Profile

Yvonne Van Vlerken has been a perennial contender in long distance triathlon for the last ten years: Since her debut at Challenge Roth (8:51:55 in 2007) she has won a total of eleven IM-distance races and raced four times in Kona, with a best result of second in 2008. Last season she qualified again for Kona, but she declined her slot after racing Roth in July and instead focused on the buildup for the 2016 season.

Taking Care of Business: Kona Qualifying

When Ironman announced a new Ironman in the Netherlands, they also announced two Dutch athletes that would race there in August: Bas Diederen and Yvonne Van Vlerken. Bas raced IM Germany five weeks before, then won IM Maastricht but struggled in Kona and DNF’d. Yvonne’s racing plan was even tighter: She raced Roth and Maastricht within four weeks, and after she went sub-9 in Roth, she had her slowest Ironman finish so far in Maastricht, still winning the race.

After Maastricht it was time for Yvonne to set up her 2016 summer. She had two major goals for this year’s season: To race her favorite long-distance race in Roth but also to prepare well for Kona without racing too much over the summer. In order to do that, she needed to secure a safe spot for Kona 2016 as early as possible. A big first step towards that was to race IM Barcelona in October. She had to work extremely hard for the win – a 3:02 run and an 8:46 finish gave her a margin of less than two minutes over Kaisa Lehtonen who was shoulder-to-shoulder with her for most of the run. (Kaisa went on to win this year’s IM South Africa.)

With the fall season coming to Europe, Yvonne and her parter Per Bittner had the chance to travel to Australia and race the southern hemisphere season. While not taking first place in the races she started, she finished third at IM Western Australia and had two second places in the 70.3s in Mandurah and Ballarat. While that still left some doubt, it pretty much made her safe for a Kona slot. As she planned some more prep races in Europe where she could also score a few more points, she was able to relax a bit and plan her build-up towards Challenge Roth with coach Siri Lindley.

(Photo: Yvonne finishing third at IM Western Australia. Credit: witsup)

Chasing Records in Roth

With her 8:46 in Barcelona 2015, Yvonne managed to take the first of Chrissie Wellington’s many records: Yvonne is the first women to finish ten Ironman-distance races in under nine hours, surpassing Chrissie’s mark of nine sub-9 finishes. For this year’s Challenge Roth, Yvonne is again looking for a good race and a fast finish. Here are some potential goals she is looking at:

1. Improve her personal best (currently 8:43:07 from Florida 2013) or her fastest time in Roth (8:45:48 from 2008 which was the world best time for a female at that point)
2. Add to her list of sub-9 finishes (10 sub-9s so far)
3. Become the woman with the most wins in Roth. She’s currently tied at three wins with Chrissie Wellington (2009-11) and Paula Newby-Fraser back from the times when Roth was “Ironman Europe” (1992, 1994-95). Jürgen Zack has the most Roth wins with five (1994-96 and 1998-99), Chris McCormack has four wins (2004-7).
4. Try to take the record for the fastest finish by a pair of athletes in one race. Yvonne likes to call this “Pärchen-Rekord“, a play on her partner’s first name (Per, pronounced like the English “pair”) and the German word for pair (either “Paar” or the diminutive “Pärchen”). This is another record currently held by Chrissie with her partner Tom Lowe dating back to Arizona 2010 with 16:47:57 (8:11:44 + 8:36:13). Yvonne’s and Per’s best is currently just eight minutes slower at 16:55:22 (8:04:29 + 8:50:53) from Roth last year. My predictions for them have a combined total for them of 17:10:53, so both of them will need to have great races to attack that record!

While this would allow her to break some more of Chrissie’s records, she freely admits that Chrissie was on another level and that she could never be as fast. A humble statement from the athlete that has gone sub-9 more often than any other woman!

