This is by far my best 70.3 to date. Having had a frustrating last few races at 70.3 La Quinta in December 2025, follow up by some shenanigans at Tritonman I needed a race to go well.

This whole season I have been chasing my pro card. When they changed the criteria in 2025 so Tritonman was no longer a qualifier it really changed my plans, and I needed a competitive race, and to do good at one. I picked Happy Valley on a bit of a spur of the moment and was probably not the correct race to choose given my goals. For 2026 Happy Valley was the North American championship, so very competitive, probably more competitive than I would have wanted given my goals. That being said I was able to lock in with my training and had a really good block heading into Happy Valley.

Swim

During the preview swim the day before the race it was announced that the race would be wetsuit illegal. While not a race ender for me, without a swim skin I was definitely at a disadvantage compared to many of the other age group athletes. I had been really focusing on my swimming during my training as it has previously been what I have struggled with the most, usually having to make up considerable places during the bike.

Other than missing out on having a swim skin the swim portion went really well. I started five to ten rows back from the very front of the race, and had a surprisingly good swim (I guess not super surprising given how much I had been focusing on it this year). I focused on slowly moving up through the people in front of me, and luckily I was able to just continuously pass people basically the entire time.

Without my wetsuit or swim skin I was able to come out of the water in 0:26:56, 10th overall in the age group race, PRing my swim split by 1:54. I am super happy with the time, averaging a reported 1:25/100m.

Bike

When I got on the bike I was feeling good. For some reason I decided to put my socks on in T1 which definitely slowed me down a bit and made the run from T1 to the mount line a little different than I am used to. Based on where I had started in the line, I was roughly the 5th age grouper out of the water.

Prior to the race I had set up a power plan based on my goal time and the elevation of the course, with the goal to normalize 270w for the duration of the race. I had picked 270 as I had tried to do more than that at La Quinta and blew up so I was a bit scared to go harder than that. Based on my heart rate and intensity factor, I could probably have gone harder. The two major climbs on the course definitely took it out of me, and I underestimated how long of a climb they would be, and I was definitely feeling it the last 10 miles. I got passed by a few people basically immediately, and then only a few more trickled pass me over the rest of the route as I slowly picked of the pro women's field. I had considered trying to stick with a few of them, but decided I would rather stick to my own race plan and trust myself rather than trying to stick with people (a few did blow up mid way through and I caught them).

A common trend in many of my 70.3s, I get about 50 miles into the bike and then I start having issues, though it can mostly be attributed to my lack of preparation in most races:

• Wisconsin: maybe my 3rd ride ever on a TT bike, hadn't trained my low back nearly enough.
• Finland: bonked super hard + hypothermia caused me to DNF at mile 41.
• Morro Bay: Just a slight over bike, honestly felt like I biked it pretty well given the circumstances of that race.
• La Quinta: Broke my extension risers the day before the race, and had to drop my extensions ~2 inches to the base bar. My low back exploded at mile 35.

This is the portion I am a bit lost on, I think for this race it was mainly just that I hadn't done enough time in TT prior to the race after riding for 2+ hours. Most of my training rides on the TT bike I would be out of aero for a large portion due to safety concerns riding around Albuquerque. Additionally I think my nutrition could have been a bit better. While I still was able to put down 2.5 bottles with ~100g of carbs each, I dont know if it was enough based on how the run went.

Run

This was maybe the most exciting portion of the race for me. As I was pulling out of T2, another athlete was coming out with me, and someone let us know we were in 7th and 8th respectively. Additionally, we could hear that the leaders of the pro mens race were coming around to start their second lap. As we were joining into the main portion of the course we were just behind the leaders and running with the second chase group. The other athlete I was with got dropped quite quickly unfortunately but I ended up getting to run with a few of the pros. I am not exactly sure who I was running with, but he was sitting right on my hip, pushing me forward. I was definitely going a bit harder than I had planned and it quickly caught up to me. Coming into the first aid station I had planned to grab a gel and a drink, but due to being with the pros I didn't want to slow down and miss pacing off them so I skipped it. By the time I made it to the next aid station I had cracked. I had to walk through the aid station, slam a gel, and get as many cups of electrolytes down as possible, having completely fallen off the back of the pros.

After that little bit of excitement my run actually went surprisingly well. I went a bit easier for the next few kilometers, making sure to get electrolytes and some sort of nutrition at basically every aid station. I was able to pick it up quite a bit, and based on who had passed my I knew I was right around 9th or 10th place.

Going into the second lap my only goal was to not let anyone pass me. And I succeeded, even catching a few stragglers of the mens pro field. The finish was quite uneventful as I just stuck to my plan and tried to gently increase pace to finish strong. I finished in 1:22:16, averaging 6:16/mile, a 6:17 PR.

Notes for Next Time

Nutrition

I actually think my nutrition wasn't that bad this time. I need to figure out my setup on my bike a bit more though. I had tried to exclusively use drink mix as nutrition and I don't know if its the right move. In order to get the Carb/hour that I am shooting for the drink mix has to basically be syrup and it definitely made it hard to drink near the end when I was just sick of the flavor.

Pacing

I think I paced most of the race pretty well.

• Swim I absolutely crushed it during the swim. I dont think I could have done anything better.
• Bike I need to ride a bit harder. Some of my hesitation was due to the difficulty of the climbs, but I normalized right on 270w for the race, and I was a full 19 minutes off what I would like my bike split to be. I had a intensity of 91% but only averaged 149 bpm, well below my threshold heart rate.
• Run Other than needing to do my own race, and not getting over excited with running with the pros my pacing was decent, I definitely think in the future I can lock in a bit more and run a PR quite easily if I just stay focused.

Equipment

There are a few things I need to lock in over the next year to have a perfect set up.

1. Swim skin This is the 3rd race where I needed a swim skin and haven't had one. I need to just pull the trigger and purchase one. I am not quite sure the advantage in terms of sec/100m but I know it is significant enough to be worth it.
2. Disc Wheel This one is a bit of a gimme. It is the last MAJOR upgrade for my bike that I haven't done. As far as I can tell I was the only person in the front of the race that didn't have one. No one passed me who didnt have one.
3. General Hydration This is more of a general category. My extensions are already not optimal and I know I need to upgrade them at some point, but my BTA and BTS systems (or lack there of) are also limiting me.

My BTA system is far from optimal, but a good exercise in the design process for me, I have a lot of improvements to make on it like: choosing more aero bottles, improving positioning of bottles, etc.

I just dont have a BTS system yet. Adding 1 or 2 bottles behind me would allow me to run smaller bottles in my BTA setup, and allow my to position everything a bit better, without having to worry about running out of hydration during the race.