Sika Henry recently accomplished a huge goal: she became the first U.S. Black female professional triathlete in history.
Sika set this goal 6 years ago and was aiming to achieve it in 2019. But nothing could have prepared her for the bike accident she experienced in that year during a race in Texas. Sika isn’t one to let any obstacle stand in her way and she trained hard to come back stronger than ever. Now, she uses the experience of her accident and the success of getting her pro card to talk to youth, particularly Black Americans, about getting involved in triathlon.
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Shelby Stanger:
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Sika Henry:
When I don't feel like putting on my run shoes or going to the pool, I would tell myself, "Well, this is what I have to do if I want to get my pro card. This is just necessary." There aren't any shortcuts. There's no magic pill. You literally have to put in the time and the hard work. And like we said, the consistency, it's not just a week after week thing, or just month after month, it's years of grinding.
Shelby Stanger:
Triathlete Sika Henry spent years training to become the first African-American woman to get her triathlete pro card. A few months ago in May 2021, Sika achieved her goal, but it wasn't an easy road to get there. Two years ago, Sika was in a gnarly bike accident during a race. No one knew if she would come back to triathlon. But with her sights set on going pro, Sika got back in the saddle and turned her wild idea into a reality. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. Sika's a two time marathon winner. She's been featured in USA, triathlon magazine and the Washington Post. She's also written for Bicycling Magazine and Triathlete Magazine. And in addition to racing frequently herself, Sika also has a full-time job as a customer analyst. Between work and training, her days are packed. But with dedication and drive, Sika was finally able to get her pro card earlier this year. For those who are unfamiliar, there are several ways triathletes can attempt to get this qualification and officially be considered professional athletes. In the world of triathlon, getting your pro card is a really big deal. Okay, so what does getting your pro card mean? How does one get one?
Sika Henry:
Right, yeah. No, and it's actually a common question and unless you're chasing it, you wouldn't know. So every country has a federation and ours is USA Triathlon, and they make the rules, every year they revamped them. And for the most part, they stay the same, but there are different criterias you can hit in order to qualify for your pro card. If you come in top 10 amateur overall at the Ironman world championships in Kona, Hawaii, that will qualify you for your pro card. One of the other criteria which I went after was finding a pro qualifier race. So it had to have a pro field, so Cancun had a pro a woman's division. We had to race on the same course as them. So it was a half Ironman. There was a pro prize purse. So usually these types of races, they're pretty competitive, they attract a lot of talent. So it's really hard.
Shelby Stanger:
So with triathlon there's different distances and you can qualify for your pro card with different ones. Can you just break it down for us?
Sika Henry:
Yeah. It's whatever. For me, I tend to do better over the longer distances when I can get into a groove. So that's why I favor the half Ironman distance. So for folks who aren't familiar with them, the sprint is the shortest, it's a 750 meter swim, a 20K bike, so about 12 mile bike, and then a 5K run. The half Ironman, which is what I typically race, that's a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and then you run a half marathon, which is 13.1 miles. And then the epic, the beast of them all is the full Ironman, which is insane, and I will never do another one. It's 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and then you have to run a marathon.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get into triathlon?
Sika Henry:
By chance, I guess. I grew up swimming, I swam all four years of high school. And then my senior year of high school, I was playing around in gym class and the track and field coach saw me playing basketball. He's like, "Wow, you can jump really high. You should come out for the outdoor track team." So I'm like, "Why not? Why not give it a try and do something new." And I tried high jump and I just fell in love with it. I ended up doing really well, I went to NCAAs and became an All-American. And then after college I started working in Midtown Manhattan. I had absolutely no life whatsoever and I got lazy and out of shape. And thinking back on this, I didn't like running that much in college, I didn't even want to run a mile to warm up for the high jump. So it's funny that I had always had on my bucket list to do a marathon. I think because growing up I'd always saw it on TV. And I also saw it in person, I would go watch the New York city marathon. And being in college in Boston, I would see the Boston marathon every year, watch that with my roommate. So it was like, "Oh, you know what? I need to get back into shape, I'll try a marathon." So I signed up for one, I did not prepare properly at all. The first half was okay, and then I just bonked, hardcore puking, walking by mile 17, 20. I found a spectator on the side of the road, I asked if I could use their cell phone. And I called my best friend, I wanted her to come pick me up. She didn't answer, so I had to finish the marathon. And it was just a hot mess. But through all that, somehow I ended up breaking four hours. So it was like, "Okay, if I can break four hours with all that vomiting and stuff then if I properly trained for this, I could eventually do a decent time." But fast forward a couple of years later, relocated from New York City to where I live now out near Virginia Beach, Virginia. And I saw that - I live near the beach and there was a local sprint triathlon, and that was something else I always wanted to try. So I signed up for it, I only had two weeks to prepare. I bought a mountain bike, I bought a Speedo, I bought goggles. And yeah, in two weeks I did my first Sprint triathlon.
