Last race of the season

To end off the season, I completed my second olympic distance race at the Lakeside Triathlon which is part of the Multisport Canada triathlon series. I had originally planned to race at Wasaga Beach the weekend before, but after some misunderstanding with how I was to get to the race I decided to swap it for Lakeside, which is less than an hour away from London. After more complications with making travel arrangements I was finally able to hitch a ride with James Schneider from the triathlon club. It was pretty cramped in his small truck, but we managed.

Pre Race:

We got to Lakeside with a little over an hour to race start. After picking up my race kit, chip and getting body marked (glad to say I only made that mistake on the season opener), I went right into transition to get set up. Alex was already in transition and I had asked him the day before for some arm warmers seeing as it was below 15 Celsius so I went over chatted a bit then we went our separate ways and didn't talk again until on the start line. I got about 10 minutes of run warmup in, put my wetsuit on, and rushed to the washroom. By the time I had finally got into the water there was probably less than 10 mins left and the race director, Chris Pickering, was already running everyone through the swim course. I probably only got 100 or 200 meters of warm up in, but I wasn't worried considering the length of the race.

Race:

Swim (19:58 - 3rd OA):

I lined up beside Alex on the start line and stayed with him for as long as I could. I didn't find it too hard to stay with him, but I didn't want to burn out so I went from drafting on his hip to drafting on his feet pretty quickly. Going around the first turn I don't know what happened, but he and Michael Murray all of the sudden seemed to have a significant gap. Luckily there was still another athlete with me, I think it was Andrew Taylor, and I drafted on him for the majority of the swim. Coming around the same buoy where Alex had dropped me (lap 2), it looked like Andrew must have gotten disoriented or something as he went a little past the buoy and looked like he got stood up (at this point we were weaving in and out of the other waves of athletes). As soon as I saw him stop I decided to put a little surge in and try and break away. I don't remember feeling him drafting, as he definitely would have when I was drafting (I smacked his feet too many times to count, I actually kind of felt bad), but he ended up only 5 seconds back out of the water. I also noticed what looked like Alex 20-30 seconds ahead on the exit of the swim and it turns out it was! It seems like the gap he got at the start didn't grow very much. I felt good on the swim, but I didn't realize I swam much better than I did in Toronto.  I had no issues with my goggles the entire time as well, which was a bonus. This was probably my best swim of the season (or at least felt like it) even though I think the course was short some meters.

T1 (0:51 - 4th OA but 10-20 seconds slower than the leaders)

I didn't have to kill myself in an all-out sprint out of the water this time! I tried to put the arm warmers on, but they were giving me some trouble and I wasn't that cold so I decided against.

Bike (1:12:22 - 36th OA)

I wanted to get as close as I could to sub 1:10 on the bike. That is about what I split in Toronto and since the transitions were much shorter I knew that if I could match my bike split I would have a good shot at a PB (goal time of sub 2:15, elite standard for Multisport Canada). Coming in on the 35 km mark I was only 10 seconds back of 1:10 pace, but as I was told beforehand, the last 5km was a killer. Nothing but sharp rolling hills, combined with a headwind killed my chances of hitting the goal time. That being said the majority of the ride went pretty well . There were certain points at which I felt good and kept thinking to myself that I should just try and hold 240W average, but I knew that was asking too much and so I tried to keep it down at around 220W. It started in the 215 range , but by the end I managed to get it up to 219. I did find myself looking at my wattage way too much in this race though so although I felt good I need to focus more on feel and less on numbers. 

A little bit of math

Knowing that my bike is easily my weakest of the 3 disciplines, I was interested to see how I would've placed if my bike would have been closer to everyone else. I took the average bike split of the top 20 finishers and found it to be about 1:06:30. Myself and the 20th place finisher were the only 2 in the top 20 to have a split over 1:10. Had I had an average bike split consistent with the other top finishers, I would have taken off about 6 mins which would have put me at 2:11, good enough for 8th in this race. I'd also like to point out that the current top 8 consists of: 3 male age groupers, 3 male elites, 1 female elite, and 1 male pro.

T2 (0:43 - 4th OA, much closer, only 10 seconds slower than the fastest split)

Went well. Came off the bike beside an older male who was slower on the dismount so I was a little rushed to get off the bike and run ahead of him. The turn into transition was more of me dragging my bike than it was rolling it. My feet were also frozen. I hadn't noticed or felt this on the bike at all so getting my feet in my shoes was probably slightly comical to any onlookers.