(Photo: Yvonne and Per after racing in Ingolstadt in early June. Yvonne won the Middle Distance, Per was second in the Olympic Distance race. Credit: Ingo Kutsche)

Life Before Turning Pro

When Caroline Livesey decided to do her first Ironman, she was a Royal Engineer Officer in the British Army stationed in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan. Before joining the Army, she was massively into rock climbing and jokes that she still has “forearms that no sane triathlete needs”. She did a lot of expedition routes in Africa and South America, and the demands of 12 to 15 hour-long days made her incredibly fit. When she joined the Army in 2003, she was one of the fittest in her platoon at officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. She didn’t have a background in swimming or biking, still one of the physical training instructors pointed her towards triathlon. Her “first triathlon was absolutely dreadful”, but she was quickly putting out impressive power on the bike. When she met her future husband Mark in 2007  she started to take triathlon more serious and was fifth in her agegroup at the ITU World Champs in 2008.

(Photo: Caroline on a 2006 climb in Kalymnos, Greece.)

In 2010 the Army sent her to Afghanistan as an Engineer to design and manage infrastructure projects. She had to work in full body armor in the Afghanistan heat and dust.

(Photo: Caroline in full gear, reviewing the site of a damaged bridge in Afghanistan.)

Almost anything sounds good compared to Afghanistan, so when her fiancee (now husband) Mark suggested Mexico as the destination for their honeymoon, she quickly accepted – even when Mark casually mentioned doing Ironman Cozumel as part of it. Caroline’s engineering background has taught her to deal with problems, so her training in Afghanistan was on two routes – either the camp perimeter which was less than a kilometer or the helipad which was roughly 400 meters. The bike had to be done on the trainer. She finished Cozumel 2010 in 10:42, Mark even qualified for Kona. She qualified herself with a 10:02 at Texas 2014, broke 10 hours with a 9:46 in Austria and finished third in her agegroup on the Big Island with a 10:13. What was planned as a “one off” experience and only a temporary break from climbing had quickly developed into a quest to find out how good she can be.

2015: First Pro Season

By 2015 Caroline had left the Army and was working as a geotechnical consultant, dealing with projects such as cliff stabilization or building and maintaining dams. Even with a full time job she decided that getting her Pro card was the best way to find out how she measured up against the best women in the sport. As a “rational  engineer” she gives practical reasons for turning Pro (such as easier registration for races), but talking to her it’s clear that that’s not the main reason. Most of the other Professional athletes with a Kona focus are either delaying, suspending or scaling back their career, at least for the time that they are racing professionally, but Caroline loves both her job and racing too much to want to decide between the two. “I don’t want to give up Engineering, I’ve worked so hard to be where I am with my job, so racing as a Pro never meant going full-time. Ironman racing is never going to pay my way – I earn the money in my job so I can go racing. I’m not an Olympic Champion or Ironman Champion such as Jan Frodeno, but it was amazing to sit next to him at the IM Lanzarote press conference in a beautiful hotel. I know that being part of this crazy circus is not going to last, so why not have a good time!”

Caroline’s first Pro race was IM South Africa in March 2015. In the deep Regional Championship field she finished in 12th place. She received a lot more attention in her next race when she grabbed her first Pro podium with a 3rd place at IM Lanzarote. She backed that up with her current personal best Pro IM: A 10:05 at IM UK was good enough for a second place behind a dominating Lucy Gossage – a result beyond her “wildest dreams”. At the start of the year she did not think about Kona at all, but after these great results “just one more” good race at 70.3 Wiesbaden would have given her enough points for an August slot. But she was probably exhausted after racing three IMs in the first half of the year – her body wanted to “call it a day and hit the off season with gusto”. After a disappointing 11th place finish she was five spots short of qualifying – similar to a couple of other female Pros who raced well across the year, but just not quite good enough for a slot. Looking back, she realized that she had lacked a plan geared towards qualifying.

(Photo: Caroline (left) on the IM UK podium, Credit: Finisher Pix)

Planning 2016

Caroline started the 2016 season with the clear goal of qualifying for Kona as a Pro. Qualifying for Kona means being ranked as one of the Top 35 female Pros in the Kona Pro Ranking. She is disgusted that there are more Pro slots for the men, making qualifying harder for the women and requiring them to race more often. To be ranked in the Top 35 female Pros she will have to score about 4.500 points in her races. (The actual number will depend on how athletes race and may end up higher or lower, but 4.500 is a good starting point.) To translate this into race results, it corresponds to three third places in “normal” Ironman races (roughly 3.800 points), and some more points from 70.3s. As a male, about 3.500 points are needed to be ranked well enough for a Kona slot, which can be achieved with two podium IM finishes and some more points from 70.3 races. While frustrated about this inequality, she has to work within the rules that Ironman has decided on.