Shelby Stanger:
It's interesting because I know a lot of triathletes. I live in San Diego, which is the Mecca of triathlon. And the people who tend to be attracted to triathlon today, they tend to be really driven, really type A, total bad-asses at work and athletically. It just takes a certain kind of person to be a triathlete. I did a little research on you, you're an analyst at one of the top plumbing distribution companies in the world, you've got 30,000 employees, you have this baller job. Have you always been driven?
Sika Henry:
I think so. I was having a conversation with my mom about this not too long ago. I didn't realize how much I have always been. I think also being a student athlete, I think that helped prepare me for juggling the demands of a corporate career and also trying to get to the pro level. So when you're in college, you have to maintain a certain GPA and go to your classes and do well and make sure you graduate on time. And then on top of it, you're racing and traveling every weekend, you're practicing twice a day, lifting. So it's not too much different, I would say, than college. So it's not totally out of the box for me. But yeah, I would say that I've always just been, as you described, type A, very structured, organized, I've never liked idle time. Even now before a race, the week or two before you start tapering, and then all of a sudden I have all this free time. And for a day it's nice, and then a few days into the taper, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what do I do with myself? I have way too much time on my hands."
Shelby Stanger:
So have you always been attracted to sports that also require a lot of effort and discipline and perseverance?
Sika Henry:
No, I don't think so. Like I said, I didn't even like running in college. I didn't like sweating like that. Just once a week, my coach would try to make me run three miles. And I'm like, "Three freaking miles. Why do I have to do that?" One of my roommates, she was on the cross country team and every Sunday she had to get up and run 12 to 14 miles. And I shouldn't be saying this, I'd be hungover in bed like, "Why are you up this early on a Sunday? We're college students." And she had to go run all this mileage. So no, I was never attracted to endurance sports, but I've always been attracted to self-improvement. And if I do try something, I always give 100% and I always look to, "Okay, what's the pinnacle of this?" So in college it was getting to NCAAs. And for me with the marathon, it was breaking three hours. And so I chased that and finally did that. And then with triathlon getting my pro card. So yeah, I always look at everything I do is, "Okay, what's the peak of this sport?"
Shelby Stanger:
It takes a certain kind of person to constantly be pushing themselves the way that Sika does. After racing triathlons for a few years, Sika set her sights on getting her pro card in 2019. It's an even more important goal considering that she would be the first African-American woman to do so. But everything came to a screeching halt when Sika was in a terrible bike accident during a half Ironman in Texas.
Sika Henry:
I trained all winter and I thought 2019 was going to be my year when I would qualify. So I flew out to Galveston, Texas to do Ironman 70.3 Texas in April of that year. And it was a very big race. Unfortunately, it's not quite like with a marathon where they start fastest to slowest. This one, they put you in age groups, they started you by age group and they assigned you a time. And unfortunately, I was one of the last groups to get on the course. So by the time I got on the course, it was crowded, there are people, it's their first time doing a half Ironman or they're on a mountain bike, they might not know the rules of the road, ride on the right, pass on the left. And I was flying, it was only about four or five miles into the bike ride. First I had the swim, obviously got out the water, my swim was just decent. And got on the bike. And yeah, a competitor, I don't remember this, but I was told by other people who saw, another competitor went to pass someone else and they didn't bother to look to see that I was coming and I was going over 25 miles per hour. I avoided them, but unfortunately I hit the barricade in the middle of the road that was keeping us from traffic. And I went flying face forward into the pavement, completely knocked myself out. Yeah, I broke my nose, I severely lacerated my face, I had about 40 stitches in six sections of my face, it knocked my teeth loose. I had road rash all over my body. It was really, really bad. I woke up hours later in the ER, I thought that I had been in a car accident on the way home from the race, I just didn't have any recollection of it. And the doctors were explaining to me that it happened during the race and that it was a bike accident. And I asked to see a mirror and they wouldn't let me see what I looked like. So I asked for my cell phone and I started looking at myself, taking pictures so I can get a full idea of the damage. And yeah, I just couldn't believe it. It was just shocking to see what I looked like. And of course in that moment, I'm like, "I quit. I'm never doing this again." And it was really hard. Yeah, definitely one of the hardest things I've gone through in my life.
