SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY – WACO 70.3

Victoria Coffee

I have been a member of the Playtri race team for 2 years and have been coached by Playtri coach, Beth Jones, for a little over a year now.

This year, my goal was to finish my first full Ironman which I accomplished this past April at Ironman Texas.

Following IM TX I met with my Playtri coach and set a new goal, which was to qualify for the 2019 70.3 Ironman World Championship. We set our eyes on attempting to qualify at Waco 70.3.

Knowing the goal was going to be difficult to accomplish due to the high level of competition at every IM 70.3 event, we set a game plan together and I begin training harder than I had ever trained before. My motivation and focus was to be the best version of myself and not focus on the speed of others; focusing on others can easily discourage you from even trying to achieve your goals. I knew that if I could just get close enough to the top 10 in my age group it would be possible to catch a rolling slot.

Saturday afternoon, the day before Waco 70.3, it was announced that due to the quality of the water the swim was cancelled. As the swim portion of the triathlon is my weakest leg I told myself, “this is your chance Victoria, rise to the occasion and seize the opportunity”.

The race began on Sunday with a rolling start on the bike. At the beginning of race, the excitement made it difficult to stick to the race game plan of building heart rate effort throughout the bike course. I pulled back effort and tried to stick to the game plan as much as possible. The bike course conditions were great, smooth roads with a couple short rolling hills. As I approached mile 45 of the bike course, I looked down for a moment and hit one of the large orange cones going about 20 MPH. Somehow I was able to keep the bike under control and did not take a pavement hit. A rider a couple lengths back speed up alongside me and said, “out of the 15 years I been doing triathlons I never seen someone recover from a hit like that” we both then laughed.

So grateful to be off the bike and starting the run, my gratitude quickly changed when I got to one of the first of about 8 hills on the run course. On a positive note, hill sprints were part of my training program and I was prepared to take on that run course. I pushed through the hills the best I could and met up with a Playtri teammate the last 2 miles of the course who helped me finish strong.

I finished the race 7th in my division and obtained the rolling slot to the 2019 70.3 IM World Championship in Nice, France. There is much training ahead for me this coming up year but I am so excited for the opportunity to go and represent the Playtri team.

Victoria at Waco 70.3