Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon Post-race Report

A difficult day of racing

      The Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon was one of my premiere races this season because it was both the Triathlon Ontario Club Championships and my final MSC series race of the season (and therefore last chance to get some series points). Since this one didn't start until 10:30am on Saturday I left Kingston at 8pm the night before and made my way up to Collingwood to spend the night with Emma and her parents at her grandmothers house (who is also the newest team LPC supporter).

      I got to the race nice and early to scope out the course and get a good swim warm up in. We (LPC) had a solid line up of strong athletes in this one so my plan was to try and get a good draft off of one of them in the swim. I lost them right away, this was just the beginning of what ended up being a really bad day. I hadn't really noticed until now that my goggles consistently fog up really badly, to the point where I can't see 3 feet in front of me. I spend a lot of time in races just trying to figure out where I am in the water and this has to change because it is difficult to focus on good form and going strong when you are constantly worried that you are going off course. This one started to feel less like a race and more like I was just trying to get to the shore in the right spot. Something else I've noticed is that I kick way too much when I race. I am a light kicker in the pool and when training in the open water, but when I race my legs are thrashing all over the place, possibly partially to keep my head above the water when I try to sight. I really noticed it this time because my calfs and hamstrings started cramping up near the end of the swim, to the point where I had to just kind of lie there and wait a couple seconds for it to go away. The run up to transition was interesting (and I think a lot of people felt like this because of the waves during the swim) but I was pretty certain I was going to throw up all over my bike, but luckily I didn't.

       I was ready and excited for a strong, partially tapered bike ride after the training for the bike has gone extremely well this season. It didn't happen. My legs just didn't have it. It felt like I was pushing REALLY hard but just couldn't go fast, like my legs couldn't produce the power despite the effort I was putting in. Anyone who has experienced this will know that it is an extremely frustrating and demoralizing feeling, the kind of which I'm not sure I've ever experienced before as an athlete. The only way I can think to describe it is like something was holding me back, like an invisible rope attached to the back of my bike. There are a few potential reasons I think may have caused this: 1) I am iron deficient again, which I really hope not because I've been vigilant about eating foods with lots of iron and my body doesn't handle the supplements well, 2) I am burnt out after a long XC, track and tri season (in addition to the stress of trying to finish my masters taking a mental toll), or 3) that my over-kicking in the swim tired my legs out (I hope its this one because its easy to blame all of life's problems on the swim). My calf cramped up as the bike progressed as well to the point where I had to slow down a couple times to stretch it out.

       I always have hope that I can still have a strong run and still have a good race. And I knew that I had some really strong teammates to try and chase down which provides me with good motivation to really go for it. One of them being Ryan Power who I saw walking around in transition when I racked my bike, I am still unsure what happened to him that caused him to drop out of the race before the run (an incident with a car I think?). In the first few steps of the run my right calf cramped up badly and I had to stop and stretch it. When I started running again I got a big stomach cramp and hobbled my way to the first km marker in 4:30. At this point I pretty much knew my day was done. I did my best to hold pace and wait for my cramp to go away and try to nail down a decent finishing position still to get some series points. In the end it just wasn't my day, but it happens. Hopefully others can read this and relate and maybe learn something from my experiences.

      Another one of my LPC teammates (and coach) Mark Linseman missed a turn in the run and ended up going an extra km or two, so needless to say it was a bit of a rough day for some of us LPCers.

     Now enough complaining, there were many of us who had a great day. Jackson Laundry won the race with a really impressive 33:30 10k off the bike, Nick Kolodzie held me off for 4th overall and there was an epic sprint finish between Emma Plater and Lauren Heinken for 3rd and 4th on the women's side. Plus many more in the olympic and lots of success in the sprint the next day. I had a good time at Boston Pizza after the race hanging out with the Plater family and some of my LPC teammates and hope to see a lot more of them when I move to Guelph this year.

      Next up for me is figuring out what went wrong and gearing up for Barrelman. I am tired, demoralized and extremely busy trying to get my thesis done so I am taking a week completely off and hoping to get back into the swing of things next week. The race was well organized and Multisport Canada even got the weather to cooperate for us. I am thankful for all of the support from LPC and their Hurdle Project initiative as well as Multisport Canada and their ambassador team program.

Toronto Island Sprint Triathlon 2015 Post-race Report

Big City Race

       The Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Toronto Island sprint triathlon started with a 4am wake-up in Guelph to get to Toronto and catch the ferry to the island. But this is the life of a student triathlete. I find getting up really early for a race doesn't negatively impact my performance as long as I sleep well in the days leading up to it. Luckily I was able to spend the night in Guelph on Saturday or else I would have had to get up and make the trip from Kingston Sunday morning. It was pretty cool driving through Toronto at 5 in the morning with virtually no traffic, it felt kind of like a scene from The Walking Dead. But then of course after the race you get off of the ferry and there are people everywhere and you don't go more than a few seconds without someone honking their horn and realize you are indeed in a very lively Toronto.

