First place in age group at Homegrown Gravel this March (100 km gravel bike).
Next up: Gravel Roll - Opelika Okey Dokey in May.
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Congrats! Good start to the year!!
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Week or two out since my first race of the year - New York City Half Marathon.
Itās been the first time Iāve used Athletica as a running plan (throwing in/swapping out some runs for bike and swim to reduce volume and keep my levels up on those)
Goal for this race was to match my current PB of 1.26ish to try and qualify (as a 45 year old) for the 2027 New York Marathon. I needed to run 1.27 for this.
I used my current Stryd predicted power target of 355w as a guide, as usual went off harder than that but felt fantastic through the hilly first 10km. Eventually finished at a PB of 1.23 and was absolutely ecstatic.
Athletica has definitely pushed me harder than I thought I was capable through this marathon block. Weeks of 70 or 80 miles, double run days, 2 interval sessions a week, difficult long runs. All very much worth it and I feel great heading into my marathon in 3 weeks time. I have definitely had to temper the coach at times (some 115 mile weeks were prescribed and the taper week for me was too long) but that is because I know my own body/lifestyle.
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Congratulations @jockefc23 THAT IS AMAZING!
WOW! Super fast!
Keep staying healthy and smash that marathon!
Best, MJ
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I had a B race this weekend. It was a 24 hour run in Slovenia. Athletica doesnāt understand this distance 
So, it trained me for a 100 km race. Close enough. I was certainly in a good shape. I didnāt have a dream race for a reason I never experienced before - diarrhea. I have done many long ultras and this was the first time. Since it was my B race, it didnāt disappoint me too much. I didnāt reach my PB which is 164 km but with 157 I still got the second place. Very well organised event. There are also options for 6 and 12 hours. Totally flat 1 km loop.
No, I didnāt eat or drink anything new I think this was just a random accident.
But one thing I am still wondering. What to do in my trainings to postpone pain. I do strength training, intervals, long runs.
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Absolutley tore it up. Well done!
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So updating this on the back on my marathon this weekend just gone in Manchester UK.
When I first started the training plan in November my aim was 3.09, which would hopefully qualify me for Boston in 2027. Training has gone very well, as I said before I feel the coach has pushed me harder than Iāve wanted to before and the interval work and different approaches to the long runs have definitely improved my fitness.
I went into the race with a similar goal (3.05) but with an eye on that āsub 3ā that seems to be on everyoneās tongues. By using my Stryd calculator I worked out if I held 340w I should hit around 2.59, so the plan was to run that for the first 10 miles, then see how I felt and if I was able to increase for the next 10 miles do so, then hold on for the last 10k.
Happily thatās exactly what happened. 10 miles went past at 340w fairly well, next 10 miles were slightly above that due to some hills and feeling good. Last 10k was tough but not the drop off in pace that I was expecting.
Crossed the line at 2.58.23 absolutely ecstatic with how the day went. A lot of hard work went into it and Iām very glad I had a plan that I was comfortable with. Now onto triathlon season and hoping I can use the same experience to improve my bike times!
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Congrats @jockefc23 so stoked for you to exceed expectations and daring to go for it ! Those minutes are not easy to shave off! 
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Well done. Going sub 3 is a big achievment. Sounds like you took control of the race and squoze everything you coukd out of it.
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So amazing!! You executed your plan perfectly!!! Congrats!!
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Hi All, I wanted to bring up some details here that I am happy to share:-)
I did my first three Gravel races this year:
- Early march I managed to (get age group) 6. place in a local 65 km race despite taking it easy, showing up fairly late, starting form the back, ā¦
- In late March I did the UCI qualifier in Turnhout, BE (145 km), and qualified for European and World Championships:-)
- In April I did the UCI Gravel Onefifty qualifier race in Roden, NL and ended up just outside the qualification range ā because the race was very hard with lots of deep sand, maybe too hard for me ā and because I took a wrong turn when pulling in front of my group at km 127ā¦ :-o
I ma planning to do two more UCI qualifiers in May and in September, plus Gravel stage races in July and August, which both include a UCI qualifier as one of the stages. I also plan to race the Europeans, end of August, but will, unfortunately, very very likely skip the Worlds as Australia is too much of an effort from Europe (for me).
I have been training with athletica.ai from October to March and it provided me with a good base for the events early this year! A big thank you to everybody involved and especially also to @Marjaana for a lot of nice and friendly support work!
