2015 Racing: What I had not planned for

Those of you who follow me might recall my somewhat disastrous end to my 2014 season. Against my better judgement, I attempted a 2nd Ironman of the season with little to no preparation. The results were not as dramatic as this picture looks, but I did end up visiting the ER in Calella, Spain to get a silly cast placed on my foot:

And so I decided that 2015 would need a new course.  I hired myself a new coach, who had a very different mindset from my previous coach.  Suddenly it was about life first, plan training around that.  If you are tired, go easy.  Hurry slowly.  This meant more time to do stuff with the family and prioritize differently.  :)  Here are Jesper and kids in Lanzarote on a submarine....

Another big difference with new coach was, I could race as much as I liked!  And not just a race to "go easy and get some training", the instruction was always "go for the win!".  I raced often this season, did well on many occasions, and absolutely loved it.  Here is a race I won early in the season, together with my better half  Jesper, in a mixed team time trial:

I was even lucky enough to win a race on Mother's day, that I could dedicate to my mum.  She was pleased to have received a virtual Mother's day gift of flowers I had won.  :)

Some days I even won money, like this race I did to support my club who was organizing the race:

A big advantage of racing locally is being able to take the family along.  Here is a day when all 4 of us ran.  8k for me and 5k for the rest of them.  I managed to see all of them during the run, and was at the finish line to greet them when they came in.  Great day for the family!

But things did not always go according to plan.  Kraichgau 70.3 (Germany, 10 hours drive away), where I had hoped to qualify for the world championship, was a bit of a disaster.  It was warmer than I expected (30+ degrees) and my head was in the wrong place.  I finished 16th (as opposed to on the podium) and was quite disappointed with myself.

But Mr Coach didn't seem to think it was a big deal.  Told me to go out and race again 2 weeks later.  #2HalfIMsin2Weeks??  Apparently so.  I did, and came home with a surprise trophy.  I came 3rd, and secured my slot to the world championship.  Well, why did I go all the way to Germany to do this then??  By pure chance this was Father's day and I could dedicate this win to my dad!

Threw in a sprint triathlon the weekend after and managed to be part of a champagne podium bath, a first for me.  :)

By now it was summer holidays and I had a month off to recover and enjoy some summer holidays with the family.  Another last minute race early August found me winning yet more money in a half ironman race in Fredericia.  I passed the race leader early in the run and proceeded to win by almost 3 minutes.

Final goal for the season was world championship for 70.3 in Austria.  I had no expectations for this race other than go out and have a great time.  I wasn't sure I would be doing another world championship in the near future.  I had a great time and picked up some great souvenirs.  I did myself proud when I dropped around 40 girls in the mountains on the bike.  I finished 38th in the world (!), good enough to place me in the top 1% in the world ranking for half Ironman.

And so what remained was finishing the season off with New York City marathon in November.  Not really a goal for the season, but rather something cool to do.  In the process I managed to win a half marathon by a whopping 13 minutes:

Sadly that was the last good run I would have before the NYC marathon.  I injured myself 4 weeks out from the race, and did no running for the 4 weeks prior to the marathon.  Less than ideal, but hey, this is New York!!

If you believe in miracles, then my marathon in New York might qualify as one.  I stood at the start line saying to my friends, "Well, I don't even know if I can run.".  Last time I tried (5 days before), I could barely jog slowly, and hurt very much the day after.  But well, I could run.  It was cool to start (I was so excited that I could run with no pain!!) but became a big struggle towards the end.  I fought and fought and fought, and never gave up to walking.  I finished in 3:33:38, not much slower than my best marathon time in an Ironman.  Not much slower than many people's PB in a marathon.  In fact faster than many people's PB in a marathon.  I was so proud.  My hard earned medal:

The moral of the story?  Well, to me, the moral of the story is that you can't always plan how things turn out.  You can hope to train, train, and hope for the best, but you never know what life will throw at you, during training or during the race.  But you can make the best out of the situation.  Be grateful for what you can get do.  Control your attitude.  Keep smiling, even when you can't walk any more.  :)

I am grateful to my coach Robbie Haywood from trisutto.com for encouraging me and putting up with my grumpiness and challenges, and for letting me race as often as I pleased.  Also big thank you to my biggest fan and better half Jesper, and our family who has helped enable our racing lifestyles.

