Mallorca 70.3. Where to start? I guess I should back up and say that the last few months have been very emotional when it comes to my training and racing. I've had a lot of dark days, and have really been struggling with this journey. I've also been having a really hard time just emotionally trying to figure out my anxiety. So when Jocelyn asked me if I wanted to go to Mallorca with her, it wasn't just a cool thing, but it really was an answer to prayer. It felt like Heavenly Father was saying, "I know you're having a really hard time with all of this. Here's a little gift." Going to Spain for a week and a half sounds complicated, there are a lot of logistics to work out. And while there were, they all fell into place so easily that it was just one more little reminder that we're being looked after. Jeremy already had the time off of work, it worked with the kids' schedules, it worked with my race schedule, and it was at a perfect time where I could get away. Before Jocelyn asked if I wanted to go, I didn't even know where Mallorca was! I had to Google it. Apparently it's this cycling mecca, where all sorts of European athletes go to train. It's also a favorite holiday destination for a lot of Europeans. So I was really excited in anticipation of what I might find.
The flight out was uneventful, and while I don't really speak Spanish, I know enough to not feel completely lost in the country. Jocelyn had been there a couple of days before me, so she had a chance to figure out the lay of the land. She knew where all of the supermarkets were and the best place is to do our training sessions. On the first day I wanted to shake out after that long travel day, so I joined her for her run. What was supposed to be 45 minutes easy for me ended up being 45 minutes at a pretty decent pace. I didn't want Jocelyn to regret inviting me along and luckily sea level was a magical miracle cure. I felt like I could go forever. Most of our training sessions ended up being something like that. They were all similar enough that we could do them together, I just wanted to keep up with her so my efforts may have been a little bit hard for pre-race week. But I don't regret it. 
I think my favorite training session though was when we went on a ride up to Cap de Formentor. It was supposed to be a two hour easy ride for me, but she had had a 3-hour ride the day before so we cut this one a little bit short. We started exploring a little bit knowing we wouldn't have a lot of time to do that in the upcoming days. We followed a favorite route up a climb. There were cyclists absolutely everywhere! It was a climb, but it wasn't that bad, or at least it wouldn't have been that bad if I had all of my gears. My shifting was a little bit wonky and so I only had my big gear and one other to do this 8% climb, and my power numbers were a bit high.
I don't regret it though because once we got to the top the views were stupendous! It has a Nice vibe with the striking cliffs and mountains up against the Mediterranean. We didn't go all the way to the end of the ride though, because there were some 12% grinds that probably weren't appropriate for what we were doing. But it was amazing nonetheless.
Swimming with her was really fun, because I felt much more comfortable keeping pace with her there than anywhere else. Another favorite training sessions with her was when we were doing some open water swimming in the sea. One part of traveling with Jocelyn this trip is that I got to see life is like for a pros. She had to meet up with people for pro panels, interviews, and videographers who were doing stories on her. As we were out there swimming at sunrise I was surprised to see a drone following us. I was able to get a couple still shots from what James recorded, and they are some of my favorite pictures of the whole trip. It was beautiful that morning.
Just a quick swim in the Balearic Sea. Loving life!
When we weren't training we were still doing other pre-race things, like previewing the course. We met up with her friends Nick and Jackson to drive the course one day. I laughed because on our way out of town they stopped at supermarket to pick up some snacks. Even though these guys are 20 or 30 years old, their snacks reminded me of what high school boys would grab. I was laughing at this year number of cookies they were able to eat. While we were driving the course I couldn't help but being struck by the beauty of it all. The mountains were stunning. It was a long climb to the top, but it didn't look too bad. And at the top there was a cyclist cafe where we stopped for some cheesecake!
And I'm really glad we drove the descent because there were a couple of switchbacks that were pretty tight and intense.
We ended up driving through some quaint towns, like Campanet, which were perfect old European towns. After we came out of the mountains we drove through the flats which were are all agricultural land. We are warned that we needed to watch out for sheep, chickens and goats crossing the trail. I was curious see what would happen race day, because I definitely saw what they were talking about, the animals were everywhere. I also loved these windmills that were in the farms. They were used to drain the swampland and to make it dry enough for farming. I just thought they were charming.
