of laughed and said "maybe next year!". I passed a couple of men on my *favorite* Skookumchuck bike path (including one who said "HUH?!" As I passed him saying "on your left, good job!") and that bike path section actually felt like it went by probably the fastest of any year I've done this. It may have been because I rode it the fastest I ever have, but who's to say? The crowds were rowdy once again heading back into transition and I hit my watch with what I was pretty sure was a bike course PR (yes) and headed for T2.
T2 - 1:05, 13th OA, 4th woman, 2nd AG
I don't know if it was my perception of my terrible T1, but I FINALLY got a fire lit under me in T2 - I think this may have been my quickest one ever. Probably would have been under 1 minute if I hadn't had to chase down a water bottle that I accidentally kicked over and sent rolling away. Anyway, it was speedy and I was happy and I got my ass out of there and onto the run.
Run - 47:43 (7:50 pace), 22nd OA, 4th woman, 3rd AG
I am SHOCKED how strong I felt on this run, especially compared to last year when I was arguably in much better shape! The first mile of this course is always fast but this year I was fast-fast (a 7:15 mile lol wut). I really wanted to try not to walk at all on the giant hill in the bike path, and I ALMOST managed it - I took like 10 seconds at the top of the steepest section, and that was it. Once I got off the hill I just felt cruis-y - my legs actually felt shockingly good throughout this entire run. This is another place where knowing the course was helpful, I knew the out section was more uphill even though it somehow feels downhill, and vice versa, and I was really proud that on both laps my splits on the mile coming back were in the 7:30s!
I grabbed some chews from the 2 mile aid station because I had lost one of my gels in transition and I wasn't sure if I'd be hungry, but it turned out my bike fueling was on point and I actually didn't need anything beyond some water on the run. The temperature was lovely - a little warm in the sun, sure, but really not bad all things considered. I could tell I was relatively far up in the field by how few people were around on my first lap, but it was too hard to try to count women again at this point so I figured I would just run as fast as I could and see what happened.
Somewhere in the second lap the girl I had passed on the bike came FLYING by me - it was very obvious that unless she blew up in some spectacular way I would not be catching her again. Other than that I was pretty much exclusively passing on the run, which feels good even in the second loop when things sort of get muddled and you're passing people in the sprint and the half and sort of vaguely trying to tell whether someone's bib color matches yours. The second trip up the hill still sucked, as it does, and I did walk for a second once, but I actually didn't slow down at all compared to the first loop which I feel like demonstrates how well I executed this race.
Once I got to the final turnaround things definitely started to feel a lot harder, but I could tell I still had enough left in me to push and better yet, I WANTED to push. I wanted to lean into the hard and earn the best performance I could. I always joke that I'm sort of a lazy athlete, all things considered, because I like things to be hard but only up until a certain point. It felt really good to ask myself if I could give a little more, and then have both my body and my mind respond with, you know what, yes.
The last little uphill brought out the fire engine breathing for sure, but I summoned a kick down the last downhill, crossing the line in 2:41:11. I had to look it up, and I kind of didn't believe it, but this was a 2.5 minute course PR! It made no sense and yet it made perfect sense - at the end of the day, the way I ALWAYS perform my best is when I go in with no expectations, no agenda, and just go out there and have some fun.
Despite the PR, I didn't quite make the podium this year, but I was actually happy to end up in 5th rather than 4th as I would have been more sad if the girl who'd run me down had knocked me off the podium! I still won my age group, and I actually think perhaps the most impressive stat was that I was 19th overall, including men! I'll take that!
ALSO when I got back to my bike sir douchebag mcgee had literally racked his bike NOT EVEN ON THE RACK....it was leaning up against the bike next to his, which had subsequently leaned over into mine...and I mean just come ON man. The guy across from me mentioned that he could barely find his stuff in transition because this dude had thrown his shit everywhere and all I can say is...not all men, but always men.
Anyway, this race was a great start to vacation, and as always reminded me of all of the things I love about this sport. Only 3 more years until it surpasses Boston as my favorite/most frequently completed race ever!
White Mountains Triathlon (Olympic)
2:41:11
19th/206 OA, 5th/82 woman, 1st/12 AG
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