Roll on 2016!

Complete set of 2015 results, in case you are interested:

Podium results:

EAM winter run series (winter) - 1st female

Brørup parløb (April) - 1st mixed team
Ringkøbing 1/2 marathon (May) - 1st female
Fredericia Vikingman 1/2 half ironman Aaugust) - 1st female by 3 minutes
Herning løbet 1/2 marathon (September) - 1st female by 13 minutes
Vrøgum løbet 8km (May) - 2nd female
Esbjerg stafetten (August) - 2nd all female team
Kronborg 70.3 (June) - 3rd in age group and qualified for World Championship

Other results:
Jels duathlon (April)  - 4th female
Kraichgau 70.3 (June) - 16th in age group (disappointed)
World Championship 70.3 (August) - 38th
New York marathon (November) - 3:33:38 after 4 weeks of no running

Overall result 2015:  Top 1% in the world at half Ironman (70.3) distance :)

Finally getting off the fence - #50WomentoKona

To start with, let's clarify my position.  I am a female Age Group triathlete, but also a big time triath-a-geek.  So much so that I thought "triath-a-geek" was a concept the average person would understand, but my partner advised me otherwise.  :P  But to illustrate my triath-a-geek-ness, here is a post I posted on Facebook not long before Challenge Bahrain:

I follow pro women races so closely that I know them by name.  That makes me a huge fan, supporter, groupie-if-I-could-be, sort of person.  So it has troubled me a bit, to watch the developments of the 50 Women to Kona campaign, without being drawn into it.  Whilst I am all for equality (I am a minority female engineer in the oil industry and know all about it), something about the campaign did not sit right with me.

I did not think that any, or perhaps many, deserving pro women were missing out on Kona, because there were only 35 slots.  To this triath-a-geek, the big names were in.  On the other hand, was it right that there were less women represented in this big race?  I didn't really think so either.  Following trirating.com suggests that pro women needed to work harder to qualify,  So something was amiss, I just never figured out what.

But today I was enlightened.  I read a great post by trisutto.com who suggests that rather than fighting for 50 slots for women, we should be fighting for a compromise of equality e.g. 40 men AND women to Kona.  Now that I can buy in to.  Let's make this an equal playing field, not necessarily by sending 50 Women to Kona.

By lowering the standards for women, you end up with the risk of me turning up in Kona as a pro, and I certainly do not deserve that.  There are many pseudo-pros who have a pro licence, but work and live a normal life beside it.  I could in theory be one of those, and I certainly would not want to devalue the true pros who have devoted their lives to this sport.  I am just a part-timer who gets to enjoy the finer things in life whilst dabbling in triathlon, albeit seriously....  :)

Let's focus instead on increasing the value of the true, good pros.  The Mirinda Carfrae, Daniela Ryf, Rachel Joyce, Jodie Swallow, Helle Frederiksen, Camilla Perdersen, Michelle Vesterby, etc of the world (and yes that list is Danish biased). They deserve it!

Winter Training in All its Glamour

Good for:  Building fitness during cold winter months

Not so good for:  Staying entertained

So let's do something different and start this blog with a question.  What is wrong with this picture?

I can forsee many answers...  Cycling next to a washing machine.  Almost exposed arse.  Weird laptop screen on top of washing machine.  Cycling indoors.  Taking a picture of all of the above.  :P

But this is the reality of winter training when you live in the colder parts of Europe.  To be a fair weather trainer is to not be much of a trainer at all.  So you make the best of what you have.  An indoor trainer, with a laptop for entertainment.  Sometimes with a washing machine and a dryer for company.  Always with towels and rugs to mop up the sweat.

But I don't complain (much)....  It makes you stronger in your mind if you can race against nothing on a stationery bike.  It is good value for time spent, because you don't have to worry about turns and traffic lights.  Just get on the bike and get it done.

Happy days, roll on race season 2015!