One night we went to a pro panel where Jocelyn was going to be interviewed by Ironman. She and I were sitting and talking with another pro, Mel, when they were called up to the stage. I was very flattered to be assumed to be one of them. The athlete coordinator kept encouraging me to come up, not realizing that I'm an age group athlete not a pro! At least I looked the part.
When Jocelyn and I weren't doing race prep we tried to spend some time exploring the island. We didn't rent a car so we only had our bikes to get around. I laughed because we had our race bikes, with race wheels and our race aero helmets cruising around the city. We went to the supermarkets and put all the food in our backpacks, and just locked up our bikes on a bike rack like anyone else.
One day we rented a scooter and cruised to a lighthouse. Scooters are definitely the way to explore a European town. Although I have to say we looked a little idiotic when we were picking up the scooter. We were turned down at the first rental agency because we've never driven one before. The second agency didn't seem to care. But I have a feeling he started regretting renting it to us when I couldn't even figure out how to start the thing. I did a couple test drives before letting Jocelyn hop on the back. I did not want to crash and ruin her race.
Capdepera Lighthouse
We got a lot more confident in our driving by the end of the day. We saw a castle, cliffs, and narrow alleys which were a lot of fun to explore. It would have been fun to have a scooter for more than that one day, I just felt so European it was amazing. 
We found this octopus for Sydney, he has a happy face and grumpy face. He made Jocelyn giggle.
After returning the scooter I grabbed a street Nutella crepe to munch on during the walk home.
We also spent a lot of time down on the beach at sunset. Sometimes we took our dinner down to the beach, sometimes we just took chocolate, and watched the sun set. I assure you that every time I was out there admiring the view I was aware of my good fortune to be there.
The day before the race she wanted to spend the whole day in the apartment resting up, but I wasn't quite done exploring. So I wrote my bike to Old Town Alcudia to go exploring. I'm really glad I ventured out, because it was one of my favorite excursions. I loved seeing the old city walls, and the little shops set into them. I found some of my best souvenirs while exploring in there. Had it not been the day before the race and the fact that I needed to rest too, I probably would have spent twice as long there exploring.
I played chess with a local, and he sketched a picture of me. It's unique!
There are a lot of things that she and Scott do when she travels that are similar to what Jeremy and I do when we travel. Emi sends her with a stuffed animal, so we tried to take a bunch of pictures of all of our stuffies together on their adventures. She's also very good at time zones and would make sure she called them everyday, so that was a good reminder to me to stay in touch with my fam too.
Having never really spent that much time with Jocelyn, I didn't know what to expect living with her for a week. Luckily things worked out all right, and I didn't poison her. She has a gluten and dairy allergy and I was terrified that I would inadvertently gluten some of her food. Luckily it seems that we avoided that.
Let's race!
The morning of the race nerves were high because expectations were high. She won this race back in 2016 and was hoping for a repeat this year. I didn't know what to expect from all of the European chicks I would be racing, but I was really hoping for something similar to Muncie. I wanted a podium finish. We got to transition super early since our apartment was so close, and we took our time getting things ready. Unfortunately as we walked down to the race start we realized that the morning clothes drop-off zone was at the far end of the beach. So even though we'd had a relaxed morning, it was a little bit crazy when it actually came time for the swim start.
You know, just casually pumping before the race.
I was feeling really relaxed as I stood there waiting for my turn to go. I knew that the swim was going to be a little bit chaotic as I'd be swimming over full Ironman athletes one their second loop, so I just planned to be aggressive. Swimming in saltwater is not necessarily my favorite, but I'm really glad that I had a practiced earlier in the week to remind myself what that felt like. I came out of the water feeling really good, and end up with my best swim time ever. I was so happy to see the time of 26:17 pop up. Transition was really long, and they didn't have any all world athlete numbers so I had to run a long way with my bike.