However, I had chosen to work with athletica.ai instead of completely self-coaching myself as I knew I would be very busy Februaryā¦May/June this year and I hoped it would be less time and effort for my (self)coaching. In the end, it turned out this was not the case. Overall, the (app2) system was way too buggy for me (one example: it never got my recovery status updated to the actual date, data was always 1ā2 days old), it was to repetitive (I had one 30/30, one K3/SST, and one n x 4ā threshold workout every week, besides easy stuff), and it could not take my foreseen unavailabilities into account. Thus it turned out I was swapping, shifting, removing or replacing workouts on a daily basis. Which is pretty much the same effort and the same issue as simply doing the plan myself (with some help from simple LLM GPTs that access my intervals.icu data for analysis).
I really think that the idea and approach behind athletica.ai are great and I also find the team cool and nice, but unfortunately it does not live up to the level of implementation/help I want(ed). I sincerely wish you the very best! (Maybe even for my own future benefit:-)
And good luck to all of you: stay healthy and happy ā and be successful:-)
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Race Report: Independence Sprint Triathlon (May 17)
Iām still processing yesterday, so this may be a bit all over the place!
Pre-Race: I woke up yesterday in a not-great state. My sleep was horrible because I kept waking up at every movement in my house and ended up just getting up at 2:30am. Whoop said I had a 23% recovery and high sleep stress and I had a slight sore throat - I chalked this all up to the bad sleep and ongoing seasonal allergies. I left the house at 4:15am so that I could get to the race early. Transition at this race is first-come, so I wanted to get a spot on the rack near bike in/out.
For distance reference, this race is 750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run
Swim (13:22, 1:47/100m)
The water was a crisp 66F and it was my first time wearing a wetsuit. I didnāt seed myself correctly in the line to get into the lake, and between that and the Olympic swimmers still finishing up their second laps, it was a bit of a mess to get through at times. Iāll admit that I had a bit of a panic when I first got in the water, but eventually found a rhythm.
T1 (3:37)
There is a 100m run from the lake into transition. Not horrible at all, but I was trying to juggle getting my wetsuit off with no real practice/training and get my watch properly stopped from the swim. I think I lost about 30 seconds dealing with my watch, but I suppose the good thing is that I know how to fix it for next time. (Form goggles + Apple Watch, my brain was just not processing quickly enough.). My wetsuit came off fast enough when I got to my bike, so Iāll say that wearing it was definitely worth the tiny time penalty that comes with the transition; it wasnāt my issue at all in T1.
Bike (42:45, 17.5mph)
I underestimated the hills. I am used to training on hills outside, but not quite like these. The course is a stretch of a state road that they close off for the race, and it was paved recently enough that the Pennsylvania winters havenāt caught up with it yet. Iāve definitely got some things to work on based on yesterday, mainly hills and bike handling (the turnarounds were rough).
T2 (1:54)
I let myself take a breath and my last gel before heading back out. It was my first time using lock laces on my shoes, and they were a great swap-out. And then my stupid Apple Watch decided it needed to start celebrating all of the work that Iād done, and I had to pause before leaving to get Stryd back up. Another thing to fix for next time.
Run (26:59, 8:41/mile)
Iād setup the first 3km of the run to cap at 12% under what my normal 5K race power would be - the first 10% for my normal adjustment and another 2% for the heat since it had spiked to 71F and Iāve been training in the 40s for most of the past 90 days. Unsurprisingly, I went out of the gate much faster than Iād expected, but I figured Iād let my legs do what they wanted. I overpowered the initial segments, found a groove for 4km, and then sent it for the last. I ended up with a negative split, which was what I was hoping for but Iāve always been bad about executing it.
Post-Race: With how bad I was feeling when I woke up, I told myself Iād be happy just to finish and get the experience (this was only my 3rd ever tri). My mind was blown when I saw my final time of 1:28:40, which was under the āBā goal of 1:29:00 Iād set when I was doing my race planning. When I finally got my phone to look at my results, I just kept blinking at the āAward Winnerā section: 1st Masters Female Overall.
Final thoughts: My swim is doing a LOT of the heavy lifting. I know conventional wisdom is that a race isnāt won in the swim, but I ended up being 15th overall in the entire field for the swim. I seeded myself far too far back based on that and I need to be more aggressive in getting to the front of the line going forward. I need to fix my tech issues and get some more bike time outside instead of relying so heavily on the trainer inside. I also havenāt properly dialed in my run yet, since I ultimately ended up at 9% under my normal 5K power instead of 12%.
Finally, it was not allergies or lack of sleep. Iāve got some full-on viral thing going on as of waking up this morning, so I appear to have raced sick yesterday. Thankfully, workout wizard is helping me substitute todayās recovery workouts for even more aggressive recovery.
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Iām glad it went well despite you feeling badly with the viral thing. Recover well.
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