LAURA MacCARLEY

Laura’s endurance sports journey began as a kid in a small town on the Central Coast of CA, as she rollerbladed alongside her Dad while he trained for marathons. This eventually evolved into her begrudgingly running with him, which she assumed at the time was some form of child torture. In high school, she took up track, cross-country, and water polo. 

Laura went on to study electrical engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and kept running recreationally. She finally discovered triathlon in grad school at the University of Southern California, where she joined the club tri team. During a 5-ish year stint as an engineer in the medical device industry, Laura continued to pursue triathlon to stay sane, squeezing in her workouts at dawn and escaping for lunch rides whenever she could get away with it. 

Laura recently left the corporate scene to strike out on her own as a freelance web designer / developer, among other entrepreneurial pursuits, which also coincided with her decision to get “slightly more serious” about triathlon. Her recent athletic successes include a few Olympic distance podiums, an overall win at Lake Tahoe 70.3, some top-10 IM 70.3 age group finishes, a Boston Qualifier, and her personal favorite; training for and completing her first Ironman (Canada) while living / traveling in a van, which proved to be as massive a logistical challenge. She doesn’t recommend it.

Laura is a recent addition to the Pacific Northwest, where she no longer lives in a van, and enjoys running her business out of her home with her dog-child and amazing boyfriend.