IM Campeche 70.3 Race Report

First off, let me just say that Campeche, Mexico was a beautiful city, full of genuinely kind and helpful people and LOTS of fans who came out to support the race! This little fishing village is slowly transforming into a tourist destination yet still maintains its small town, everyone-knows-everyone feel. The race was so well run and the course was challenging. I recommend you add this one to your list for 2018!

Now onto the race!

My travel companions and I arrived two nights before the race. They all reserved rooms at the Holiday Inn and, of course due to my inability to plan travel far enough in advance, the hotel was fully booked and I was off to stay in my Airbnb (which was still good). We arrived a bit later than expected so I ate some slices of plain bread I had packed and headed straight to bed.

Apparently, no matter how many blogs I write about not being nervous and instead being excited to test myself before a race, I still get scared and start crying the day before. Seriously how do you walk into a pro meeting with the likes of Leanda Cave, Heather Wurtele, Tim Don, and many other big hitters, and not leave terrified?! I went back to my Airbnb after that meeting and called Gunter in tears (that poor guy dealing with my pre-race emotions!!). As usual he told me to calm down and relax, it was all going to be okay.

I went to bed, slept terribly (standard the night before a race), and woke up ready to rock and roll!

The race….

Swim: The struggle was real. I mean, I was one of the first into the water! But alas, that counts for naught. The ocean swells swallowed me up and spit me out....five minutes behind the leaders. But thankfully I had a companion in the water to follow and she was great at sighting buoys (thank you!!).

Bike: Everything hurt after the swim. But I wanted to go so hard on the bike. I could see people up the road and all I wanted to do was catch them. I rode as hard as I could with no consideration for the fact that I had a half marathon to run afterward. I was able to move myself up from 9th place to 2nd place going into T2.

Run: I came off of the bike with Cecilia Perez right behind me. I may have had a fast transition but she FLEW by me in the first kilometer of the run. I just kept trotting along running what I could. I had no idea if I would be able to hold off the crazy fast women runners behind me but just kept chugging at my pace and drinking water. Lap one went by and it appeared the gap behind me wasn’t closing too fast. I had a chance to make it into the top 3!!!!

There was nothing like the feeling of running down that blue carpet knowing that I was going to round out the podium in third place. I was so incredibly excited, especially to share the podium with two rock stars: Heather Wurtele (multiple Ironman and 70.3 champion, all around beast) and Cecilia Perez (2016 Olympian for Mexico). We even got to spray champagne (one life goal: complete)!

I still have plenty of work to do and some huge races coming up but I couldn’t ask for a better start to the 2017 season. Thank you all for your support!