To reach her goal of Kona qualifying, Caroline was well aware that she would need some exceptional races. She planned to race at least four full distance Ironman races, knowing that racing a lot is very hard on the body. As she is still working full-time she has to squeeze her racing into long weekends of unpaid leave – probably not sustainable for the long term. She started to collect points towards Kona 2016 in the fall of 2015 with a podium finish at 70.3 Turkey. As one of her Ironman races she had picked Ironman Malaysia in November 2015. The hot, humid race usually doesn’t attract many athletes and is therefore a good scoring opportunity. However, she couldn’t spend much time getting acclimatized to the conditions, and realized pretty early in the race that she was overheating. She wasn’t able to finish the race and therefore couldn’t improve her KPR ranking. But she quickly turned around to race 70.3 Bahrain just three weeks later. A fifth place finish gave her a total of 1.100 points at the end of 2015. That was pretty much what she needed from 70.3 races (and gave her a slot in the 2016 70.3 World Championships in Mooloolaba, Australia), but she would have to score the bulk of the Kona points in her 2016 Ironman races if she wanted to qualify.

Caroline was optimistic for her first Ironman of 2016 in Lanzarote. After a prep 70.3 race in cold Pays d’Aix her goal was to finish on the podium by racing smart on the bike and then having a strong run. Her swim and bike went well (she biked 14 minutes faster than a year ago) and she was in fourth place at the start of the run.

(Photo: Caroline on the IM Lanzarote bike course. Credit: James Mitchell Photography/Club la Santa)

But a couple of athletes had great runs while she struggled to hold her pace. She ended up in fifth place after promising herself on the run to retire from the sport. Her husband Mark was able to qualify as an age grouper in Lanzarote, and just one night after the race Caroline was back to being highly motivated to qualify as well. She had registered for Ironman France which gave her only two weeks of recovery. Even with lots of work and last minute travel planning she tried to make the most of it. But her race in France was similar to Lanzarote – after a good swim and bike (her fastest IM bike leg so far) she was within minutes of Leanda Cave who was in third place. The first 10k went well: She made up one place and was closing the gap to Leanda, but at around 15k she started to struggle. After the second of four run loops she had dropped back to eighth place and she decided to call it a day in order to save the legs for the next race.

Before Ironman Frankfurt

Caroline’s next race is Ironman Frankfurt – the fourth Ironman start in her quest towards Kona 2016 qualifying. In the Kona Pro Ranking she is at 1.870 points, and she could secure a Kona slot by finishing third (=2.890 points). However, that is an unrealistic goal for her in the strong and deep field in Frankfurt. More realistic goals for her are to finish “in the money” (Frankfurt is paying 10 deep) and to set a new Ironman PR on the fast Frankfurt course – currently her best Pro time is 10:05 from Ironman UK 2015 (she also has a 9:46 from Austria 2014 as an agegrouper). But I think the main goal for her should be to have “a good race”, one where she can still race well in the second half of the run and make up some places. If she manages to do that, she should also score well in the Regional Championship race (for example a seventh place is 1.335 points, similar to a third place in a “normal” IM). With good points from Frankfurt I’m sure she’ll continue to work to qualify for Kona – even if it means to race her fifth Ironman of the season before the final cutoff in August!

All photos supplied by Caroline.

With Rebekah “Bek” Keat, the 2011 Cairns champion returns to the 2016 race. With her 8:39:24 from Roth 2009 Bek is the fourth-fastest woman over the Ironman distance. After a triathlon career spanning 20 years with a number of great results and at 38 years of age, she is clearly in the second half of her career. She was kind enough to answer a few questions about her years in the sport and the upcoming race.

Racing after Melbourne 2014

Bek’s last Ironman finish was Melbourne 2014 where she finished fourth. After that she didn’t chase Kona qualifying (even though she was probably thinking about it!) and focused on racing 70.3s.

