First (Zeroth?) Triathlon

Let’s pretend for a minute that you are going to have a baby. And let’s pretend that you are fairly energetic and active. Now let’s pretend that you took it to heart when your care provider recommended you try to keep exercising. How do you motivate yourself? Well if you are Thao, when you are 4 months pregnant you sign up to participate in a triathlon of course! And when is the triathlon you signed up for? When you are 7 months pregnant. Yeah, that sounds about right.

The Gold Nugget Triathlon is a female only race run in Anchorage every year. It is dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls through athletics. It is also an extremely popular race. This year it sold out in 23 minutes. The joke is that the fourth event of the triathlon is registration. The 2018 edition is actually the third time Thao has participated in the race. She previously did it in both 2014 and 2015. And since we don’t know the gender of Half Calf, this could be the only chance for participation or could be the first of many.










The race consists of a 500m swim, 12 mile bike ride and 3.5 mile run. Due to some road construction, the end had to be shortened a little so the run is ~0.25 miles less than previous years. To add to the excitement this year there was a momma and baby moose just off the bike trail and a bear near the bike to run transition. What is so impressive about Thao’s race this year is that when compared with those previous years, her pace really wasn’t all that different considering the physical changes and training limitations this year.

If you compare her splits from each section from the previous years, which of course I did because I like charts and graphs, here is what you get:

Nothing Thao does surprises me. And yeah, Half Calf has a pretty awesome mom. Tune back in next year, I have a feeling she will be doing it again if at all possible and I am sure she will be planning to get her best time ever.