Run (43:51 - 16th OA)

I felt great on the run and for the first 6km I was fighting off another gentleman. When he came by I tried to stay on him, but it just seemed like he picked up the pace too much for me to hang on. Maybe I slowed down though. Coming off the bike I thought I was in about 8th so when I got passed I was just fighting to not lose anymore ground. A top 10 was sounding pretty good to me. I got passed by one more guy at around 8km, but he was absolutely flying so I knew there was no chance of catching him. I tried catching the next guy ahead of me, but I just couldn't real him in. Turns out I was only running 1sec/km faster than he was. Near the end I was coming up on one final runner and I tried to make a move, but when I did he seemed to notice (even though I was behind him) and something was coming up from my stomach so I decided to sit back... For a second. Of course I kicked going down the finish chute. My stomach didn't approve, but I don't like being out finished, and at least I gained another position! Not. He was in a relay team. It just goes to show how good I really felt though, having puked just across the line and then walking it off feeling great. The entire run I felt very relaxed: light breathing, good cadence, but I was really pounding on the rough, packed, washboard road and my body definitely felt it in my shins at the end of the race. Probably also the best run I've had of the season, although the time was disappointing. Looking at it another way though, I was only 4 mins behind a tired Alex on the run.

Overall (2:17:43 - 12th OA, 1st AG)

It may have only been 4 seconds, but it's still a PB! And that makes me 2 for 2 in AG, olympic distance wins. It's only a matter of time before I'm fighting for the OA wins.

A look back on a broken spirit

Last Thursday, after my final official day of summer work, I traveled to London in preparation for the most important race in my triathlon "career" so far. My 'A'-race this season was the Detroit Triathlon U25 Elite Development, Draft-Legal Race (EDR). My very first, and almost my last, draft legal race attempted.


Race lead up:
I headed into the race, not in bad shape, but with a lack of health and fitness that went into the TTF. I had been slightly sick in the week before the race and just wasn't finding myself getting the extra sleep I needed to recover. On top of this, my shin problem had been getting increasingly worse up to the point where I had to stop my weekly speed workouts and seriously cut back on the lengths and efforts of my runs. I even ended up running on my treadmill for the extra cushion (treadmill in August? Blasphemy!). Luckily, I was able to get it to the point where I could at least race on it and not ruin my entire season.

After flying to Toronto, I took the Robert Q to London where I stayed at my cousin's place for the night. Detroit is only about 3 hours away from London, accounting for time to cross the border, and the pre-race briefing did not start until 5:30pm so I got to sleep in before leaving London. Personally, I find the sleep I get two nights before the race is just as, if not more important than the sleep I get the night before. I don't find there is any increase in fatigue after one night of lack of sleep, which can be very likely when you aren't sleeping in your own bed, when you are nervous, and so on. Luckily this wasn't the case for me and I got a regular nights sleep the night before.
After getting to the briefing early to hear Barb Lindquist talk about her experience and give her advice, I sat through the briefing, checked out the course on my bike, found some food and went to bed.


Race Day:
My nerves weren't through the roof race morning but I was as nervous as I'd ever been for a race. This would be the first time I was racing to compete and not just to improve on time or to follow a specific race plan. I had my typical breakfast, did a run warm up at the race site and just took in everything that was going on. We (my uncle and I) got there pretty early for good parking so there was no rush for anything.

Swim (10:08 - 11th):
The plan for the swim was to get out hard, find some feet, and hold on for dear life. I have confidence in my swimming ability, but I haven't been swimming as much and as consistently as would have been required to be near the front so I knew it wouldn't be easy. It was a beach start and I chose a bad position. There was a pretty nasty current, once you got into the deeper water (which wasn't until halfway to the first buoy), which pulled you to the left of the buoy and you need to make a left turn (going around the right side, keeping it to your left). I knew about the current before hand, but I didn't really think it through much, or know any better. It was my first time racing in such a big current after all. I also misjudged how long the shallow section was, starting to swim a few dolphin dives too early. I did manage to get on some feet for a short period of time though and although I thought I was well back, it turns out I was in about 8th or 9th into the first turn. Once into the current (with the current), it was nice not having to worry too much about the line, but the water was still quite choppy. I think I probably had a little advantage here, being more comfortable in the water. One thing I started to notice near the end, was that I was having a hard time exhaling enough air to take in a "full" breath when my head was out of the water. Coming into shore I got passed by another guy, who I stuck with for a bit, but who ended up about 10 seconds up on me by the time we got out of transition. For the rest of the race, I was no man's land, as per usual. My final failure to execute on the swim was on the exit. As with the start, it was fairly shallow for quite a distance, but it was deep enough that you couldn't really run either. The best option would have been 3 to 5 dolphin dives (maybe more), but I did two and tried to run which lost me a bit of time.