“I have been in the sport since 1996 so 20 years, it’s a long time! I had been pretty lucky with no injuries, until a few years ago when I started racing longer races and doing more of the Iron distances. When I was coached by Brett Sutton I was racing five Ironmans or long distance races in short periods of three or four months. The years have caught up with me, and my body wasn’t holding up like it use to. I wanted to give my body a break, I wasn’t able to get huge run miles in without getting injured. The break has helped me to get back to being injury free and healthy, apart form the usual stiffness and soreness – I’m no spring chicken anymore!

“The goal this season is to execute a great race and be able to celebrate all my hard work with a race that I know I am capable of. I have not raced to my potential in an Ironman since my second place at IM Mt Tremblant in 2013! All I want to do is have a strong swim, bike and run and have fun doing it!!”

Comparing the 2009 Bek to Today’s

For a long time Bek was part of the “Sutto squad”, today she trains under Siri Lindley in Boulder. In addition to a coach-athlete relationship (by now going both ways!), Bek and Siri are also married. I’ve asked Bek how being married to your coach works and how she has changed as an athlete and as a person. 

“The Bek who did 8:39 had a perfect day, today’s Bek is actually faster, stronger and fitter. I know I have much more to give – that’s what motivates me! As I am training better than ever, I know I can go faster than that 8:39, but unfortunately the body hasn’t always been able to produce the results that I know I am capable of!

“As a person I have grown a lot, both emotionally and spiritually. I am very lucky to have met Siri, the love of my life. I am not just content but I am the happiest I have ever been in my life – Siri completes me. I told her when I married her that if me being a triathlete was going to affect our relationship I would quit immediately! That’s how much I am committed and how in love I am with her! Triathlon was the pure love and focus of my life but now Siri is. Even after a bad day I know I can come home to someone that loves me for who I am!”

Photo: Bek and Siri getting married.

“Siri and I have had to negotiate in the past, it wasn’t easy adapting as her partner to having to agree with every single session she gave me! Before I won 2015 Shepparton for the fifth time in a world class field, I had promised Siri I would do exactly as she said – no questions, no negotiating! I had the ‘ ideal race’ apart from tearing my calf at 10 k to go. Siri screamed at me don’t you stop – so I didn’t! I really don’t know how I held off Radka and Yvonne, but I won the race in record time and it felt amazing!

“Since then I am very diligent with trying to do exactly what she says, though at times I want to scream at her or flip her the bird! I certainly had to bite my tongue a lot in front of our team mates when i get angry at a session she has given us – like a “surprise 2km time trial” in the middle of a 5km swim set!

“We have a great balance now. I am writing her run program and she has to do exactly what I write! She is not as good at doing the program as she thinks, she often runs further than I have given her. Obviously she’s not then runner she was when she was wining world cups with 33 min for 10k, but she is going great. She still makes me very proud!”

Photo: Bek winning her fifth Challenge Shepparton with a new course record.

Racing at Texas and Going Into Cairns

Bek lined up at IM Texas and things were going well: She had a strong bike leg and came into T2 in third place, then even moved into second on the run. However she collapsed at the half marathon mark and DNF’d. Just four weeks later she’s backing up by racing IM Cairns.

“It was scary – it’s not the first time this has happened. The last time it was heat exhaustion, this time we think it was a combination of heat exhaustion and lack of calories. The “real” temperature was 110 and 80% humidity, coming from Boulder I was not acclimatized. I got excited when I moved into top 3 only a few minutes behind first and threw my food to Siri to take off in the run. At around the 22km mark I collapsed, my legs went and I couldn’t get back up. I made silly mistakes with not fueling enough and certainly learned my lesson!

Photo: Bek ready to race IM Texas.

“In Australia I am staying with my twin sister Simone and helping her with her amazing twin girls. I am so chuffed and over the moon to be an auntie, it’s amazing and so surreal! We are very very proud! Although Boulder right now is almost as warm, it’s been great to get in some warmer weather training.”

Photo: Bek with her twin sister Simone (left), holding Simone’s new born twins Makayla Blue (left) and Charli Grace (right). 

