Race report by athlete Liselle Pires — congrats on an amazing race Liselle!!!
TLDR;
The race went really well! I had a comfortable swim of 56 min (woo, current!), and had to push past people casually walking around. I felt great, though, and excited knowing I would see Carl, my partner, soon. I fumbled through transition, dealing with a toe issue, but once I was on the bike I was happy. I had a great first 56 miles, with mild winds and lots of energy. My fueling plan went perfectly on the bike. Unfortunately, it poured about 65% in for me, which did affect my mental and physical state a lot. I powered through an hour of heavy rain, and raced back to transition. My legs were feeling awesome, and despite another slow transition, I started running, saw my friends cheering for me, and had a solid run. The run started to get slower and harder halfway through when the downpour started again and it got really dark. Those miles were the real test of the day. Ultimately, thanks to a deep desire to go home and my amazing crew spotting me so many times - I finished!
Before Race Day
I signed up for the Victoria 70.3 in 2019 on a bizarre whim with a friend who, like me, didn’t swim or bike, but foolishly thought “well, I’ve run marathons”. When COVID hit, we deferred our 2020 race to 2021, and I personally forgot all about it. In May of 2021, I remembered my plan and bought a bike, started riding, and learned how to swim (poorly) shortly after. I comfortably finished the WA 70.3 that fall and loved how I felt. It was just a fun experiment, but as an infinitely unsatisfied and antsy creature, I always feel compelled to explore my limits. A full ironman seemed as ridiculous as it gets. Knowing I was moving to SF, I signed up for IMCA 2022, but unfortunately, I struggled that summer with several months of heart issues after getting covid, and with a lot of frustration, deferred to 2023.
2023 came. My goal was to simply finish what I’d mentally begun.
While I’m lucky to have an athletic partner who joined me on a majority of the rides, and a handful of close cycling friends, I didn’t have a triathlon community to workout with, whine to, or learn from, so the training block got immensely lonely and mundane quickly. Training to ride in zone 2 made me feel out of place at my favorite group rides, where everyone showed up to work much harder than zone 2. It made me feel out of place with my own friends, who were often too chill or too fast for my goals. My simple goal felt detached from my daily chosen experiences. I became addicted to self comparison: metrics were often the thief of any joy in a workout and I found myself crippled with negative self-talk. So, when I did discover the vibrant local tri club, I unfortunately hesitated to join for almost 3 months - months lost to imposter syndrome and a fear of being inadequate among a group of super triathletes.
8 weeks before the race I joined and went on one of the group’s rides where a woman who had recently qualified for Kona (world champs) was riding up a hill beside me and asked if I was trying to qualify. I laughed incredulously and said something brutally self deprecating - and meant it. 4 weeks before the race, I had a great race simulation, and wondered why I was so hesitant to dream big and why her question had seemed so ludicrous to me 4 weeks prior.
Training for an ironman was never physically exhausting for me - it was, however, endlessly mentally taxing and lonely. I had a mental breakthrough that 17th week, realizing I tended to set ‘safe’ goals because of a fear of personal and social failure, and decided that I would rather fail dreaming big. I knew that realistically, I hadn’t trained for a ‘dream big’ race, but instead for a ‘safe race’, but whatever shape I was in or skill I had didn’t stop me from feeling more inspired again, and more like my wildly audacious self for the first time in a long time. I didn’t have to have any checkboxes checked to feel capable of striving for greatness.
Over those next 4 weeks, I struggled with a hip impingement flare up that wouldn’t go away with rest, a wonky bike fit, endless back and forth about last minute buying an aerodynamic tri bike so I’d have a chance at a faster bike time, and the next thing I knew it was race weekend in Sacramento.
Race Day
I woke up at 4:15am. They say it’s really about the rest two nights before, and I had spent the past week on a regimented sleep schedule, correctly predicting a horrible night of sleep before the race.
I swallowed ~550 cals of the breakfast I had consumed before every long ride for the last 20 weeks - oatmeal, protein powder, chia seeds, banana, and coffee - and waited for my driver (my boyfriend) to wake up.
