After completing only two olympic distance triathlons last year (with the DNF at Cultus and Worlds turning into a Duathlon) I was ready this weekend to remind myself what 2 hours of hard work was like again.
Race morning was early (4 am wake up) but normal. Butterflies in the stomach on the drive out to (nearly) Mission but once I was there it was all business. Package pick up and body marking took a little longer than expected which meant a run warm up but no bike warm up (which would come back to haunt me twice). Felt really good and light on the run warm up even on the couple of hills out there (which I would find out later were only the beginning of the hills).
Swim warm up went well as well managing to get far enough out to get all of my sighting points for both the swim out and back in. I had some big expectations for the swim after consistently swimming 1:24′s in my wetsuit the day before at Kits Pool so my plan was to do my best to get on Dave’s feet off the start and hang on for dear life.
I lined up next to him and when the gun went off I managed to stay next to him for 100 m or so but in the congestion of swimmers I lost where he was and ended up settling in behind another swimmer. Felt completely under control but still pushing it slightly for the whole first lap.
When I came out of the water before jumping back in for the second lap I checked my watch to see that I had done “750 m” in 10:20. Getting a little excited I sprinted back into the water only to be completely out of breath when I dove into the water. After about 30 seconds of panicked breathing I got back into rhythm and on the feet of the same swimmer in front of me.
The second lap was definitely tougher but I continued to push. As I was coming back into the beach I started to visualize my transition and realized I had made a rookie mistake. Because I hadn’t gone for a bike warm up, I remembered that my bike shoes were on my pedals but the straps were done up (is it strange that would I think about and know this for sure in the middle of a race?). I usually finish my bike warm checking where I want to take my feet out of my shoes and dismount when I finish and then leave the shoes unstrapped. No bike warm up meant not unstrapping my shoes. Ooops. Would just have to go with it.
When I finished my swim I was happy to see that I had only slowed a bit on the 2nd lap finishing just over 21 minutes (21:13 after a run up the beach into transition). Looking at the results I’m guessing the swim was a little short (maybe 100 m) but still my fastest 1.5 k swim in tri by a long shot (24:26 in Cranbrook last year). Most importantly instead of being in the middle of the pack I was 11th out of the water (and only 3 seconds from 9th). Huge difference.
So I was in and out of transition uneventfully (with the 3rd fastest T1 I might add) and up into 8th (see what a fast transition can do?). But once I was on my bike I had to deal with my shoe issue. In the end it wasn’t a huge issue but it meant taking an extra couple of seconds getting up to speed. Here is where no bike warm up may have cost me too. The first 5 km or so felt like hell on the bike. It may have been no warm up but it may have been the terrain as well.
Looking at the course profile it was obvious that from 5 – 10 km or so was a big downhill and from 25 -30 km or so you climbed it all back. What it didn’t show was the constant up and down for the first 5 km which made it impossible to get into a rhythm after the swim. So after some struggling I hit the long downhill (which turned out to be fairly technical considering the wet roads) and finally got going. It wasn’t until the half way point of the bike that I finally felt decent. Just in time to hit the hills. And we’re talking grinding, out of the seat in the easiest gear type hills. Guess they call it Iron Mountain for a reason.
By the time I finished the 40 km I had moved up two spots to 6th and finished a rough ride in 1:08:56 (4th fastest). Coming back into transition though I had another little mishap. The dismount line was in the middle of a gravel path and as soon as I came off the bike (at probably about 20 km/h) I slammed my left heel down hard on the rocks. Wincing a little, I ran the rest of the way into transition a little gingerly. To be honest I didn’t think twice about it until that night when my heel started getting really sore and I realized what it was from. Luckily an easy day with no running yesterday and it’s feeling way better today.
T2 was good minus a quick shoe adjustment (still good enough for fastest T2). Coming out of transition I could see 5th place maybe 30 seconds ahead of me. Watching him ahead I was confident I could catch him so the question was whether to go after him right away or just reel him in slowly. But then I realized there was another runner just ahead of him and the vision of catching him too danced in my head (I would later figure out that was Dave and catching him was a bit of a pipe dream). So feeling good I pushed a little and closed that 30 seconds inside of 2 km. In hind sight, a bit of a mistake. I tried to get away from him but by the time we came back to transition and the 5 km mark, he was still within 5 or 10 seconds and I was done. The lack of olympic distance racing caught up to me as I had done the first 5 km in about 19 minutes but was quickly slowing (good oxymoron). He would pass me less than a km later and after a short effort to stay on his tail I dropped off.
I would do the final 5 km in almost 22 minutes (yikes) and finish in 6th in a time of 2:12:01 (though there is a finishing picture to prove it was under 2:12 
). Overall, a good race but not great. Some positives to take away but still lots of work to do (ahem running to do). One of the best parts though was after the race hanging around the food table, recounting the race with the boys (Facundo, Dave, Ryan (who was the one I was running against), etc). Even though a couple of them beat me handily, for the first time I felt like I might actually belong with them. Definitely a confidence booster.
So after an easy day yesterday it was back in the pool this morning and a Tuesday night crit tonight. Looking for a repeat performance from last week to keep moving up the points standings. Then to the track tomorrow morning to work on that ahem “run”.