I’ve asked Siri about Bek’s chances in Cairns:

“I am fired up for Bek. I know she is excited to race in her home country, and has so much to inspire and motivate her throughout the race. We had our sights set on IM Texas. Unfortunately, in Texas Bek had miscalculated her hydration/nutrition requirements considering the 100% humidity. She will never make that same mistake again.

“Bek was in winning form and still carries that same form into Cairns.  She absolutely has everything she needs to race to the top of the podium in Cairns. The work has been done. She just plans to go out there and celebrate all the hard work she has done. Our goal is for her to get out and race to the best of her ability every step of the way. If she is able to do this, I’m certain she will have a tremendous day. She is in fantastic form and just needs to nail her plan to get the very most out of herself on the day!”

(All Photos Supplied by Rebekah)

American Professional Liz Lyles is one of the favorites going into the Regional Championships at IM Brasil on May 29th. She faces strong competition, mainly by last year’s winner Ariane Monticelli, IM France winner Caitlin Snow and two fast German Pros, Mareen Hufe (one of the best bikers in female triathlon) and Kristin Möller (one of the best runners). I’ve had the chance to chat with Liz about the challenges she faces, her last season and the expectations for this year.

Juggling Family and Training

Liz discovered triathlon in 2001, but didn’t turn Pro until August 2012 – after becoming a mother to son Luke (born 2008) and daughter Emma (born 2010). She has to squeeze her training between taking care of the children. When we talked, she asked to start at 9:15am (“because I drop my kids at the bus at 9:10”) – and she had a long run scheduled afterwards.

“Yesterday I had a long swim and a bike. I got home at 3:40 and had to be at the bus stop at 3:45. So I just grabbed my keys and went into the car still in my bike clothes to get the kids. When we got home all I wanted to do is to shower and lay down. Instead I had to do dinner, do the laundry, get groceries and so on. Before a big training block I try to warn everybody because I can get a little impatient by 5 o’clock at night.

“This weekend I’m going to do a Century Ride .. that helps because they provide nutrition, there’ll be other cyclists on the road and I don’t have to watch for traffic on my own. We’ll bring our travel trailer. The kids love camping, so we go down on Friday and camp close to the start. Then on Saturday I do the century ride and a run. In the meantime [husband] Chip and the kids are fishing and having a good time. On Sunday morning I’ll have a long 20-mile run while they do some more fishing, then I’ll come back and join in. It’s a good way for a little family vacation where I can safely train.

“I love looking at rankings and results but I have four hundred other things to occupy my mind: Did my son win his baseball game? Is Emma going to score a goal in soccer? I can’t really compare myself to what other professionals are doing .. it’s a different life. But I’m stoked about having my kids and my family.”

Improving

Liz won her Pro Ironman debut race at Wisconsin 2012 with a sub-3 run. She qualified for Kona 2013 (16th place) and won IM Western Australia with a sub-9 finish. In 2014 she was second at IM Germany and finished Kona in 7th place as the top US female athlete. She started her 2015 season with a win at Wildflower over defending champion Heather Jackson in a finish chute sprint duel and a second place at the Regional Championships in Brasil.

“I won Wisconsin 2012, that was back when I didn’t know how to bike. Being a Professional was fresh and exciting and new. I bike slower, my legs felt fresh at the start of the run and I ran a 2:59:33. My times have come down in the swim and especially on the bike.

“My best IMs were not my wins but when I got second in Frankfurt and in Brasil and of course Kona when I got 7th. If I want to win one of the Regionals or podium in Kona, I have to get stronger and more comfortable towards the last 20 miles of the bike – so feeling fresher at mile 90. But also at mile 112 so I can get off the bike and straight into my pace for the run.

Photo Credit: © Kaori Photo 2016 / kaoriphoto.com / Used with permission.

“The next couple of weeks on the long rides I’ll focus to take in the nutrition. On the bike I try to carry all my nutrition and only stop for water. On the run I’m on my own and no one gives me my water bottle every couple of minutes. It’s much easier in the race with all the aid stations.”

Summer 2015

Liz lined up at IM Canada in Whistler, but she had to abandon quite early on the bike as she was hypothermic in the cold rain that surprised all the racers. Three weeks later she raced IM Mont Tremblant but had a sub-standard 7th place finish in 9:42 and a disappointing 3:24 run.

