It’s always awesome to set a new Personal Best and I set two in one week! First I cut 6 minutes off my best Sprint Tri at the STARRT Triathlon and now I have cut 19 minutes off my best Olympic Tri! My final time was 2:53:39. I came in 3rd in my division and 16th overall (previous best Olympic Tri was 3:12:17 back in Aug 2010).
It’s always awesome to set a new Personal Best and I set two in one week! First I cut 6 minutes off my best Sprint Tri at the STARRT Triathlon and now I have cut 19 minutes off my best Olympic Tri!
The Race:
Swim: 1.5km – 2 lap triangular course in the warm (read: shallow, gross, murky and weedy) and comfortable setting of Miquelon Lake. Bike: 40km – travelling along the quiet, well paved, secondary highways around Miquelon Lake. Run: 10km – 2 full laps of the 5km paved, chip and extremely hilly and grassy trails through Miquelon Provincial Park.
The swim was fine, albeit gross. We fought through weeds the entire race. I should have known when the race director announced “If you get in trouble during the swim, just stand up. The lake is only 4.5 feet deep!” That means there is plenty of sunlight reaching the bottom of the “lake” (it’s really a slough) and that means lots of foliage (my sister commented that the lake smelled like cow poop). Oh well. It was a small race, so not much fighting off the start and after that, all you had to do was swim and sight – a lot! My swim split was 28:22 (sadly there were no wetsuit strippers this year).
The bike was great. Hardly any hills and very little wind. I kept some racers in my sights for the first half and, much to my delight, I passed them all in the second half. My bike split was 1:21:09 (including T1 and T2).
The run… oh man oh man… the run. My split was 1:04:10 which sounds really slow (I race 10k in 42:00 usually) but my time had nothing to do with me being too much of a wimp – this course was killer! I am not a cross-country runner and this was certainly a cross-country race. I loved it, don’t get me wrong, it was hard and pretty and a great challenge but it was killer! It was slow going on some of those steep mud inclines! I was thankful I didn’t trip or turn an ankle on any roots or rocks on some of the steep downhills.
My final time was 2:53:39. I came in 3rd in my division and 16th overall. I also set a PB of around 19 minutes (previous best Olympic Tri was 3:12:17 back in Aug 2010).
Prep:
After spending the week in Edmonton, eating out, having a few beers here and there and sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, I was expecting the worst. I even had curry for dinner on Friday night… yeesh… talk about not preparing. Anyway, Saturday I did everything I could to mitigate the damage I had done all week. I stretched, relaxed, ate well, hydrated well, napped and stayed off my feet as much as possible (after my pre-race brick workout). For dinner I had my standard sweet potatoes, spinach salad, beets, quinoa and some salmon. I went to be early and got a decent 7 hours of sleep. Awesome!
In the morning I had a big glass of water and a big cup of strong black coffee with my standard 3 scoops of Living Fuel SuperBerry (just enough water to make it into a paste) with a banana on top. Delish! I sipped water in the car on the way to the lake… but not too much – I am a notorious race pee-er (as it turned out, even though I went just before the race started, I still had to pull over during the run and use a tree).
Nutrition:
One GU Roctane (w/ caffeine) just before the race started, another one every 30 minutes on the bike, and one more at the beginning of the run. I also ate a couple Gu Chomps at the one hour mark on the bike. I drank plain water on the bike and at 3 of the five aid stations. This may have been more than I needed but with the run being as challenging as it was, I am glad I erred on the “too much” side of fuelling. I had no GI issues, so PHEW!
Next:
I flew back to Toronto on Monday. My next race is another Olympic Tri at Wasaga Beach. Before that race Ellie and I are spending a few days up at a cottage in the Muskokas where I will get in as much swimming and running as I can. The Victoria Marathon is fast approaching and I haven’t done a full marathon since the Goofy in January! I guess I’ll find out how well all this triathlon training translates to marathon… yikes!