I peed on the side of the road before he dropped me off so I could avoid porta potty lines - this would become a shameful, but authentic ironman theme of the day. I probably walked more than a mile to drop all the various bags that needed to be dropped off (to reclaim between sports and on the course), opened all my energy bars and broke them into pieces in my bento box (snack box on my bike top tube) for easier consumption, and got on the shuttle to the swim start. At the swim start, I made my first big mistake. I knew the river had a strong current and my practice swim a few weeks ago on the course had been 52 minutes, but, the race director was asking people to seed themselves at their predicted time without a current to avoid incorrect seeding. Not only did a lot of people likely not follow this direction, but I seeded myself so far back that I entered the water a full hour after the first group. There probably would have been some swim-bumper-cars in earlier groups given my slower pace, but it also would have been fine, and I would have avoided dealing with the weather that came later on the bike…
The swim was largely uneventful, (besides a woman grabbing me around the waist when she panicked) and I stayed calm knowing it was just an hour in a very long day ahead. It’s wild to think that in 2021, the swim was the biggest, most stressful unknown for me.
As I got out of the water, I was pushing past people casually walking the ramp chatting with each other, and I was the only one running into transition. My second mistake of the day was not having much of a plan for the transitions, which by default results in having very slow transitions. I fumbled with soggy athletic tape for the blister on my toe, couldn’t find a glove, and felt chaotic as I ran out with my bike. Before mounting, I saw Carl and got an instant boost of calming energy.
Miles 1-5 were packed with nervous energy as I found the groove of pace and space for myself among hundreds of cyclists. Miles 6-30 I felt smooth and great - my legs were light, fluid and fast, though I was already looking around at expansive farmland thinking “wow, this is going to be extremely boring”. I entertained myself by making up stories about passersby, taking in the dudes on $30k setups, and refocusing my mental energy on enjoying what I knew was a fleeting experience. I started repeating the mantra I would take through the day that I stole-borrowed from Coach Katie - “I’m Liselle Pires. I can do anything. All I have to do is show up”.
I noticed around this time that my heart rate was pretty low, and that my body was feeling exceptionally good. I made a plan to increase my speed on each of the 4 laps, which I executed smoothly on the second lap. Going into lap 3, I was ready to level up again and my feet still felt ‘light on the pedals’, which was a cue I had ingrained from Katie. I peed on the bike for the first time ever, which immediately led to an uncomfortable rash-like feeling, but also a strange sense of accomplishment that I didn’t need to waste 5 minutes with a bathroom stop. I also found myself getting small boosts whenever I interacted with other women - women hollered for other women and complimented each other often. Beautiful. Not the dudes!
I got ready to tackle the headwind on lap 3, and then…the downpour came. The sky cracked and the light mist, which had been delightful to ride in, turned to pounding rain. Everyone slowed down, myself included. I reminded myself that I’d ridden in the rain before (at my half ironman because duh) and that nothing bad was going to happen; but, the intensity of the rain mentally and physically slowed me down a lot on lap 3. I started counting the miles to the turnaround for lap 4 where I’d get a tailwind, as having mini milestones during an endurance event (and in life) is the only way through for me. All of my energy bars, which were pre-opened and portioned, sitting in my open bento box on my top tube, got soaked – mmm…soggy Skratch rice krispies.
Once I got to the turnaround, something inside me broke free and wild as I became desperate to get off the bike - I got out of my aero position and onto my hoods, because I was increasingly worried about agitating my hip, and started riding hard, passing everyone I could over the last 28 miles. I felt great when I saw Carl, Fred, and Cate 10 miles out, and even better as I rolled into transition. My nutrition on the bike was perfect - a bottle with Skratch every hour, and a high carb bar every hour, alternating between Maurten bars and Skratch rice krispies. I’d inherited this from Katie’s own nutrition plan, very intentionally trained this way, and prioritized bars despite the effort to chew, knowing the run would rely on gels and that my body would absolutely reject 10+ hours of gels. I also had Katie’s description locked in - “an ironman is a marathon with a bike and swim beforehand to distract you”. So, I was glad to feel so good at that stage, but also knew the real work was about to come.