T1 (0:26 - tied for 22nd):
Alex said this would be the fastest I've ever ran. I think the picture is self explanatory. Getting onto the bike however, I failed at a semi-flying mount. I got up and over, although at a relatively slow speed, but my right foot slipped off the pedal (which I later found out cut me a little).

Is this hard enough Alex?

Bike (30:28 - 28th/last):
Alex has been doing his best to get me some race simulation for draft-legal racing and I've definitely worked my butt off on the bike, but nothing could have prepared me for this, other than racing itself. Being a development race, there weren't any distinctive packs, mostly just groups of 2-6 people. I think my uncle said the biggest "pack" he saw was 6 people (of which I was 1 at the time). I came out of transition too far back to catch anyone so I made sure to get a little ways out, get my shoes on, and go hard enough to not have the next group of guys come flying by before I could hop on a wheel. The entire race I was on and off wheels, rarely getting any chance at all to catch my breath (really hadn't since coming out of the water). I hung on to each group for anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 mins, even getting a chance to take a pull and get a little rest in one group of 3. By the end, I was at least 2 gears down from where I had started (no power meter), the final group had long passed and were now 30+ seconds ahead and I had buried the needle well beyond the red line. It was somewhere near here, on the bike, where I couldn't help but think: "This isn't fun anymore. Even in the slightest." I was getting my ass handed to me and I couldn't do a single thing about it. The only ones behind me now were a few age group athletes who were doing draft legal. I was out of my league.

That one, time I was in a pack

T2 (0:23 - tied for 4th):
Coming into transition I knew I had to see what I had on the run. The race was still far from over and for all I knew a second wind was coming. I got in and out of here as fast as I could and just tried to stick to race simulation, which was go out above race pace. I think the only reason I managed such a fast transition was that I came off the bike fast and alone which gave me a little breathing room. In all honesty though, the dismount was probably a little excessive on the speed side.

Run (21:28 - last by a mile):
I tried going out hard as planned. Everything was stiff, muscles were sore, breathing was near impossible and I found out the definition of blowing up the hard way. If you picture blowing up literally, I felt like I blew up so hard that any trace that I'd ever existed blew up with me. I was done. I'd had enough of the race. I'd had enough of competitive racing. I felt like I was running nearly 6 min/km. My first race beat me to the ground and damn near kept me there. The only thing I could think of at this point was: "Run until you find someone with a radio so they can contact the race director that I had dropped out." The first turn came, along with the first volunteer. No radio in sight. I guess I'll crawl to the next one. Again, no radio in sight. The race leader is starting to lap me now. A quick pat on the back as he goes by. Awfully sportsman like. The next one comes by: "Keep it up." My breath is slowly coming back to me. I run by some spectators, somehow thinking that the approaching mess of an athlete was in third. I wish. Almost done the first lap, I start getting some energy back. Thoughts of quitting long gone, I'm ready to finish now. I go by the penalty box and thank god I didn't get a penalty. The third place finisher now passes me as he sprints through transition and down the finish. He must've thought he was sprinting for third. All of the sudden I'm back where I started, but with the energy I would expect to be able to run with at the end of a race. I've caught my breath, I've loosened up, and now I'm finding my rhythm. I can finish this. I don't have to DNF. I'm going to finish. For the rest of the run I just kept it strong. I got passed by another age grouper, but it didn't matter anymore. In 2.5km, I went from quitting competitive sport and the race, to running strong and finishing. I look at the clock coming into transition and see that I'm going to be under 1:03:00. I cross at 1:02:55. The nightmare's over.