Shelby Stanger:
So mentally, how did you get through that?
Sika Henry:
My family, I flew from the hospital in Texas up to New Jersey where my parents live and I temporarily moved in with them. I really couldn't take care of myself. Luckily they live right outside of New York city, so I saw some of the best doctors in the country. Because my teeth were loose, the dentists were trying to preserve my teeth, so I got fitted for a splint and had to wear a splint for a month. I couldn't eat solid food because my teeth were loose and I couldn't speak very well. I couldn't say simple words like "the", because it would push my teeth out. And just having my parents there, my brother there, My brother is hilarious. So is my dad. He was like, "Oh, you look like you went a few rounds with Mike Tyson." He was really funny. And my brother, he actually picked me up from the airport. Ted pushed me in a wheelchair through the airport. And I looked at him, I'm like, "Are you embarrassed?" And he's like, "No, I just don't want people to think I did this to you." Yeah. And then my mother was the serious one. She was setting up all the doctor's appointments. And it took a village to keep me sane. I received an unimaginable amount of flowers and mail, and I've always been very outspoken about my goal of being the first African-American woman to get my pro card. In my blog, I've written articles for Triathlete Mag and Bicycling Mag. So the story got out there about what happened. I also put my story out publicly on my blog with my pictures of my injuries from my crash. And yeah, and I did, I began to question, I was like, "Gosh, is representation even that important? How much does diversity matter? Why am I even doing this? Is the quote unquote "black thing" really that important?" But one of the most impactful things that I received at that time were stacks of cards from kids. They drew pictures of girl doing triathlon and they shaded her black. And they're like, "You're such an inspiration." Well, they didn't use the word inspiration, but like, "Keep it up. Good job. We love following you," and all that. And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, it matters. People have been watching this and looking at me to see what was going to happen and looking for some kind of inspiration." So I would say that's what made me decide to finally get back to triathlon and get back on a bike.
Shelby Stanger:
Is that what made you keep going after your pro card after you had this horrific wreck? Because that's a wild idea, but you're exactly that, you're a wild ideal worth living. There was something worthwhile in pursuing that goal.
Sika Henry:
Yeah. I didn't feel like that was supposed to be it it never felt like that was the end of my journey, it was the crash and then that's it, I'm supposed to quit. Also, I've spoken to students and at schools and everything, and I just thought, what kind of example would that set if when things go bad that you just quit or things don't go in your favor, you just quit? So I've never really quit anything in my life. I've actually never DNF'd a race until that crash. So that was part of it. And I felt like it all would have been for nothing too, having put in all that time and energy, years of training and stuff for it to end like that. Yeah. And I still felt like the talent was there. If I could just get myself healthy again, that it was still a possibility and that I wasn't meant to give up just yet.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. And you had this internal "why". Your "why" was bigger than yourself, so you had to get back out there. I'm curious, how long did it take for you to get back on the bike? There was obviously physical healing, mental healing, that had to happen before you could do it again.
