Caroline Bridges reporting on Ironman 70.3 Shanghai Chongming.
My first overall win. Where to begin.
Back in 2019, when I was living in Shanghai, I remember a group of friends signing up for Ironman 70.3 Shanghai Chongming. At the time I had just bought a second-hand road bike and could barely ride for an hour without feeling like I might fall off.
Meanwhile my friends were preparing to swim 1900m, ride 90km and then somehow run a half marathon afterwards.
I specifically remember thinking I would love to try it one day, but also being genuinely embarrassed that I might not physically be capable of finishing something like that. I was completely in awe of anyone doing a 70.3.
Fast forward a few years and this race became one I knew I wanted to do properly. More than Wisconsin. More than Oman. This felt like a home race.
This year I finally got my opportunity, along with something even rarer: a full uninterrupted month of training preparation.
The race itself was everything I hoped it would be. This course has a reputation for being flat and fast, which it absolutely is, but "flat" does not automatically mean easy.
The entire weekend was incredibly windy. Proper "gale force warning" windy. Bikes blowing over in transition, barricades getting knocked down, etc.
The swim was a straightforward one-lap course in the lake. On the way out it felt calm and smooth and I remember thinking conditions were perfect. Then we turned around and suddenly discovered we had apparently been swimming with a tailwind the entire time. The return section became significantly more chaotic with chop straight into the face and a considerable amount of lake water consumed unintentionally.
The bike course was two laps out-and-back and essentially a game of headwind versus tailwind. One direction felt like riding into a wall, the other felt free speed had been unlocked.
My splits ended up being incredibly consistent across both laps with a slight negative split. I felt strong and controlled throughout, although secretly hoped I might be moving a little faster. The headwind sections were an absolute grind.
Then came the run.
The first thing worth mentioning is that there were essentially zero spectators on course. Outside of aid stations, we barely saw anyone all race. No crowds, no encouragement, no sense of where competitors were around you. Just long exposed roads, strong UV and your own thoughts.
And the heat was deceptive. Not humid and suffocating like some races, but dry and intense in a way where it felt like the heat was trapped inside your body rather than sweating out of it.
By around 10km I had started walking every aid station. Cola in both hands. Water over the head. Ice and sponges stuffed down my trisuit wherever they would fit. It became less about pacing and more about survival between aid stations.
I was frustrated because I knew the run was not reflective of the work I had done over the previous month. Training had gone significantly better than the performance I was producing out there.
Then around 14km in, while I was already hanging on, someone told me there was another girl a few minutes ahead on the road. That hurt a bit!
I had not seen another age group female around me the entire race and mentally I felt like I had absolutely nothing left to bridge a gap. I remember thinking that I had failed.
So when I crossed the finish line, without even a tape to break, there was no big celebration moment. No dramatic reaction. No taking in the significance of what had just happened.
It was only afterwards that I realised I had in fact done enough to take the overall win.
And maybe that is the strange thing about this sport. The goalposts move so quickly that sometimes the achievements barely register in real time. The race that once felt impossible becomes the race you critique yourself over.
But somewhere between the second-hand road bike in Shanghai in 2019 and crossing that finish line first in Chongming this weekend, the impossible quietly became normal.