Post Race:
After keeping the vomit down with some water at the finish I walked around the finish area for a bit. Still too tired for food. I ended up meeting the other Canadian in the race, Gallacher Patterson. We chatted for a bit about the race and then I walked around with my uncle watching the few EDR women, watching the age groupers, grabbing food and the like. I went for a cool down (which I don't usually do) and after 2 mins of jogging in the rough, uneven grass, I roll my ankle for the second time during the week. Fantastic. Maybe it was a sign. No more cool downs for me!

Got that right

This was a huge learning experience for me, and, although it seemed like the end of the world at the time, for the most part it was pretty positive. A lot of reflection went into this race, but I decided I'm not going to give up yet. If I was really meant to give up, why didn't any of the volunteers have radios? What about the encouragement from the other athletes? Not only on the run, but during the bike, trying to get me to push and work together. The performance felt awful and even though I set a PB by eight and a half minutes, the course was 100% flat by my standards, on both the run and bike, and I'm fairly sure that both courses were short to some extent. I didn't get to bring out the run fitness I've built up over the past few months either so I've only got one shot left at my next race in Lakeside. It will be another Olympic but this is where I set my sprint PB two years ago so hopefully I turn up in good health and can do so once again.

Until next time,
Matt Mahaffy

My first AG win

Pre-Race

I drove down to this race with my mom again. My dad was supposed to join, but he ended up having to work. We left Friday after work and then stayed at my cousin's place in Sudbury for the night. We don't visit them all that often so we stayed up a little late and didn't leave till around 10:30 the next morning, which was really the latest we could leave since I had to get to Toronto before 4 for pre-race briefings. Unfortunately this meant that I couldn't get there for a swim (TTF officials had opened the swim course from 11am-1pm on Saturday). For training on Saturday I just did a quick run at Centennial Park which happened to be just across the street from my hotel. It brought back some good memories seeing as that is where I got to watch high school cross country teammates get silver at OFSAA. I went out for dinner with my mom and uncle (who came to watch the race) afterwards and then went to bed early.

Transition opened at 5:30 on Sunday, so it was up early, have breakfast, and right to Ontario Place (race site). I made sure to familiarize myself with the course as much as possible. There wasn't much I could do about the full run and bike, but I made sure to take note of the run out/swim in since it was slightly modified from last year. I also ran along the swim course during my warm up since they changed the swim to a long, out-and-back type loop. Although the race prep went smoothly for the most part, I did run into some trouble. First off, it started raining about 15-20 mins before race start. I hadn't thought of bringing a towel which meant that now all of my stuff in transition was wet AND I still had to put my wetsuit on. I had some bodyglide so worst case scenario I was just going to use the whole stick. I wasn't really crunched for time for my wave but since the first wave was starting they rushed us out of transition, but I made out ok with the wetsuit. The main problem was that I forgot my race suit at the hotel. Luckily, I actually thought about it as soon as we got to race site so I sent my mom back immediately and was able to get it in time. Now onto the main event!

MY FIRST OLYMPIC DISTANCE!

Swim (22:08, 6th OA, 1st AG):
This year I was in the 4th wave. They still made the waves 4 minutes apart, but they only forced us to get into the water a minute before we had to leave which was nice since the water was still freezing this year (even with the wetsuit). I thought I'd picked a good spot on the line to start, but looking back I don't think I took the shortest line. I also ended up picking the slow side, which became apparent when after about 20 seconds of seeing nobody, everyone from the left side suddenly came into view. I eventually worked my way through most of them though, finishing with the 6th fastest swim and 3rd fastest in my heat (down by 2 mins). Of course this meant I never really got to draft at all and spent most of the swim weaving between people who couldn't hold a line. It was fun passing so many people though and most likely the reason the swim felt relatively short compared to my expectations.

Swim exit - Didn't come out dizzy this year!

T1 (1:37, 16th OA):
Last year coming out of the water I remember being dizzy and disoriented, most likely due to the fact that I  swam in the frigid water without a wetsuit. Luckily this year the same didn't happen. I was able to get my wetsuit off my feet without using my hands for my first time, which is an accomplishment on its own. I had cut about half an inch off my wetsuit earlier in the week, but I don't think it made much of an impact. I wasted a bit of time deciding not to wear sunglasses of any kind (I went to put them on and they were wet so I couldn't see). It was the right choice though.  The run into transition was a little long but not nearly as bad as in Cambridge and since my spot was close to the swim in/run out there wasn't much to complain about.