Sika Henry:
Oh, no, I'm crazy. I did a race as soon as I was cleared. The first few weeks, it was just mostly making sure that neurologically I was okay. So I went and took tests, and making sure my balance was okay, so I'd go to the track and I'd walk with my mom and stuff like that. But after a few weeks, once I was cleared, because I didn't break any major limbs, I was really able to get back to training pretty soon. So I was super lucky in that a few companies that had heard my story, who wanted to support me, they sent me equipment. So Cervélo is my bike sponsor. So once you get this freaking crazy Ferrari-looking bike, you're like, "Oh yeah, I want to go out and I want to try this." So yeah, after a few weeks, once I got my new bike, I went out and I rode 60 miles. I would say it was for me a blessing in disguise though that I never remembered the crash. I think that that helped me relax a lot more getting back into cycling. And yeah, two months after that accident, I was still going through some stuff and my face was still bandaged and I found a local Sprint triathlon. It was right outside of DC and I registered for it and I called my mom, I'm like, "Mom, I registered for a triathlon." She's like, "You did what?" I'm like, "Yeah, do you think two months is too soon?" And she was like, "10 years is too soon." And so I did a Sprint triathlon. And the swim was crappy, I was doggy paddling around. And my bike, I started getting a little comfortable. But then as the race went on, I started feeling like myself again. And before I knew it, they had the winners tape up and I crossed the line and I'm like, "Oh my God, I just won my first race back."
Shelby Stanger:
I can't believe how quickly Sika got back to racing. If you look at pictures on her blog, you can see the injuries were really serious. She had tons of stitches in her face and she even suffered some intense short-term memory loss. But as Sika mentioned, all of her limbs were unscathed, so she was able to get back to doing what she loves pretty quickly. And of course, Sika won her first race after her accident. That's just the kind of woman Sika Henry is. When we come back, Sika tells us about earning her pro card in Cancun, and she shares advice for not only racing triathlons, but also for overcoming adversity.
Shelby Stanger:
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Shelby Stanger:
After recovering enough to win her first race back, Sika went to Colorado to train with triathlete Dave Scott. Dave, for those who don't know, is a six time Ironman winner and an absolute legend in the sport. With Dave's help and the help of her own coach Jonathan Caron, Sika was physically ready when it came time for her half Ironman in Mexico. So congratulations. You recently got your pro card, first African-American woman to get your pro card in Cancun just a couple of weeks ago this May. It's crazy that it's 2021 and you're the first African-American woman to get her pro card.
Sika Henry:
Crazy and sad in a way, right?
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. Why do you think that is?
Sika Henry:
Oh gosh, there are a lot of different factors. For people who aren't that familiar with the sport, there's only 0.5% of African-American participants, and 64% of African-Americans lack basic swimming skills. So if you can't swim, obviously you can't do triathlon. It's not a mainstream sport, so you don't turn on the TV and see it like you would see basketball and football. And so I think the lack of awareness also amongst people who aren't that familiar with the sport. And if they do see it, they see it as Kona on NBC, the Ironman world championships. And there are other avenues in triathlon that you can get into like a duathlon that doesn't involve the swim stuff. So it's the lack of exposure, popularity to it. There's also the money factor. It is a very expensive sport, the equipment and stuff, but that also shouldn't keep you from being able to get into the sport.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So I really want to know about this race, tell us about it. And by the way, congratulations. It's amazing.
Sika Henry:
Thank you so much. Yeah, it still feels surreal because I've been chasing it for so long. I did my first triathlon in 2013 and I think I set this goal back in 2015, I want to say, I started thinking about it. And I've been chasing it pretty hard and consistently since 2018. So I've had some setbacks with my epic crash and then with the pandemic in 2020 and-
Shelby Stanger:
All races were canceled last year.
Sika Henry:
Yeah. All the ones that I was registered for. So I didn't get a single triathlon in last year.
Shelby Stanger:
So this was huge.
Sika Henry:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
What was it like when you were awarded the pro card? How did you feel?
Sika Henry:
It wasn't a, "Across the finish line, oh my gosh, I just got my pro card, here it is." It was a waiting game actually. Because of COVID restrictions, we started on the beach and it was one by one seconds apart. So I really had no idea what place I was in.
Shelby Stanger:
Brutal.
Sika Henry:
Not ideal. Yeah. I literally had no idea what place I was in through the entire race. And yeah, my dad was there, my mother was texting him, sort of tracking me, but they never really knew. So I ended up having to wait after I crossed the finish line about an hour to find out if I had come in the top three. But once it was confirmed that I did, my dad and I cried because we've just been on this journey together for so long.