“The first half of 2015 was great, but then it all went downhill with that stupid cold weather front at IM Whistler. I felt that was my chance to pick up another IM title. I just completed 14 miles of the bike – it was freezing cold. Some guy picked me up in his truck and I later met him in Kona. He said ‘Liz, I rescued you from the side of the road in Whistler’ and I didn’t remember anything. At Wildflower I met a guy who had also been picked up and we rode in the ambulance together to the Expo area. He said he tried to talk to me and that I was blue and shaking, but I don’t even recall much of that.

“I really wanted to race and I jumped into some more Ironman training. When the race in Mont Tremblant started I felt depleted and had a pretty bad race there. And after that Kona was next. I didn’t like training for three Ironmen in a row. I’ll never try that sort of thing again. When building for an IM I really like to race half IMs to get the speed and then take it down a notch for the Ironman in terms of effort.

“My kids go on summer break. All summer I was training for an IM and it wasn’t fun for anyone in our family. This year I’m going to do Brasil and then when the summer break starts in June, I’ll spend some more time with them and don’t want to be stressed about racing. When they go back to school in August I can pick up the big training then. I’m just learning that I have to plan around when it’s going to be easier for me to train. ”

Kona 2015

In Kona Liz finished 14th with a solid race, but that result was overshadowed by a number of great performances such as by the top US finishers Heather Jackson (5th) and Sarah Piampiano (7th).

“I was happy with the swim – I was in the second pack and we had put three to five minutes to the next group. But the Top 10 swimmers more or less rode together while the athletes around me just fell away: Heather Wurtele got her mechanical, Julia Gajer and Rinnie had bad days. The year before I had biked with Heather, Rinnie and Julia in a legal group until about the climb to Hawi where it broke up. I was riding in a group, I felt great, super comfortable pace. This year I don’t know where everybody went, and I was on my own for the whole bike ride. I was just alone pushing. When I was passed by Heather Jackson and Asa Lundstrom after the turnaround at Hawi I didn’t have any energy to go with them. Maybe I lost some speed just training for Ironman. With my fitness I also should have been able to run faster. It was a rough and lonely day.”

2016 Season

Liz approaches the 2016 season a bit differently: She raced a number of 70.3s at the start of season. That worked well for her, she defended her Wildflower title. Now she is looking towards the South American Regional Championship in Brazil at the end of May.

“Looking at a 12 week training block here in Reno it’s hard to stay motivated because I’m always training alone. So this year I’m racing to keep my interest level high. It’s been fun so far – I love getting a bit of rest before the races and then having a couple of easy days afterwards. Panama was just to get out and get some fitness, I knew I wasn’t going to be ready just coming off the trainer. It was pretty hot and humid. My mom and I had a great time to visit the sights. It was a good way to get out but I knew I had a lot of work to do.

“The focus is on Brasil. The weekend before Wildflower I had a hard 20 mile run. Last year at Wildflower it was ‘bike as hard as you can who cares what happens’. I usually like to start the run being down a small gap, to be able to see the front and to pace myself off that. I prefer chasing, but not the three minutes I had last year, maybe one minute. That last downhill run mile is a steep downhill and [defending champion] Heather [Jackson] and I ran it at an all out sprint. This year I pretty much knew I had it so I cruised it down. ‘Okay, Brasil is next so don’t kill your knee.’

“My mom is coming back to Brasil with me this year – we love that place. Last year I had a terrible swim. I got lost and could have been two minute faster on the swim. Around mile 80 the legitimate ten-men-draft packs started to move through. I’m not willing to take a risk [to get a penalty] so I sit up, let them pass and join back in when I’m twelve meters back. It sucks, but it’s what you have to do. I pushed the bike pretty hard last year, maybe too hard so I hope I can run a bit quicker. Coming back to a course I always do better the second time I do it.”

I hope the women’s race in Florianopolis will be as exciting and close as last year when there were six different athletes in the lead on the run. I’m sure Liz will once again be among those that will play an important role. To secure a Kona slot a Top 5 finish should be enough for her, but she has her sights a bit higher: Only winning would be better than last year’s second place. I hope she’ll have a great day of racing on May 29th!