When I settled in for my ride I was taking it conservatively. I didn't know how much that climb was going to beat me up. As I was climbing I realized that I was one of the first females out of the water. I ultimately ended up being the first with female out of the water overall, but it meant I was watching for all the cyclists to pass me on the climb. And they started passing me, and passing me, and kept passing me. After while it got a little bit discouraging. The problem was I was feeling so carefree that I didn't really care if I was chasing them or not. There were a couple of times during the climb through the mountains that I just started to cry because I was so grateful for the chance to race in this very beautiful country. It's hard to cry and competitively ride at the same time. Unfortunately I took the climb much to conservatively, and lost some precious minutes on the climb. The descent didn't make me nervous even with the switch backs, but the Europeans ride in packs, and those made be nervous. There were times we'd be going down a switch back and a pack would fly by. Well I didn't want to crash, or get off my line too much. So I had to play it really safe and get out of their way. I was hoping to make up some time when I got to the flats, but everything had already been decided by then. I finished strong into town on the flats, but I lost too much time too early.
An aerial view of part of our descent. Fun eh?
Coming into the run there were a lot of out and back sections on a two loop course which meant that I had plenty of opportunities to see my competition. At first glance it looked like I was about the 12th woman back give or take. I started out strong like every other race this season, but this time I was determined not to fall apart at mile eight. I could see the women ahead of me and the ones behind me and knew that if I could just hold my pace like this I'd be okay. I was relieved and very excited, when mile 10 came and I was still able to hold pace. According to my watch I crossed that finish line with a 1:38:02 half marathon. While it's not my best ever, it's awfully close. I haven't had a run that good in years. Ultimately I took fourth in my age group which is a little disheartening. Third place got to bring home the hardware. I knew that if I just done a smarter job biking that climb I would have been up there.
Swim: 26:17, T1: 3:45, Bike: 2;55:22, T2: 2:35, Run: 1:39:52, Final 5:07:52
Even though I wasn't going home with a trophy, at least I got a donut in my athlete food bag! It's ridiculous how happy this made me.
I was able to be done in time to watch Jocelyn finish her race. I showered and then went back out on a course to cheer for her. Her run was a four loop run, and when she didn't appear after her second loop I knew something was wrong. I walked back and found her with all of her gear bags and her timing chip turned in. She said she just wasn't feeling well and so she pulled out. I hate to see people not finish the race. I didn't know what kind of companion I was going to have for the next couple of days. Ultimately she wasn't pouty about it, which is a relief. But it was still sad because neither one of us qualified to go to the awards ceremony the next day. It meant we could go to church the Spanish branch, so that was nice, but it still wasn't the outcome we were hoping for.
Which pic? The gorgeous beach?
Or with the Ironman red carpet?
Catching the bus to church Sunday morning.
Sunday afternoon we had some time to kill, so we met up with Nick, Jackson and Mel at their hotel to play some mini golf and some pool. I admit that when I first met up with them I was a little bit intimidated because they were all pros. But like Mel said I needed to cut myself some slack. Only two of the five of us actually finished our race, and I was the only one who finished in the top five. It kind of became a running joke that even though I wasn't the pro athlete I was the pro mom. I had anything everyone needed: band-aids, coins, Chapstick, Dramamine, water, etc. And even though it's a total school girl thing to admit, when Nick and Jackson sought to follow me on Instagram I was rather flattered.
This race was very eye opening in a couple of different ways, the biggest one being that I'm in this funny zone between being an elite age grouper, and a pro. I don't think I'm good enough yet to be a pro, but based on some of the conversations we had with Jocelyn's friends, and Jocelyn herself, I found myself wondering why I don't try. My new plan is that I'm going to try to choose a path that's going to take me towards a pro card. If I don't get it, then that's no big deal, I'll still be better for it. But if I do end up qualifying, how cool would that be? I was planning on taking a step back from racing, but Cambrie just rolled her eyes at me. When I told her I wanted to try to grow pro she was much more excited about that. I feel like part of me needs to do it for them. Only so they can see what it looks like to really go for your dreams. The whole trip was an amazing experience, and I am so blessed and grateful that it was able to work out. The best part about the whole thing was that I was acutely aware of Heavenly Father's hand in all of it. He really does love and care for me and was trying his best to let me know that he is there through everything I have going on.
It was an early flight home on Monday. It's a good thing I found a nectarine pie for breakfast! I needed that energy as we had to run through three airports to catch our flights. It was crazy and ended up with delayed bags, that eventually found their way home.
How blessed am I to have an experience like this with a girl like her? It was incredible.
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