I popped 1000 mg of Advil (insert grimacing emoji), a spring energy gel, applied biofreeze to my hip flexor, and then wasted a lot of time in transition by over prioritizing blister care. I ran to the medical tent, where they very nonchalantly offered me a chair as I frantically exclaimed “no no no I just need a bandaid!!!” Those poor volunteers.
I was nervous for the run. When I did my 70.3, I told everyone that if I made it to the run, I would do great. I had been right. For the full, I felt the opposite. I hadn’t run a marathon in 5 years, and was incredibly nervous that the hip pain from last week would suddenly show up in full force while running. So, I took it easy. I saw my friends again, and kept a comfortable pace. I had my first Maurten gel ever at mile 4 and laughed at myself for trying new nutrition at a race. Fortunately, my intuition that Maurten would be easy on the stomach was right and I had a couple more (4 total, probably not enough) during the race.
About 10 miles in, I went to a mentally chaotic place. This run course is incredibly redundant and I was doing laps of random out and backs, which was great for seeing your support crew, but Sacramento is not a spectator heavy race or a scenic race. And, by not scenic, I mean I may as well have been on a treadmill. The miles were getting dark and boring. I noticed my heart rate was somehow in low Z1, meaning my heart had more to give, but I couldn’t muster up the mental fortitude to push that much harder. It started pouring again, and my shoes were totally waterlogged, squishing and sloshing on every step as I approached mile 14. I jogged the entire course, following the best tip I got from Katie, to shuffle through every single aid station, where I sipped 1 cup of water and poured a second all over myself to stay cool. I never got hot on race day.
At mile 18, I wanted to be in a hot bath tub at home so badly. I was frustrated at the incorrect course markers (everyone seemed to have .4-1 mile extra on their watches by halfway through the run), antsy, bored, and my quads were seizing with lactic acid. I knew I had to turn on tunnel vision if I was going to finish this. I was so lucky to see my friends so many times during the marathon, a unique possibility with a repetitive course. It made such a difference to know my loving people were waiting for me to finish, including Cate, who has an early bedtime, so I better not walk!
I sprinted the last ½ mile. A spectating man leaned into the path and high fived me, yelling out Allez Allez! I couldn’t believe the random Frenchman I had spoken broken French to before the swim recognized me, now covered in my own urine and rain a sea of darkness. I believe I said “Oui!” back.
After
While my race nutrition was literally perfect - zero gastric issues and no moments of lost energy - I spent the 14 hours after the race with horrible gastric issues. I was lucky my body held out til I finished, but those 14 hours were traumatic. All I could consume was a half cup of broth and water. I also chafed horribly for the first time ever, probably in part because of the downpour. The area where my sports bra and heart rate monitor were on my torso was dark pink and raw all over, making a shower unbearable.
I slept for 3 or 4 uncomfortable hours, and woke up with my stomach in agony and my head spinning from fatigue. I couldn’t believe I had to start work in an hour.
I spent the day after struggling through the work day and eating as much as I could, finally getting my appetite back. I also spent the day feeling…gloomy. Why did I start the swim so late? Why were my transitions so unintentional? Why didn’t I run harder - I knew I could have. Why didn’t I get a tri bike, knowing I could have ridden faster? It took me 48 hours to transition from feelings of regret and what could have been, disappointed in my performance, to reality - I had done something that seemed out of human reach to me just 2 years ago, something I barely understood, and I had done so pretty comfortably. Within the niche of 1% of people who do things like this, I could question myself, but to the rest of the world I had done something amazing. I may as well absorb the latter attitude. I feel so grateful to have had a great first race, a supportive coach, a partner who truly made it possible for 20 weeks, and friends and family supporting me from near and far the entire time. Now, I am totally over the whys and on to the now what?