Bike (1:10:19, 133rd OA, 4th AG):

I think the rain at stopped by the time I got onto the bike although it didn't matter much since everything was wet anyways. I had no trouble getting my feet into my shoes and took off with a headwind that made me feel like Bradley Wiggins (I wish). There were certain points on the way out were I was definitely averaging around 40k/h for a several minutes, even managing to get above 50km/h on a couple descents. I thought I crossed 20km in 32 mins but I realized after the race that the turn around wasn't quite 20km since it wasn't a perfect out-and-back. On the way back the wind was a monster and I quickly realized I had forgot any calories on the bike. I don't quite feel like I needed it, but I don't know how I would have felt had I taken some. Maybe the run would've been a bit faster. Coming back into T2 I had a guy chasing me which was good incentive to get out of my shoes and keep speed right up to the end.

T2 (1:17, 10th OA):
T2 went well. It is always hard running down that hill with the bike but other than being a little slow on the race belt, I got out of there so fast that when I got out of transition I was wondering if I'd forgotten anything!

T2 Out - Off for my first 10k race ever

Run (42:28, 53rd OA, 3rd AG):
Finally, the run. I knew the run was going to be long, but not that long. There were basically markers at the ~2km mark (sprint turn around), the 2.5km mark, 5 km mark, 6 km mark, and 8 km mark. When I hit 2.5km, I thought I was between 3 and 4 and as I got more tired it just seemed more and more hopeless. I didn't feel like I was running slow (especially for the first ~4km), but it felt like I was running at a tempo-like pace/effort (hard, but a little comfortable in terms of breathing/cardio). My legs were so sore though that all I could do to keep pace was to keep the arms swinging so I would keep my cadence up. It seemed to work to some extent since my time wasn't all that terrible. Certainly ended up at the better end of my expectations from during the race. Actually got to pass a few people which was nice. The worst part was coming around the last building. I was somewhat alone for the last ~1km (other than watching Jesse Bauer run by from the duathlon) but in the last 400m I seen a guy creeping up on me so I knew I couldn't just let him go by. I put in the extra effort to stay ahead and almost puked across the line (again). The medics let me sit down for a couple minutes though and I was able to hold it in. I'm a little disappointed it was slower than my pace on the much harder 6km cross country course at the Cambridge Tri, but I wasn't expecting much out of my first olympic distance race.

Overall (2:17:47, 38th OA, 1st AG):

I finally got my first win. I may not have crossed the line first overall, but an age group win is better than anything I've had before, so I know it is a step in the right direction. I "only" got chicked by 4 girls (one of which was 20-24...), but mainly because of the difference in bike splits. If you cut my overall time in half it is about 1:08:53, which is about 5 and a half minutes faster than my sprint time at TTF2013. Not only that, but this "cut" time is even faster than my all time sprint PB. It may have been one of the easiest courses out there, but I definitely think it was perfect for my first olympic distance. A definite confidence booster. Can't say I'm looking forward to Wasaga yet though. Next up, Detroit!

Podium - My first, but not my last

 

Swim workout - July 2nd

This is just a random post, but I was so excited about my swim workout today I figured I'd just leave this here.

I had a short easy run a few hours earlier and did the following swim workout:

4x250 100s/25scull

8x50 on 50 1 build 1 ez 2 fast

2x300 as 200 fast (400 pace) 100 ez on 4:45

8x50 on 50 1 build 2 ez 1 fasat

400 ppp fast

300 ch

Here are my quick thoughts.

I. Killed. It. I. Am. So. PUMPED! For only a couple 200s those were hella hard, but I surprised myself and I am so damn excited. I started the workout feeling sluggish, finished the WU with sore arms. A little out of breath after the 50s (short rest), but I went for it on the 200s and I killed it. I really wanted to go 2:25 (since my 400 is 4:49 or something), but I don't know if I've ever done a 200 that fast in practice. Not in a few years anyway. With that being said I told myself to be happy with 2:30s. I did the first one in 2:25 spot on and was completely dead. Went all out. I ended up with about 30" of actual rest after the easy 100 and did it again. I went 2:26/27. There's all out, then there is whatever that was. It didn't necessarily feel smooth, but hot damn did that get me going. At least the equivalent of race effort. At least! And then, to finish off, I managed to do the pull in 5:30 (not amazing but still ok!). Sometimes the workouts beat me, sometimes I beat them, but sometimes it's both, and damn does it feel good.

