Race report: Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells 2024
This race has given me inspiration in my triathlon journey as I enter into my next season of training and racing. It has shown me that what I am doing is working and that I can trust my decisions in my training. Many of the pieces needed to create a solid race are coming together for me. I am excited for 2025.
Here is a description (with numbers) on my race:
Age group: F60-64
Racing age: 60
Result: 9th in my age group (this is the highest ranked I have been at this race)
Time: 6:59:45 *my goal is to get much closer to 6. I have work to do but I believe I can do it. A 6:32 would have put me on the podium in this race.
My Coach: Me
My team & my suit: Cupcake Cartel / Cupcake Apparel
My focus for this race was to experiment with a deeper taper and to see where I am right now in fitness. I have been training most of the year for a full Ironman and had lost a good amount of speed in all three sports but mostly bike and run. More on that in a separate blog post. So my intention was mostly about seeing where I am right now in fitness and racing so that I can see which areas to focus on going into 2025. I concluded that my bike training is working really well and that an extra focus on run training will help a lot.
Also, I had a great support crew for this race with my husband, Bryan and my daughter, Sydney, and her partner Joshua.
Photo by: Sydney Lewis
Swim: 45:40 (8th in my age group)
Water temp: 58F
Photo by: Sydney Lewis
This was a fairly slow swim for me as I have done it in 40 minutes on this course before, however, open water swimming is challenging to compare as conditions change and buoys may not be perfectly aligned.
I did not do the swim warm up in the lake as my goal was to stay warm right up until I entered the water. Since the outside temperature was cold (approx 50F) I did not want to take the chance of standing around waiting to enter the water while I was already wet. This ended up being an excellent strategy as I was warm and felt great entering the water.
The course was reversed this year and I noticed the buoys were angled slightly differently which helped a lot - not sighting into the sun. This also made it much easier to see the beautiful hills around the lake.
I began the swim by easing into my pace essentially starting at warm up pace. I did this because I had opted not to do a race morning swim and because it was colder water so I wanted to give my body a chance to acclimate and regulate my breathing. This worked beautifully and I felt completely warmed up and at a good pace around 150 yards in.
I was in a positive mindset for the full swim and actually enjoyed myself out there which felt different than almost any other race I have done - with the exception of Santa Cruz when I swam with dolphins.
I did have a lot of men around me so had to obstacle course some of the swim which is probably why my time was a bit slower. For a few minutes I found some feet off a woman swimming in front of me and it felt great to draft even for a few minutes. She started swimming a bit off course so I scrapped that strategy and just kept going.
T1 felt really long ;-) because it was what they call a clean transition ie: grab your bag, go to the dressing area and get dressed, give your bag to volunteer and THEN go get your bike. I definitely had room for improvement in this one.
Bike: mph 17:53 (total = 3:12:06) (11th in my age group)
Photo by: Sydney Lewis
This is probably the most fun I have had on my bike EVER in racing or training! I felt great the whole time. My nutrition and hydration was on point thanks to my awesome nutritionist Kirsten Miller. And I was able to stay in aero for essentially the whole ride. *Full nutrition plan in a separate blog post.
I was going for a final average of 18 mph, however, the miles inside of the fun race track set me back a bit because it was so technical. A lot of athletes were trying to pass people at completely the wrong times. It was still super fun to ride inside the race track but I took it cautiously just in case.
T2 got through T2 remarkably quickly and out onto the run
Run: 2:50:31 9th in my age group
This is where the wheels fell off, so to speak, in my race. I had no idea where my run would be given the slow down I had had due to my Full Ironman training load. I had just felt my run coming back together on a Sunday session only two weeks before the race so I entered the run leg with an open mind but still cautiously optimistic.
I watched my heart rate and noticed that when I pushed my pace a bit my HR shot up too far (unsustainable level) so I moved to a run walk ratio at the beginning to see if I could get my HR to stabilize so I could push a bit more the second lap around. The reason I pulled back because of heart rate is because I didn’t want to blow up at the beginning of the run as I knew that would give me a much slower pace as an average. I am confident that it was the best strategy.
By the second lap I had a bit more momentum but still could not get things going enough to pull out my normal 70.3 run (like I did in Morro Bay or even Oregon). It was definitely because of the speed and run strength I lost during full Ironman training this season. I’m pretty excited to get to work on building my run strength back again.
Photo by: Sydney Lewis
I learned some pretty fantastic things in this race - here are some of them.
I do really well with a deep taper
I am making progress in my training!
5 days leading into a race do mobility every morning (especially at 60) (I do Lawrence Van Lingen’s class)
Body work massage 2 X within 8 days of the race works really well (especially at 60)
Staying calm, stress free and a bit Zen makes a huge difference for me leading into a race
I am super close to the podium in my age group even off of a tough year - yay
Continuing to focus on my skills and mastery of the craft of triathlon