Rolling with the Punches of 2021
Racing can be nerve-wracking. International racing during COVID brings extra stress. Add on a multiple-month injury and confidence will be low. Then try to do your best while your bike frame breaks three times and is lost by the airlines all in one year.
I wanted to share the story of all the crazy things that happened during my 2021 season. It’s a reminder that preparing for races can be far more convoluted than following a perfect training plan. As a reminder (or for those new to my series here on Slowtwitch), I am a professional triathlete, the newest member of the US National Team racing on the World Triathlon draft-legal circuit, and below are the insider details on how my last season went.
My first race of 2021 was the Huatulco World Cup in Mexico last June. As race week wore on, my expectations for the race were decreasing rapidly. For starters, I was at my first race in June because of a pubic symphysis injury that I’d picked up during the winter. Essentially, the joint at the front of my pubic bones wasn’t being stabilized well enough which led to a whole lot of pain and not a lot of running. I’d done my first set of strides just four weeks before the race. It wasn’t ideal preparation, but I flew there healthy enough to try.
Then I got off the airplane to find my bike broken. It wasn’t until the morning of the race that I got a hold of the bike I was going to race on and could set it up to fit me as well as possible. Needless to say, come 6 PM when our race finally started, I was tired and stressed. My expectations for how I would race on a borrowed bike and with little run training were low. Even so, I lined up and give myself a chance. Fast forward one hour and I’d finished 6th, my second best World Cup finish ever.
I’d learned my lesson in Huatulco about making space for good to happen even when things seem to be falling apart around you. I also didn’t expect to go through another situation like that for the rest of the season.
I was very wrong.
Come August I was off to Montreal, Canada for a WTCS race. We all knew that we’d be showing up to quarantine in a hotel room for 3 days with just our bike and trainer for exercise. Not a great situation, but it was suddenly far worse when my bike didn’t arrive.
I was on the phone with airlines for many hours that week and my boyfriend spent an entire day at the airport back home working with the baggage office to find my bike and have it re-routed to me. Multiple times I thought my bike was coming to Montreal, but it never showed up. I also wasn’t allowed out of the room to go to the airport. In the end, the day before the race I was set up with a loaner bike, did a 30 min test ride, and raced on it the following day.
Post-race I just wanted to go home and relax. That’s when the real craziness started. I showed up at the airport to fly home and first checked with the baggage desk to see if they could locate my bike. Miraculously I actually found my bike in a pile of lost luggage there in the Montreal airport. Great news, except that by the time I had checked my bike in to fly home I missed the plane by just a couple minutes. I was re-routed with an overnight stop and made it home a day later than anticipated and in low spirits. When I finally got home, I went to unpack my bike and… it’s broken. Again.
At this point I want to give both USAT and Ventum a shout out. They came to my rescue big time. I was training in Park City and went to the Ventum shop in person to be set up on a new bike. Given the global bike shortages, I lucked out that there was a bike in stock at all. I also reverted to a fully hard bike box. Setting it all up did take time though, and I spent that training block riding various bikes with imperfect fits, no power, and poor gearing for Park City’s steep roads. It was far from ideal training. Five days before flying to my next set of races I was finally on the new Ventum. Their mechanics did a great job of copying my previous fit measurements as close as possible so luckily I was able to feel comfortable enough on the bike before leaving for Europe.
With a new bike and box, I was hoping I’d broken the curse of 2021. I got through my races in Europe, grabbed my first WTCS top 10, and made it home with everything in one piece. At this point it was fall and my end of season race plans were continually changing with countries sending quarantine information last minute for races. Changing race schedules gets extra complicated when living in short term rentals based around racing. I ended up having to move into a hotel room for my final training time.
While figuring all that out, I began feeling a small hitch in my pedal stroke now and then. I took my bike down to the shop and got news that I had not seen coming. What I’d felt riding was the sleeve around the bottom bracket coming detached from the frame, rendering the frame useless. I was told it’s a very uncommon problem that on rare occasions just happens. Ventum saved the day again and I got on yet another new bike, this time two days before leaving for my final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. That bike and I made it to the race and are amazingly still safe and sound now four months later.
So there you have the story of how my season included one long injury and riding five different bikes in the six total races I did. All of it in addition to the craziness of travelling during COVID.
My stress levels were maxed out. For months.
A couple key points I learned: 1) know your bike fit dimensions and understand them in case you have to ride a different bike, 2) put Air Tags in your luggage so you know where your bags are if an airline loses them, 3) if you’re on the start line you might as well go for it.
Despite all that happened, I still had to line up and race my best. That’s why I wanted to share my story. I hope it’s a reminder to us as fans that races and results reflect a larger picture than just how training has gone. More so, I hope it’s a reminder to us as athletes to always give yourself a chance for something good to happen.
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