Nemesis

Got it — if your goal is to win the Super Series, the approach should be strategic rather than purely competitive. You’re playing the “points game,” not just racing your rival head-to-head every time.

There are two overarching triathlon competitions in my life, the Kinetic Cup, and the Super Series. As you know, last year I won the Kinetic Cup for my age group, and I’m happy to report that I did again this year!

Last year I placed 2nd in the Super Series. This is basically the same as the KC except it scores you against all women, despite age and only the top 5 are eligible. This year I placed 4th; just snuck in there! I’m still super happy with that result! But what you need to understand is that I have a nemesis.

I feel particularly drawn to definition 1b and 2b above as 1a and 2a imply that my nemesis knows I exist. She does not.

Now, they say you should never meet your hero. I say, never meet your nemesis, because she might be awesome. Such is the case for me. This woman wins the Super Series every year. We’re just going to refer to her as ‘M’ for the sake of anonymity. But just know that her name is a common word around my house and even my kids have been caught muttering it under their breath in a dark moment.

M is good. She wins every race in which she competes. She’s so fast I’ve never actually seen her. The few races we have both done, I swear she disappears before the award ceremony like some sort of triathlon phantom. I have no idea what she looks like. You can imagine how this messes with my head during a race, every time a woman passes me, I assume it’s her.

I recently worked one of the Kinetic races and during an infrequent down time we all started chatting about some of the competitors. Turns out, my nemesis is well known and well loved by the crew. Also turns out she crashed her bike during this particular race, was out for several minutes getting bandaged, and then STILL WON THE WHOLE DANG THING.

Not only that, but she is basically the Kinetic people’s hero. She works for a secret organization that may or may not guard the president. She occasionally has pulled out of a race because she had to fly with Air Force 1 to a location unknown. Not only can she beat me in triathlon, she could probably melt me with laser eyes.

Anyway, I was told in no uncertain terms that she’s “the nicest person ever” and “really one of our favorite competitors.”

Ouch.

The race director said, “I can see you need to find a new source of motivation because you can’t be fueled by white hot rage anymore.”

He wasn’t wrong, the more they talked the more my rage fizzled out. She sounds awesome. I still haven’t met her. I don’t think I will, I may keep the mystery going forever. It makes it a little more fun. It would be more fun if she knew I was competing against her, but I think if she found out she would be happy for me and want me to win eventually. Based on her prolific character references from the crew, that I didn’t ask for or even want to hear, that’s the impression I’ve gathered. But for now, and for at least the 2026 season, she remains my nemesis, in the most loving way possible.

Hence the quote at the top of this post. I have spent time with chatGPT lately, analyzing my Series results and finding ways to maximize my points per event. I think I may have broken it though because after a lengthy strategy discussion the final response I received was, “I understand you really want to beat this woman, but it is impossible to determine which races she will do in the future and you must account for a factor of luck and chance.”

Thanks for nothing, internet.

It did give me the following five tips:

1. Target Races She Likely Won’t Attend

2. Pick “Safe Points” Races

3. Limit Head-to-Head Battles

4. Maximize Series Points

5. Plan for Consistency

✅ Bottom line:
To win the series, prioritize races she’s not at. Only race her when you are confident you can beat her or when points are essential. Treat her presence as a variable to minimize, not a challenge to confront every time.

So if you need me, I’ll be here over-analyzing Series results from the past 5 years and figuring out which races to target and how many and which have the highest points and……no wonder chatGPT got tired of me.

2025 was a great season, I’m really happy with all my race performances. The kids have gotten old enough to come to races and help volunteer with the race staff. It’s been really fun to see them get involve, plus we try to camp during those weekends and it makes it much more of an adventure. This is the first year I finally won some races as first place female! I won a sprint distance and an olympic distance. I usually get second place, so this was an exciting change.

I also started coaching myself this year, which is kind of a paradox. But it’s been a nice challenge. I know enough of the basics to have a general outline of what types of efforts need to be done when, and I use, well, chatGPT for any other details on which I lack knowledge. It’s a little hodge-podge but the freedom of writing my own schedule is worth it.

Of course, we’ll see how this pans out in 2 weeks when I race the 50k. Could be dicey. I’m looking forward to the new challenge and excited to see some of these really fast runners out there. Stay tuned for course updates as I head out to the race site this weekend to scout.