Toronto Triathlon Festival

About a week and a half ago I did a sprint race in Toronto, and since I'm just getting around to it now I've got a few additional updates.

Toronto Triathlon Festival

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it to this race since about a week before the race I still didn't have a ride or a place to stay. I also didn't have my draft legal card which I needed if I was planning on racing draft legal. I was able to get both a ride and a place to stay from a friend though so I figured even if I didn't get my drafting certification on time I could at least race age group. I did manage to get certified in time though so here's the race report.

Swim (10:13)
We were only 16 male junior/u23/elites combined so we all started at the same time. Some pretty big local names were there including the Forbes twins, Johnny Rasmussen, Miles Zagar, and there was also Gaspar Riveros who races on the pro international circuit for Chile. I thought I started out pretty well, staying on feet until about the 300m or 400m mark, but eventually I fell off the back and was about 30seconds from swimmers in either direction. I felt like I had a good swim, but it's unfortunate that I didn't make any packs on the bike.

T1 (1:23)
Not the fastest of transitions. I got caught with my suit around my ankles again, but I saved a bit of time by getting my helmet on before the suit was off. I also wasn't particularly rushed as I didn't see anyone in transition and the guy behind me wasn't very close.

Bike (31:23)
Like I said, unfortunately I didn't make any packs and I wasn't closing any gaps to the guys up ahead so I basically had to TT it. Since the goal going in was to forget about the run and just try to hang on for dear life on the bike I put all my effort into going for a solid bike split. It isn't quite the same when you are riding solo though. For the last about 5km Itamar Zilberman managed to catch up from his deficit on the swim so we tried to work together, which I think was good because it allowed me to recover, if only slightly, enough to go into the run feeling good.

T2 (1:05)
No need to mess around with a wetsuit now, but my shoes were trouble this time around. Coming into transition I noticed I had a little gap on Itamar, which I assume formed when he took his feet out of his shoes or something, so I took advantage to try and get out of T2 first. I wasn't sure what his run was like but I thought we were of similar abilities so I wanted a headstart on him.

Run (19:52)
I tried to put out a hard first km or so to discourage Itamar from latching on, but turns out he was actually quite a bit better on the run than I thought and he went by before I settled into my actual pace. I put out a solid effort. I knew the lead girl was coming up and I didn't want them to catch me (or beat me on time for that matter) so I still had motivation even though I was running solo. I was kind of hoping for a slightly faster run considering this is only about 20 seconds faster than Woodstock and this is a much easier course, but I'll take what I can get.

Overall (1:03:54 - 11th male/12th overall)
In the end I didn't place horribly. Only Dominika Jamnicky beat me for girls and a few guys DNF'd with flats and injuries and stuff and I beat a few juniors as well. I'm disappointed I didn't get to test out some drafting on the bike, but I still think that considering I've still only been back from Europe for 3 weeks I had a really good race so I'm happy with the result.

Then and Now
For anyone still reading this is just an overview of the race lead up and the past week or so of training. Ever since I've come back from Europe I've had a nagging in my foot so I didn't actually do anything more than easy runs leading into the race. I also wiped out for the first time this year on my bike on my way to school the Wednesday before the race so I went in with a bit of road rash (not that I feel it had any effect during the race).
As usual I didn't really ease off coming back from the race. I've gotten back into the pool more often and with more mileage than perhaps I was doing in April, and I did my first road race and crit with some local cyclists. I'm 2 for 2 in getting dropped so far, but hopefully as I learn some race tactics and gain experience I'll be able to stay with the rest of them until the end. I also finally got the parts for my powertap so I'm back to training with power and can finally use my race wheels. Things are still coming along slower than I'd like in the pool, but I've only been back for a month now and I've already put in my biggest training week of 2015 so hopefully I don't over exert myself and can put together a couple solid race in the later portion of the season. My next race will be a quieter race up in Timmins which I think I have a shot at winning so I'm really looking forward to it.

Until Next Time,
Matt M