Race Coverage

Trust & Blown Minds....

Thursday, 02 October 2025 00:10

By Paige Schulz

At the beginning of August, I asked Coach Anthony if he thought we could lift my 70.3 fitness to 140.6 fitness. Over the eight weeks since that conversation, I snuck in 1x80 mile ride, 2x100 mile rides, 2x3:15/3:30 trainer rides, 2 runs over 13 miles (16 and 18), 7x3k+ yard swims, an Olympic tri, and a 70.3 tri. (Plus my usual track sessions and VO2/threshold bike sessions.) I peaked at 13 hours and 5 mins.

Our conversations looked like this:

-Me: I’m still going to race Wisconsin 70.3 hard.

- Him: yes, but know there might be lingering fatigue.

-Me: are you sure there is enough time before Chatt? I like racing, not participating.

- Him: yes, you are already so fit.

-Me: ok, I trust you....

And I did trust him even with all the alarms going off in my head about how different this IM build was from my previous all-in 6-month long Ironman plans. Race day was going to be a good test to see if I could hold on for the run. I can say in full confidence that I am capable of a much better IM run split than what I had at Chatt. But we just didn’t have enough time to get more long run volume and necessary nutrition/gut training with IM 70.3 Wisconsin scheduled 3 weeks before. I also may have skipped all of Anthony’s recommended heat training. (Oops, I promise I won’t for Kona!) A 3:24 run split in 83° with 4 bathroom stops is still pretty good!

There is no doubt the low volume, high intensity plan absolutely worked for me. I am truly mind blown by my results yesterday. I PRed in all three disciplines and overall by 26 minutes, finishing in 9:43 and 2nd amateur woman. And I got my first Kona qualification.

You wrote it, Anthony.