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Tuesday, 24 January 2017 23:10

By Heather Lendway (heatherlendway.com)

My second pro season was filled with some highs and plenty of lows, coming off a solid 2015 it was tough get my head around the lows. I had high expectations to carry my rising performance level through 2016.

I started the year off early racing in Panama at the end of January with possibly my best performance to date. I swam with the front pack and was able to make a break on the bike to come off the bike over a minute in front of the rest of the pro field.  It was a blazing hot run but somehow I managed to hold on for third.  I could see the fourth place girl not far behind me and I had to dig deep to hold on that last mile which felt endless.  I crossed the line 7 seconds behind 2nd and 7 in front of fourth, it was the...

tightest race I’ve ever been in.  To feel like I was actually racing at the end of a 70.3 was a new feeling for me and it was amazing.  Unfortunately, that was the high of the year, but I did learn I can race on the run if I need to.

I had a great build through April and had the fastest swim at St. Anthony’s Olympic distance triathlon and came off the bike with the top two girls. My run just wasn’t there and I ended up finishing 7th.  While it wasn’t the greatest finish it gave me hope, my swim and bike were where they needed to be and I just needed my run to come around.   At this point made some tweaks to my run plan in hopes of making some more progress with my run.  After a few sub-par races, Barcelona, Mont Tremblant and Racine where I DNF’d for the first time, I think it was obvious I had taken the run training a little too far.  I tried to incorporate too many workouts and too much intensity in each workout, my “easy” days weren’t really that easy and I continued to wear my body out.  After Racine I took three days completely off and tried to re-group in hopes I could pull something together for World’s in early September. READ MORE