Shelby Stanger:
Amazing. So you came in top three in Cancun?
Sika Henry:
Yes, third.
Shelby Stanger:
Damn. And what was that race like? Was it hard? I heard it was really hot.
Sika Henry:
That was the hottest race I've ever done in my life. And I've done some hot races, like Hawaii, Augusta in 2019 was ridiculously hot. Eagleman in Maryland is always in June and that's always really hot, but this was on a whole other level. There's no shade. It's Cancun, so it's really humid. And yeah, it definitely played a part. And I think ultimately it worked in my advantage because I tend to do well in hot races. So the run is at the end and that's my strength. So I knew if I could hold it together on the run and take as many fluids and take ice and all that stuff to keep my core body temperature down, if I could just hold it together on the run, then I had a shot at it. And it played to my favor.
Shelby Stanger:
Amazing. I'm a total geek when it comes to like training and nutrition and tactics and I hate running in the heat. So what do you do to stay cool? You said you took ice. What else do you do?
Sika Henry:
Yeah. So on the bike, I always keep two bottles on my bike. Luckily with these races, because they're so long, they have aid stations that you you ride through and they have volunteers who hand out bottles. So they're filled with, you can take either water or Powerade. So as you ride through, you have to just make sure you grab a bottle and you refill your front hydration, and then you toss the bottle in the area where you're allowed to dump trash. So it's all really fast. And you just have to make sure that you're staying hydrated the entire time on the bike. And then on the run, every mile and a half or two miles, I would say, there were aid stations similar to a marathon when you pass through and they have water. But with a triathlon, because it's so long, it's filled with a lot more options. They have ice buckets, they had sponges, they also had Powerade. And then if you're really desperate, they have Coca-Cola.
Shelby Stanger:
Triathlon, for those who don't know, there's also transitions. Everything is important. Do you have a favorite part of triathlon?
Sika Henry:
Probably dismounting the bike and heading into transition two. Once you get through this swim and the bike for me, and then all I have to do is run, that's pretty simple, knock on wood, nothing crazy can happen. But you'd like you said, in addition to swim, bike, run, and the two transitions from swim to bike and then bike to run, there's also the nutrition factor, which you have to keep in mind. So they call that the fourth discipline. So yeah, there's a lot to think about a lot of moving pieces. If you get out the swim, if it's wetsuit legal, you have to make sure that you can get out of your wet suit and not be struggling and make sure you put your helmet on right away. And you have to decide if you're going to do a flying mount, where your shoes are already strapped in or clipped into the bike or you put your shoes on in transition and then go. So yeah, there's a lot going on. But I think that the more often you race, it becomes intuitive. It just becomes natural, you don't have to overthink it so much.
Shelby Stanger:
What do you love most about triathlon?
Sika Henry:
When it goes well, that feeling. It's a hard sport. I've tried just about everything, every sport you can think of. And for me, I've done marathons, I've done ultra, it's just so hard to stay consistently strong day after day, month after month, year after year, because that's what it takes. You're training twice a day, pretty much every day if you want to get to this level. Even people who aren't trying to be super competitive, if you just want to finish an Ironman, it involves a lot of training. So I would say the most rewarding part is when you do cross the finish line. You know at that moment, "Okay. All that work wasn't for nothing. I actually did it." So I would say that personally and selfishly that moment. Outside of myself, what I love about the sport is all of the people that I've been able to interact with and meet who've been following my story for so many years. So yeah, I would say it's the interactions and the people that I've met.
Shelby Stanger:
And what do you really dislike about it? It's hard. I get that.
Sika Henry:
That. That it's hard. The difficulty maintaining a social life. When your coworkers want to go out after work for happy hour and you can't because you got to go to the pool. Or people want to have, for me I train on my lunch break, and my coworker's like, "Let's go out to Olive Garden." I'm like, "I got to go out for a run." So those little things, having to get up really early in the morning on the weekends, especially in the summer to beat the heat, you have to go ride four hours. So you have to get up at five, six in the morning, go ride all that time out there. And so yeah, just how time consuming it is.
