I finished the TTF on Sunday and although the trip might have been more enjoyable with some friends, it was definitely an awesome experience. We stayed at the Westin hotel, which was gorgeous, ate at the old spaghetti factory Saturday night for dinner and got to experience the sports expo they had going on. This, all on the side of a great race course. It wasn't a very spectator friendly race in terms of the transition, swim and bike, but the run course, especially the finish, allowed for loads of spectators. It was really cool riding on the Gardiner and getting to see the junior elites go in the other direction in their respective packs. I only wish I could've drafted. The wind on the way out was brutal, but the course was flat and basically and out and back so I was still able to enjoy hammering the way home. I guess I'm kind of all over the place in this blog so here is a quick recap.
There was no swim warm up and the bike warm up would have only been possible on the busy streets of Toronto so I stuck to a short ~15min run WU with drills and a couple strides. Since there was so many people, the race started in waves and once we got into the water we had to sit there and tread water for 4 mins before starting. Treading water wasn't so much of a concern as the temperature though. It was absolutely freezing!! Even the quebecois in front of me were freezing their feet off so bad that some violent vocabulary came out (can't say I wasn't ready to scream some out myself). For the first time in a race, right after the gun I found myself behind a large group of people and they quickly got away. I wasn't used to sighting with so many people in front of me and since my goggles fogged up (probably because the lake was so cold) I was a little all over the place. My swim was alright and I'm satisfied with it since it didn't feel very fast. The transition came up onto some metal stairs and then into the large parking lot. I had a little trouble with my helmet since the strap was flipped around so I lost about 10-15 seconds there. Otherwise, it went well considering how long we had to run with the bike (and uphill too!). One issue that I keep having is my damn shoe strap coming out of the loop and me having to fix it on the bike! It happens almost every time so I really need to get that figured out. Like I mentioned, the bike was hard on the way out, but much better on the way back because of the wind. I got passed by a ton of people though so I definitely need to get back on the bike and build my strength back. After a second long transition (less problems this time around), I went out onto the run feeling much MUCH better than I did in Timmins. I came out of transition just behind a few guys but I didn't want to blow up so I just settled into my pace and kept the legs moving. I'm not sure if I slowed down or if some faster guys came up behind me, but I got caught by 2 guys at the turnaround so I decided to hang on to their feet for as long as I could. It ended up working pretty well because we caught one guy, then dropped another who we were running with and we ended up only being 2, but the remaining guy had slightly more speed so he slowly dropped me. Near the end I worked hard to catch this guy in a bright green shirt and ended up out kicking another guys down the finishing chute. I also ended up puking immediately after crossing the line but it was worth it to know I gave 100%. I finished with an overall time of 1:14:28 (or was it 29) and was very pleased with the time considering my fitness. My place however was very disappointing. I was hoping to make world's but I can 13th in my AG and 123 overall which is ok, but the race ended up being much faster then expected.
Guess that wasn't really "quick" was it? Oh well, those were my thoughts on the weekend. My knee started acting up again (go figure after increasing mileage AND training through a race to race 2 weekends in a row), but it isn't too bad yet and I have chiro tomorrow to get things sorted out. Now I finally have some time to focus on proper building and get this injury straightened out. That's all I've got for now and possibly for another little while so,
Until next time,
Matt Mahaffy
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