Is Jackie Hering Triathlon’s Most Relatable Pro Athlete?

If professional triathlon gave out superlatives each year, Jackie Hering would likely win “Most Approachable.”

The Wisconsin-based 39-year-old mother of two currently sits in the top spot of the IRONMAN Pro Series Rankings, but her no-stress, low-key attitude, which is so rarely found among the top pros, can catch you by surprise.

Don’t be fooled, though, Hering’s disarming midwestern accent and flexible approach to training and life is built on a foundation of fierce competitiveness that most of us can only hope to build to.

This year marked Hering’s triumphant return to the full-IM distance, with her last full-IM finish prior to 2024 being the 2014 IRONMAN World Championship where she finished 29th in 10 hours and 20 minutes.

Hering stormed back onto the full-distance scene with a win at IM Hamburg in early June and followed it up with a strong second place performance at IM Lake Placid just a few weeks ago.

Coupled with her top three finishes at 70.3 St. George and 70.3 Chattanooga this season, Hering is the current reigning queen of the IM Pro Series standings – with about 500 points separating her and second-place Danielle Lewis – and is all eyes on Nice.

ST: Jackie, for years you’ve been a fixture in half-IM-distance racing. Talk to us about your decision to return to full-distance racing.

JH: It’s funny because years ago I started racing and focusing on the half-IM distance and now my training partners are giving me a bunch of crap now because over the last few years I would always say “I will never, ever do an Ironman again.”

For some reason, though, it was the perfect storm of getting a bit stale on the 70.3 distance and not feeling excited about that distance, my kids now both being old enough to be in school during the day, and then the announcement of the IRONMAN Pro Series. All three of those factors were in my favor to train for a full IM again.

Once I got the idea to train for a full in my mind, I was really excited about it. Plus, it wasn’t a hard decision at all to start to plan out the year based on the IM Pro Series races, too.

ST: You’ve clearly had great success with your return to full-distance IRONMAN racing. What has your training been like and what has your relatively new coaching relationship been like with Ian O’Brien?

JH: Ian and I had a “soft start” last fall because I was still doing some racing, so we spent that time getting to know each other and figuring out how we can mesh our methods together. I’ve been more or less self-coached since 2015, so it was definitely a change for me.

We started truly working together in earnest at the end of December 2023, which also happened to be the same time I broke my toe. So, it actually ended up being a nice way for me to get fully on board with his plan especially for cycling and get into his rhythm and start doing a bunch of cycling workouts on the trainer.

The most important thing that has come out of working with Ian so far that has set me up for a successful year is he helped me build a really solid base on the bike – I did lots of hours on the trainer over the winter, and the thing I love about IRONMAN training versus 70.3 training is that it’s a lot of long endurance and less top-end work. My body does really well with the long endurance stuff.

All of that bike work has brought me a lot of confidence this season.

Plus, I’m a very flexible athlete and in that way I believe I’m different from a lot of triathletes both pro and amateur. So many triathletes are super dialed and Type A and need to follow their plan perfectly. I’m not like that and have no problem being flexible with things which has been a huge help in my triathlon career and will continue to be as I compete in full-distance IRONMAN races.

ST: You went from saying you’d never do another IRONMAN again to qualifying for the women’s 2024 IRONMAN World Championship in Nice in your first full-distance IM this year. What are your feelings about Nice – excited, nervous?

JH: Overall, I'm excited to go to Nice. If you would have asked me earlier in the year before I had done any full IRONMAN races, I would have said I was very nervous. But I think now with two decent ones under my belt, I've got some good evidence of what I can do.

I’m learning a lot each time I race a full IRONMAN because it really does feel like I'm like a newbie at the distance again, even though I've done a lot of them. I’m learning a lot about what my body and what works and what doesn’t, and I’m excited to take my two full-distance experiences this year and the training I’m going to do between now and Nice and see what I can make happen on race day.

ST: What are some of those things you’ve learned across your two full-distance IRONMAN races this year?

JH: I learned that I really value a course that keeps me entertained and I like having a lot of people out there. That was the main thing that was troubling me during Lake Placid – there were no people on that long out and back away from town. During IM Hamburg, there were people lining the course for the entire run and I really, really liked that.

I also learned that not everyone stops for their “personal needs” bags anymore! Back in the day, everybody used to stop for their halfway bag on the bike, but now they don’t even use those for races in Europe.

In Hamburg, they didn’t have a personal needs drop area for the bike, which was a surprise to me. And then in Lake Placid, I got dropped from the girls I was riding with because apparently none of the other pros use bike personal needs!

So, I guess I’ve learned that there are differences from race to race and continent to continent on how they handle personal needs bags.

ST: Balancing parenthood and professional triathlon is a masterclass in patience and flexibility. How do you and your husband approach this in your day-to-day lives?

JH: My overall mindset is to remain flexible, but also to be very clear about what my husband and I are trying to accomplish in a day or week or month.

I alert my husband ahead of time if I have a big ride or training day so that he can be on top of the kids’ schedules, and we’re communicating all the time about schedules and making them equitable to both of us and the kids.

Now that our kids are a bit older, if they want to be integrated in some of the training, I allow that to happen. I did stroller running when they were super little, but now they’ll come along for easy rides or warmups and it really lets them be part of the process.

Kids want to do stuff with their parents, so keeping them involved helps them feel like you’re not just gone training all the time, but that they’re actually kind of training with you.

ST: The second-to-last question is a fun one. Age groupers look at the pros now who have such a good grasp on their race plans and race day logistics and it’s hard to fathom that you were ever newbies to the sport. What’s a fun newbie story you have about your early days in triathlon that age groupers might relate to?

JH: Well, I think I'm one of the most relatable of all the pros if I do say so myself. My very first triathlon was a sprint called the West Salem Tri, which is in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which is near where I went to college – where I was swimming collegiately at the time.

I was the first person out of the water, and I didn’t know anything about triathlon, so I swam, I got out of the water in first place, I get up into transition and everyone’s cheering me on and I feel awesome.

I didn’t know that your transition time counted towards your overall race time. I ran up to transition and I'm like, alright, sweet. I’m changing my clothes, taking my time. I'm standing there, people are coming in, and I think I had my jaw dropped to the floor when I saw how quick some of these people were coming in and out of transition and actually running out with their bikes without doing anything like changing their clothes and I'm like, what in the world? Why are they doing that? And I'm still taking my time, getting all ready. I had my water bottles for my bike in a little cooler, so I took my time getting them out and onto the bike.

I have this memory of being yelled at to hurry up and go, because then all the other girls and everybody else started coming into transition. By the time I was ready to get out of transition I was leaving with people who had swum much slower than me.

I definitely learned a lot during that experience!

ST: Final question – who are your sponsors this season?

JH: GoodLife Brands, Cervelo, Rudy Project, Zoot, Garmin, Shimano, Sur, RAW, and Keytone IQ.