So,

So windy.

Yeah, when we crossed over Keggy, got onto Wilson, Wilson felt like a wind tunnel.

And my personal race strategy was like I wanted to negative split the last two miles.

And when I hit Wilson, I was like, oh.

Am I still going to be able to do this? Like, I really want my last mile to be the fastest.

And I was pushing, but I felt like what I was telling Emily before is Wilson is a good, it might be one to 2%.

When you do that, and maybe I'm going to make Emily come over here or she could just like motion over to us, but it's like, but is there a key to like, do you run to the car afterwards? Like, and then turn on the heat?

What kind of preconceived ideas did you have going into it, and then how did that turn out?

[laughs] Yeah.

Um, which again, in these last two weeks, I've had a lot of time to think about things like this.

Um, I would say, you know, a lot of people take their pro cards and they, like, after Kona, like, we talked about this, and, like, after Kona, they, like, hop the, hop right in.

They don't miss a beat, and I missed a lot of beats.

[laughs] Like, I took my card, and then there was a long space between when I took the card and when I raced, and I actually think, in a lot of ways, that benefited me, because- I didn't have these expectations that came from my age group racing that I took into racing a pro.

All I knew about racing as a pro came from you and Brittany, who had done it in the 70.3 level a couple times, and a couple other friends that were kind of in a similar position to me.

What did you think about those differences that race morning?

And, and maybe we start with Vanessa on this one.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, ultimately I decided to take my pro card to level up my own racing and, because ultimately I just made the har- the race harder for myself, and that's something that was really exciting for me.

It's not that I was, um, like, winning everything or bored with racing in the age group level, but- Given the opportunity to do it differently and really challenge myself in a new way, it felt like it was time.

Like why not? And, and you were a big inspiration to that, where you were like how, how often do people get to say that they raced as a professional athlete, or get to, get to have a professional elite license in anything.

And that, just earning it feels really, really special, and it's been a very long journey [laughs] since when I took the card in the middle of 2024.

Uh, have you reached out to Sika Henry at all, who was the first Black woman to race as a professional triathlete? Have you talked to Sika, or did, does that even matter to you?