Swimming to Win With Regroup Racing's Chelsea Wolfe

If our regular haunts have the power to renew, we can only imagine what it must be like for those whose athletic prowess opens up the map to a wider world and a life of adventure. Athletes like Regroup Racing’s Chelsea Wolfe, whose speed in the pool propelled her through college, to the bike and on to crushing Ironman events and the world champs here and over the ocean. How many roads can one person handle? Apparently, a lot.

As we connect over Zoom, my first thought is that Chelsea must really love the Golden Gate Bridge, because it’s her Zoom background. She later explains that it’s a reference to her company’s location. With its sweeping view of the bridge and the Bay, it’s one heck of a sight, and brings to mind, helped by Chelsea’s last name, Jack London’s book, Seawolf, and for a moment I feel as adrift as its hapless protagonist, Humphrey van Weyden, who ends up in the Bay after his ferry collides with another ship and sinks. But as Chelsea beams from my screen, she brings me back to the present, and I make a mental note to up my Zoom filter to present the same vitality. She puts the bridge in the shade and me at ease, and for the next hour or so, as we talk sport, cycling and ridiculous races, the sight of her head and shoulders floating above the Bay on a sunny day becomes oddly soothing. All bridges should have a Chelsea.

“I started swimming competitively when I was five,” she begins when I ask about her journey towards triathlon and Ironman events. “By the time I was 21, when I graduated from college, all I knew was swimming, and I had to find another outlet. I really needed a break from being in the pool for twenty hours a week, and triathlons had the appeal of offering three pursuits in one!” There’s clearly a sporting success story here. “Ha, well, swimming did put me through college, so I was good, but at the same time, I knew I couldn’t quite reach Olympic level.” Still, she must have had something special. “I guess so, but in West Virginia, where I grew up, there was a lot of swimming talent. I mostly swam in division two and would hope to podium at every event, whereas the Olympic-level swimmers competed in division one. I knew if I swam in that category, I would struggle to place, so division two was a good fit for me.”

When did the bike come into view? “I had a friend buy a road bike while we were in our senior year at college, and he and his then girlfriend and now wife said they were going to do a triathlon. So I said, ‘Oh, what’s a triathlon?’, to which they replied, ‘Well, we really mean an Ironman.’ So they explained what that was, and how, for most swimmers, running is not their favorite activity, and how, in an Ironman, you have to run a marathon, bike 112 miles and swim almost three. In short, they said I wouldn’t be able to do the run. And to my mind, that became, ‘did you just tell me I can’t do something?!'” she laughs. But to this West Virginia girl, the bike part at least wouldn’t be completely foreign. “Where I grew up is pretty mountainous. As a kid, I spent quite a bit of time doing enduro-style mountain biking. Nothing on the road, though.” But when she did get on the asphalt, Chelsea’s swimmer’s engine saw her hitting a hundred miles with ease, although acclimatizing to the pounding of running, she recalls, did take her a minute. “Running is just so impactful on your joints, especially compared to swimming and cycling, which are very low-impact sports. It also affects the body in other ways. For instance, even when I’m swimming really fast in the pool, my heart rate isn’t that high. Yet, that same effort on the run could see my heart rate skyrocket. Ultimately, it’s just a different type of training, like cycling up a hill for the first time compared to riding on the flat.”