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.