Race #2 - Subaru Series Cambridge Triathlon

I headed down to Cambridge for my second race of the season, once again staying at a cousin's place, but this time traveling down with my mom. All of the preparation leading up to the race went well other than some sore, aching shoulders that I think was caused by the increase in shoveling I've been having to do at work. Just look at is as making me stronger I suppose. Going into this race, my main goal was to get as close to 1:30:00 as I could (splits of about 11/55/24 mins for the swim/bike/run respectively). I knew it was a little optimistic considering I always exclude the transitions, but it was a good goal to have in mind.

Swim (10:56): I really enjoyed the swim course. The swim was one loop, out around a couple of islands and back, and the water was pretty warm. I hadn't expected there to be too many fast swimmers and I was right. I stayed as far left as I could on the start line since I was able to seethe first two buoys line up. In my head, this meant I chose the straightest possible line to the first turn. Ben Sayles had moved over to the far right, but I had no intention of trying to follow him so I didn't worry about it too much. Once the gun went off, he went ahead as expected, although close enough that I could have jumped on his feet had I wanted to. I decided not to because I knew it would take a lot out of me and I wouldn't stay there for long. Luckily, there was another swimmer near him that I decided to draft off of. I jumped on his feet for about 200m, but eventually I just kept swimming into his feet so I put in a little extra effort to pass and put him behind and swam the rest trying to keep Ben in my sights. I think I came out about 40-50 seconds down but by the time I ran to transition (where the timing mat was) I had just been passed by Blair Morgan from McMaster and Ben had about a 1 min lead.

Swim exit - Myself in front with Blair close behind

T1 (0:53): The run to transition really hurt and I once again had some trouble getting my wetsuit unzipped but the run was long enough that I figured it out. I got snagged on my chip taking my wetsuit off, but otherwise it went well.

Bike (56:22): This defintiely did not start well. As per usual, I always forget to do something with my shoes, whether its put the straps in the loop or loosen the velcro. This time it was the latter. By the time I undid my shoes, got my feet in and tied them up, I probably lost the better part of a minute and got passed by a couple athletes (of many). The bike course was great. It started with a nasty ~10% grade hill, but was quickly followed by some fast, quick, winding rollers. It was unfortunate that this section of road was roughed up, otherwise I would have flew through it (some people seemed hesitant in this area, particularly on the way back). The rest of the course was nice rolling hills on some pretty smooth road and was quite enjoyable to ride on. In terms of the race, I didn't start getting passed until I think about 12-13km in, but by the end I was back in 20 something spot. In terms of power on the bike, I averaged about what I had hoped, but the time wasn't quite as fast as I'd hoped. I'm thinking it may be time to start thinking a little more aero.

T2 (0:36): Another smooth transition. Coming back into the park, we were a group of about 6 or 7 athletes and most of them seemed very hesitant and nervous about dismounting at speed so I stayed behind and off to the side and passed them on the flying dismount (avoiding a loose shoe in the process). The short amount of cruising getting back into the park re-energized me and I was able to get out onto the run course feeling fairly refreshed. I did fumble with me race bib a little though.

Run (24:58): Three for three for a great looking course. The run was 100% cross country, with the typical 50m stretch of pavement. The course was all grass or wood chips or gravel which was so nice to run on. Unfortunately, I haven't been doing any hard work out in the trails. I noticed this because I had a definite lack of strength on the hills, a lack of technical running on the downhills, and a difficulty recovering from both. Right out of transition I chased down a girl who had passed me late on the bike. I caught her about 200m into the run and was feeling good so I took off and slowly increased the gap up until the 2km mark. At this point I was hurting quite a bit and knew I couldn't hold it for 6km so I eased off a bit. She caught back up by the 3km mark, I tried to stay with her, but in the end I let her get away. I managed to pass 3 or 4 people and only be passed by 1. I also didn't have to fight for a sprint finish which I was so thankful for. You can only dig for a sprint so often.

Finish - No need for a sprint finish today

Overall - 2nd AG20-24 - 20th OA (1:33:42): At the end of the day, I am happy with what came out of the race. Much happier than at Woodstock. No panicking to get everything ready, no forgetting my chip or power meter, I felt good on the run, and the bike and swim both felt like improvements.

Podium - First AG podium that had more than 3 participants!

