So my 2019 racing season did not really pan out as I was hoping or training for. End of 2018 I won my age group provincially and was training to compete on national level early the following year. I was excited because I had a new training focus for 2019. Then Coach Junior happened….

Supporter no 1 and I have been sorting each other out for the last 16 years, 8 of which we have been married. Both working insane hours until we relocated and I started Infinitude Coaching. For the first time since we got married, starting a family was actually on the radar for us. I have been consistently racing and training since 2008, so putting the long distance triathlon on hold for the year was the compromise we came up with. To stay relatively sane, I have to get some endorphins flowing each day, so 70.3 and olympic distance events were the aim for 2019.

Negative tests turned into the norm for most of 2018, so I went on training and planning for the 2019 season. Figured I had a good chance of getting a podium spot at Nationals and aiming for a sub 6 later that year for a local 70.3 distance event. One little word changed it all those plans: POSITIVE. I had to read it twice, sat in my car for 15 minutes trying to figure out how this happened (Ok, I know how it happened, but HOW did it happen?). Supporter no 1 was ecstatic, we both cried a little I think.

The Dr confirmed all was well and since it was 5 weeks before Nationals, I could still train and compete if I wanted too. Great!! Excited that my little Coach Junior will be doing a triathlon before he/she can walk. I decided to back off from racing for the podium, I saw no need to risk a bike accident or worse just for a podium spot. There was something bigger (technically not that big yet) to race for. I had all these images in my head of being this super fit athlete with a bump, doing events, breaking the notion that pregnant woman can’t do anything. Insert image of Serena Williams here… Yeah right….

A week later, nausea and bone deep exhaustion hit me like no wall in a race has ever done. Dear Lord, I thought I was dying. Morning sickness my ass. That nausea is a 24/7 cycle straight from hell making you regret life choices you made as a teenager. Supporter no 1 left me in the mornings to go to work, hanging over the toilet and when he came home, I was either there for the 5th time or sleeping. There was no energy in my body to even attempt training. Toast and 2-minute noodles became my staples whilst protein, vegetables and salads went out the back door. At one point I was actually searching online if people can die from vomiting (yes, they can). I had to face it, the only racing I was going to do was to the toilet 10 times a day.

I am pregnant and so blessed with a little girl that will hopefully be more bad-ass than her mommy. So instead of the traditional swim, bike and run for the year of 2019, I am training towards creating a tiny little human, who is due around the same time as the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona. Sign? I ‘d like to think so!

I also have no freakin’ idea what I am doing, so I am approaching each trimester as a triathlon discipline. One thing I do know is that I will never know unless I tri…So here we go…