      Despite coach Mark's advice to catch an early ferry Emma and I missed it and caught the 7am departure, with a race start of 8am. It was a bit of scramble to get to the start on time, but at least the run from the outhouse to the beach was a bit of a warm-up.

      The swim felt pretty short compared to the long course race in Kingston a few weeks earlier. However a quick skim of the race results from this race indicates that the swim is an obvious weakness of mine and will be a major focus in my off-season over the winter.

       The bike felt good and ended up being my strongest leg of the race. It was a 2 loop course with lots of turn-arounds, but it was nice and flat making it possible to put out some high speeds. It got a little hectic on the second loop with the other waves entering the course but it was worth it to be able to see who's in front of you throughout the race. With 4 turn-around points I was able to get an idea of who I was gaining on and who was pulling away.

       The run at this race is very fun because it is a 4 loop course, so you are almost always in check with where everyone is in the race. Like the bike, you see everyone multiple times throughout the run (pretty much every few minutes) so you get a good idea of the ground you have to make up on those in front of you and who is coming up behind you. My run was 17:03, which was a little slower than I was hoping for but I don't think I could have ran it any harder than I did. I crossed the line in 5th and ended up getting bumped to 6th by my LPC teammate Lee Rantala who was in a later wave. We've had a lot of close back and forth races in the past couple of years and I am looking forward to a rematch this weekend at Wasaga Beach, where we will be competitors as well as teammates going for the Provincial Club Champs title. Despite not getting the finishing position I was hoping for, in the end I felt that I had a good race. It was also nice being able to race my former Queen's XC teammate Adam Doxtator again, and even though he beat me I'm glad his season is going well.

Me gasping for air like a fish out of water

     I found that this was a really well run event as always by Multisport Canada and it wouldn't be the same without the Recharge with Milk crew out there either. Next up is the Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk Wasaga Beach Olympic Triathlon, which as I mentioned before is home of the Triathlon Ontario Club Championships. Team LPC has a large group coming out and we are looking to repeat as club champs. Most of them I have not seen for a few months so I am looking forward to a bit of a reunion. In addition to the club champs I am looking to pick up some crucial series points this weekend, so as nice as it will be to see everyone, once the race starts it will be all business.

Kingston Long-Course Triathlon 2015 Post-race Report

The Hometown Race

      I had been looking forward to the Multisport Canada Recharge with Milk k-town tri all season and it did not disappoint. The weather was great, the volunteers were awesome and the support from friends and family at the race was amazing. I can safely say I have never before been chased by pac-man to start the run while his (her in this case) ghosts ran beside me shouting encouragement. I'm pretty sure this did actually happen and I wasn't just hallucinating after 2k of swimming and 56.2k of biking.

Oh wait, there it is... do you see it too?

     This was my longest race to date, and the first one where I had to undergo some serious carb-loading. I went from trying to pack higher carb lunches to shamelessly eating muffins and poptarts to reach my goal for carbohydrate intake. In the end it was noticeably more food not all that difficult to do, and I made sure to not eat to the point where I was stuffed or bloated.

       Because I live just north of Kingston I had no trouble getting to the course early and getting in a solid warm-up. The swim felt strong and the wavy lake Ontario waters didn't bother me at all because I am used to Kingston's antics by now having trained in these waters and on these roads quite frequently. Despite that, my swim ended being comparatively very slow to the leaders, which is a weakness I am going to have to work on this off-season.

      I was a bit frazzled (do people still use that word? Frazzled?) in T1. I ran to the wrong side of the bike rack, snuck under the rack and put my helmet on backwards. After sufficiently embarrassing myself spending over a minute in T1 I thankfully decided to stop doing stupid things and head out on the bike. The first bit of the bike felt terrible. My legs were tight, energy-less and it felt like I couldn't produce any power. At that moment I remembered something I read on what I think was Cody Beals' blog (this is why reading blogs is a good thing!) It was that you don't have to feel good to race well. So I decided to test that and see what happens and just go for it. It ended in one of my best bike splits ever. I averaged a faster speed over the long course than I did at the short course last year.

       The goal for the run was proper pacing. This can make a major difference at this distance. It ended up being one of my best paced and well executed runs in recent memory. My first km was exactly on pace, I adjusted the pace going up and down the hills and finished 10s/km faster than my goal.

       I was extremely happy with my performance crossing the line in 4th knowing how many strong racers there were this year. Unfortunately 2 of the guys ahead of me missed a small portion of the bike course and ended up getting DQ'd. Although this bumped me up to 2nd, I would have rather gotten 4th in a more competitive race than 2nd in one where 2 of the strongest guys made a mistake and were DQ'd. But rules are rules.

     Multisport Canada put on a fantastic event. It was well run and the volunteers were great. I am marking this event in my race calendar for many years to come.