Thanks for the support Dan (photo creds for the swim and finish pictures)

Now I know that I'm lacking strength on the run and I have tons of room to get faster on the bike. Up next is my very first Olympic distance race. I'm nervous, but I know TTF is a fairly flat and easy course and I'm ready to give it a shot.

Until next time,
Matt Mahaffy

Switching coaches, the off-season, and a fresh beginning

Guess who's back... ?

As I mentioned when I last left off, it has been a little while. Or a long while, but who's keeping track? Since I haven't updated this blog since last summer I'll start by filling in the blanks in the time gap then I'll move onto where I am now.

End of summer recap

After having my last race at Toronto Triathlon Festival (TTF), I didn't do any other in-season races. I'm not sure if I had mentioned this but I was still considering doing Lakeside at the time, but as I was still dealing with injury I ended up deciding against. I still went to the race for the weekend and worked as a crew member on the run course. It was a good experience, hard work, and really early mornings. Sounds like tri training without the swim-bike-run. Although I didn't race I made some quick cash over the weekend and got to watch the races so I can't complain. 

Now you might ask, "But Lakeside is in September, what happened from TTF in July, to Lakeside in September?" Only one thing happened, but it deserves a mention. I decided that Buddy Green's coaching wasn't quite suited for me and come August I was back to training solo. In this period of time I did some training on my own, based on how I was feeling and what I felt my injury(ies?) could tolerate and after a couple of weeks I started looking around the London community for a new coach. That is when I spoke to Alex Vanderlinden about being coached by Cliff. I chatted with Cliff, and he with Alex, and next thing I knew September had rolled around and I became Alex's first (as far as I'm aware) athlete. With Coach Alex ready to roll, a new house and housemates, and a new school year at my feet, I was ready to do things differently.

Off-season recap

In school, I worked my butt off over first semester to finish with a 90+ avg, and slowly faded throughout second semester although still finishing strong, managing to get 80+ for second semester (and with only one mark below 80 the entire year!).

In terms of training, there was a lot of changes that had to be made throughout the first few months to adjust to my seemingly unfix-able, constantly injured legs. The main goal of the off-season training though was to get my swim to a higher level so I can come out in or near the front pack in draft legal races. Oh right, I forgot to mention, I've decided I want to make an attempt at racing draft legal. At the moment it seems like it would be the most enjoyable form of racing (for me), but more on that later. Back to the training. I swam with the Purple Coached Fitness coached by Ken Fitzpatrick again in the mornings, and as the winter progressed started adding some extra days with the Triathlon Club and even getting in some swims with Coach Alex himself (who was now training with the varsity team rather than the morning swim group). We managed to get me through the winter in decent shape, with the fewest (or maybe shortest) setbacks to date. I was even able to race TriOntario's Indoor Provincial championships with a few club members. Good times were had.

As I did last year, I raced the Masters Swimming Provincial championships which was in Windsor this year. I was lucky enough to be taken into the Vanderlinden household (along with Alex and Angela Quick of course) for the weekend and couldn't express their gracious hospitality in words, so a big thank you to them. The weekend went well, with me going under 4:50 in the 400, under 20 mins in the 1500 and almost breaking 10 in the 800 (it was at the end of the meet). PBs across the distance board is what I like to see. 

Immediately following the meet was the final exams period so training took a back seat while I crammed my skull to bursting with formulas and problem solving methods. 

Jumping ahead to May, I have had no luck with finding a summer job in London so I'm stuck moving back to Timmins basically working as a garbage man. On the bright side, I get to see my best friends in person rather than through a computer screen.

The Now

Training has been ramped up, injuries have been put to rest (or at least into a coma) and race season has begun. Right now I am in the beginning of a run block Alex seems to have planned for me. I have had to chance to do multiple speed workouts so far, including two on the track and I could hardly be more excited. I should be able to post a potential race schedule somewhere on the side of the page but in case I can't I'm looking at the following: Woodstock Sprint (May), ?? (June), TTF Olympic (July), Detroit Sprint Triathlon - U25 Elite Development Draft Legal Race (August), Wasaga Beach Olympic (Sept)

Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Series: Woodstock Sprint Triathlon