Shelby Stanger:
In a mission to get more black athletes involved in triathlons, Sika takes her bike to schools. And she talks to kids about racing, about her accident, and about working hard to make a comeback. She's learned a lot about herself through her journey, and it's important to her to share those lessons and inspire the next generation. A lot of people probably want to do triathlon because of you. What advice do you give people wanting to get into triathlon?
Sika Henry:
Well, if you don't know how to swim, definitely take swim lessons. I think that's the first thing. You don't realize how many things you miss out on when you're not a swimmer, like snorkeling, going on vacation, feeling comfortable at the beach. So I think that's just important in general is to learn how to swim and be comfortable in the water. And in terms of getting started with triathlon, not everything is insane like this, there are fun sprints, there're ones where you can swim in the pool, you can actually walk the laps if you need to, and then just do a short bike ride and then a 5 K run. There are relay options where if you just want to do the bike leg and get a feel for it, pull two of your friends along and have one of them do the swim and one do the run. There's duathlon, that's an option too, which is run, bike, run. So you can just totally avoid the swim in general. But there are a lot of options out there. This sport isn't just Ironman and long craziness. There're just fun, short, doable options. So look online. Like how I started, so many people got their start doing a local sprint.
Shelby Stanger:
What did you learn about yourself just as a professional athlete? As someone who's gone from amateur to professional, come back from an injury, what are things that you've learned and how have you changed?
Sika Henry:
I learned that I'm a tough cookie. No, I think in general, people don't realize how strong they are until they're put in a certain situation. I think if somebody told me about my crash ahead of time, I'm like, "Oh my God, there's no way mentally that I would be able to get through something like that." But then you are put in that situation. You always think, "That'll never happen to me." And then for me, it did happen to me and it was really bad. But yeah, I learned that I'm really mentally and physically strong. I think the mental hurdle is the hardest part, but think it's really important to be open and honest and talk to people about it when you're feeling down. However I looked on social media, if I was smiling or whatnot, I definitely was very open with my story on my blog and the struggles that I went through. Even after that, when it's not like it was just all of a sudden a happy ending, I recovered from my crash and I won. Even after that win, I tried to get right back into training and my body wasn't having it. I came back way too soon and my body began to rebel. If you're not going to stop, your body will shut down on its own. So yeah, a lot of ups and downs and struggles and stuff, but I've learned that I'm resilient.
Shelby Stanger:
How about advice on just overcoming adversity, especially after something really difficult, like the accident you had?
Sika Henry:
Oh, gosh, I don't know. There's always light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes the tunnel is really long and you're in the dark for a really long time. But if you keep moving forward, you'll eventually get to the end of it and you'll see the light. And it builds character. As much as I hate my crash, I'm grateful for the things that I learned from it and who I've become because of it. And even now I'll go on Instagram and sometimes, a girl recently had a horrific bike crash, she sent me her photos. We don't know each other, but she was like, "How did you come back from this?" Her face was really messed up. And I'm like, "I have been there and it will take a while. And it's really hard." I remember one of the doctors saying, "It's probably going to take a year and a half to two years before you're completely healed." And at the time I'm like, "Oh my God, I can't live like this. For two years, are you kidding me?" But time flies. And they're right. And it's two years later and here I am now past it and got my pro card. So just keep moving forward. And what I said earlier about just finding people that you can confide in and be open with. And if you're feeling down, it's okay to have those moments.
Shelby Stanger:
Sika bounced back from a horrific accident with patience, with tenacity, and with skill. No matter what obstacle she encountered, Sika's determination kept her moving forward. Earning her pro card wasn't just a personal triumph. Sika made history, and she set an example for the next generation of black triathletes. And she's just getting started. Thank you so much to Sika Henry for coming on the show. Having done a couple of triathlons myself, I'm just blown away by your talent. You are a bad-ass, and I can't wait to see how far you go in the triathlon world. To follow Along with seekers training and competitions, you can go to sikahenry.com and follow along on her Instagram @sikahenry. That's S-I-K-A H-E-N-R-Y.
Shelby Stanger:
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Annie Fassler and produced by Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby and our presenting sponsor this season is Ford. As always, we appreciate when you follow this show, when you rate it, and when you review it wherever you listen. I read every single one of your reviews and they mean a ton to me. And remember, some of the best adventures often happen when you follow your wildest ideas.