Rob Eakin Triathlete

Race Report – Kamloops Sprint

So the triathlon season finally begins. After a fall of running, a winter of swimming and spring spent biking, it was time to try them all at once for the first time in 2009.

Going in I was expecting to swim 9 minutes for the 600 m swim (1:30 100's), somewhere between 30-31 minutes for the 20 km bike, and, without much running lately, to be at about 19 minutes for the 5 km run. And I was pretty much bang on.

Also on the line though was pride and a post race burger as Martina was also toeing the line. Knowing that she was the stronger swimmer and that I was biking faster at the moment, we knew it was probably going to come down to the run to see who had to buy lunch.

Was the 5th swimmer in the water and was the 4th one out right behind 2nd and 3rd (Martina was probably out of transition by this point). Finished the swim in 9:14 which was good considering we had to get out of the pool and run back to the start at the 300 m mark and getting slowed down by a slower swimmer who had started in front.

Had an uneventful T1 (the best kind really), moved up into 3rd and headed out on the bike right behind 2nd place. After getting up to speed and into my shoes I moved into 2nd pretty quickly leaving only Martina somewhere ahead to chase down.

The bike was 4 laps of a 5 km loop that was mostly north/south with a solid wind coming from the south. The meant a long stretch into the wind and then a long strech back with the wind. I decided to try to keep myself in the same gear in both directions so that I worked hard into the wind and then could spin a little faster with the wind.

It seemed to work perfectly as I felt fast but was also fairly relaxed by the time I came back into transition with a time of 30:19 on the bike (which would turn out to be over a minute faster than anyone else). Unfortunately there was no sign of Martina until I came into transition where she was also.

Another uneventful transition and off to the run with Martina just ahead of me. With her starting 25 seconds ahead of me in the pool, it looked like we were neck and neck in overall time (it turned out after looking at the results we were exactly tied starting the run).

So my goal was simply try to hold that gap to start and hopefully close it a little later in the 5 km. Unfortunately, my lack of running lately caught up to me at the about the 2 km as I started to feel the pace. Then at the turn around she saw how close I was behind her and she found another gear which I couldn't match at that point.

By the time I crossed the finish line she had put 27 seconds on me and I had finished in a time of 58:44 (a 18:54 5 km). So it was my first ever win in the men's race but not an overall win.

While I had to buy the post race burger the race was a confidence booster to see that the hard work in the pool and on the bike was paying off. The run was a little faster than I had expected but I still need some work there. That's ok though because the plan all along was to start putting in bigger run efforts starting in a couple of weeks.

Next up is the North Shore Sprint where I'm hoping to break an hour again (a little tougher with a longer swim and hillier course) and hopefully pick up a top 5 finish (being it will be probably be a stronger field).