First race of the season. I'd love to say this is a rust breaker, but it is really more of a 'breaking in the new shoes' kind of deal. Other than a cold I caught the previous weekend (long weekend), I was going into this race with some solid, nearly uninterrupted, non-injury riddled training. It's almost as though I was racing in a new body. I took the Friday afternoon off to drive down to London with my dad, did a short open water swim with Angela on Saturday morning, along with a short brick later in the day. The wetsuit felt comfortable and wasn't a pain to put on or take off, but my arms were a little fatigued (I hadn't swam in 9 days). I tested a few things out with elastics on the bike and gave one attempt at a flying mount (which failed with my suit catching the saddle). On race day me and my Dad left my cousins place early to head for Woodstock. We got there at around 7:40 am (race start at 9 am), I grabbed my stuff and headed for transition. I looked around for Alex, but he disappeared pretty quick and we had already discussed race warm-up so I figured I should leave him alone since he was racing as well. In short, my race morning prep was miserable, unorganized and sloppy, even from a rookie's standards. I forgot to get my race chip and body markings, didn't wear my Garmin or put my PowerTap on my bike and instead of getting in the water ~45 mins before race start, I didn't get in until ~15 mins to race start. The water was at 61F which wasn't terribly cold, but getting a few minutes of warm up in the water definitely made the water feel comfortable. 

     Swim (~11mins): The swim went pretty well. I got off to a quick and pretty effortless start and stayed with Alex for what felt like at least 150m, and when he pulled ahead Angela happened to come swimming up the side so I jumped on her feet for the next 200-250m (up until the first turn). From then on I tried my best to stay on someone's feet but by the end I think I was swimming just in front of the chase pack but all alone in No Man's Land just as Alex had anticipated. I was also having some trouble sighting the actual buoys so I was sighting on other swimmers which I don't particularly like. I definitely need some more work sighting at speed. 

     Transition 1 (swim-bike): Coming out of the water I wasn't falling all over the place as usual but I also wasn't sprinting out of the water so maybe that helped. For a couple seconds I forgot about the wetsuit and once I realized it had to come off, I fumbled with the velcro for a bit. Once I got the zipper down, taking the suit off wasn't actually as tough as I had anticipated.

     Bike (~38mins): Being one of the first (top 20) swimmers out of the water, I got passed quite a bit on the bike, but I felt like I was doing well for myself. At first I was biking with two girls, one of which I thought was Angela, but found out wasn't her when she went by after the turn-around. The big thing I regret about the ride was not jumping onto Meghan Lamers wheel when she went by a couple minutes before the turn-around. I knew from indoor provincials we were similar in ability on the bike and run so I wanted to come off the bike with her and have someone to push me on the run. I let her go by and by the time I had realized the girls I was with weren't chasing her it was too late. After the turn I took off in an attempt to catch her but she was too far so I basically just tried to maintained the gap she had on me (which kept growing but only slightly now). Overall I felt like I was probably a little too conservative at the start of the bike, and although I am disappointed with the time, I'm satisfied with the effort I put in.

     Transition 2 (bike-run): I grabbed the mesh running cap I got in the goody back, slipped my shoes on and was out in another fairly smooth transition.

     Run (~21-22mins): There were a couple other guys who I came out of transition with. I went relatively hard for the first ~1km as usual and dropped one of them but the other got away. Personally, although this is typically a course I might like running on due to all the crushed gravel, I did not enjoy it at all. Right from the grassy start, it just seemed to sap away at my energy more than it should have. All of the short hills and soft terrain took a lot out of me and I just didn't have the energy to go faster. I used water at all the aid stations to cool me off with the third station (of 4) being for an attempt at getting a small drink of water for my dry mouth. After what I feel like was a sub par run, I crossed the finish only to find out that I totally forgot to get my chip. They were able to get my overall time manually, but this meant no splits and for a while I felt embarrassed, ashamed, frustrated and like the entire race was a waste of time.

     Post Race: As I settled down and got some food I accepted that I made mistakes and there was nothing I could do but learn from them. Looking back now, I am just so grateful I was even able to race injury free and nearly 100% healthy. I still have much to learn and tons of hard work to put in, but I'm ready to fight the good fight and can't wait to see how to summer unfolds. 

As I was texting Alex after the race he told me to get hungry. With a grin on my face (thinking myself clever), I quickly responded with "I'm starving."

For anyone who read this all the way through, I bow my head. Much appreciated. Hopefully I won't have any posts this ridiculously long from here on. Even I want to say TLDR.

Until next time,

Matt Mahaffy