Well, it's been an eventful start to the tri season. I started off easy with the Milton try a tri. Wow was it cold. I had to go into the water to stay warm...that's how windy and cold it was. I was feeling pretty confident, assuming all my training would come in handy...especially in the swim. Well, this is apparently the year of the body check swim portion. This was a very physical swim (easy tho compared to Guelph...more on that later), and apparently my time was slow. However, having the timing mat a fair distance from the water didn't help. Apparently I have lost :10 from last year's swim pace. I'm going to have to fix that. Once I was out of the water, I did my usual 'balls out on the bike' method and moved up into 10th overall after the bike. I had a quick transition, and went out on the run feeling fresh (it was only a try-a-tri). It was a very hilly course, and it was all off-road, and with it being a wet day, it was muddy and slippery.
I finished strong at a 4:44 pace, 9th overall and 2nd in my age group. Felt good...a nice easy start to the season, but I know I have to improve my swim.
On to Guelph. This was going to be a busy weekend with the Sprint scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and the Olympic Swim/Bike scheduled for Sunday morning.
The Sprint...SUCKED! The swim was slower than normal, and again very physical. It was tight and I couldn't get into a bilateral breathing rhythm out of fear that I would get kicked or elbowed. I exited the water slow, but Guelph has a stupid long/uphill run to the tranisition area. I wasn't too distressed tho, because I figured that I'd just put in my usual strong bike, and I had hoped for a 4:45/4:40 pace on the run. Boy, was I WAY OFF! the weather was hot and stale, and, unbeknownst to me, my rear brake was pinned to my tire. I knew something was up because I felt like I was dragging the bike tire...I actually thought that I had a flat at one point. Pulling the whole time killed my legs, and with the dry heat, my breathing and hydration was effed. I finished my bike horribly, averaging about a 2:01 pace. I knew I'd have to do something special on the run, but with the heat, that would prove futile.
The run felt long, it was a dry heat with no wind and the temp definitely reached the 'feels like 36' point. I ran about 4:45 for about 750m, but then crashed. When the air dried up, my chest/stomach clenched and I had trouble breathing. At one point I stopped to control it, but all that did was get me through the run. I ended up averaging 5:14 pace, which I was very disappointed with, but no one ran by me, and it turned out that all runners were having the same difficulties with the run. But, even though everyone else was having the same issues, I was still very disappointed with my results. Specifically the bike, as I had spent all week fixing, re-fixing, the re-re-fixing my brakes.
Finally, the end of a long but productive weekend, the Olympic Swim/Bike. I was nervous because this was the first time that I would ever be swimming 1500m. To add to that, the organizers decided to do a mass-start of ALL PARTICIPANTS!!! They organized the swim caps based on individual prospective swim times, but still, all 670 competitors started at the same time. The noise of the water was louder than Niagara Falls, and there was NEVER any space. I had to breathe every other stroke with my head going straight up to ensure I wasn't in danger. Add to that people stopping at the turning buoy, it was a silly swim. One lap down, I was at at 16:35...:10 faster than the pool time from Tuesday. The second lap loosened up a little, but still quite physical as I caught up to people that didn't seed themselves properly. I exited the water at 34:45, and I was very happy with that considering the physical circumstances, and the fact that it was my first 1500m swim. I exited the water, ran up the hill to transition, and began the bike.
I opened up the rear brakes so that they would be as far from the tire as possible, but still function. This made a HUGE difference as I was able to smoothly pedal into a strong head wind for the first half of the bike course. This made me feel good, yet frustrated because I didn't have this smoothness during the sprint, which probably cost me about 5 minutes on my total race time.
I played cat and mouse with a few people, saw some baydogs on the prowl, and enjoyed racing for the full 40KM, which I had never done either. The bike was very smooth, with an average pace of 1:54 and a total time of 1:15. Nathan Brooks (fellow Baydog) caught up to me near the end, and we chatted for a bit, then went our separate ways...him to the run and me to food tent!
In the end, I finished 8th overall (out of 36), and 3rd in my age group. Very productive day/weekend. I wanted to bump up to the full Olympic tri, but I was worried about my legs (I've had a nagging Quad injury for about 1.5 weeks now), so I stuck with the Swim/Bike, and I'm glad I did. After a crappy race on Saturday, the positive results on Sunday made me feel a lot better.
Now I have 4 weeks off. I'm going to be very light/non-existant training this week, go light next week, hard week 3, and then taper week 4 for Gravenhurst Olympic...my first full Olympic. Should be fun!! I get to jump off a boat!
