Great White North Race Report

Great White North: The Race that Was!

Disclaimer: I've thought about how to write my race reports and settled on giving you a look into what goes through my mind throughout the day. I'm not so witty and clever like many others I read so you just get to kind of see what happens in my brain throughout the day.

Race Morning/Pre-Race

Alarm goes off at 5am, I lie awake in bed and for a moment, don’t really feel like racing today. I shake off this last moment of doubt and fix up some breakfast: 3 Eggs and a smoothie, my go to light breakfast. I had swum in the lake a week prior to the race and had been feeling off since then. All week I just didn’t feel that well, especially Saturday, almost a hungover stomach feeling, but not much you can do so the day must go on. My goal back in March was to come into this race under 180lbs, something I’ve only been three times since 2004. I thought I would lose weight while in Wainwright, but I was wrong. I came back heavy, at 192lbs, but managed to get it down to 185lbs by race day, it would have to do. This would also be the first time I raced with a HR monitor. I train with one all the time and thought it would be a good way to gauge my effort on race day. Now that I've brokenly described a few lead up things to the race, I'll get on with it.

I grabbed my gear and was on my way, 45min later I arrived down at transition, a little before 7. I began my last preparations for my bike, adding bottles, filling tires, and any last adjustments before race start. I donned my outdated, not perfect fitting wetsuit and went for a quick warm up, just 50-100m, find a couple friends and hang out for 5-10min waiting for the start gun.

Swim
Goal: Under 38min            Actual: 37:08 (1:51min/100m) 108^th Overall

I positioned myself near the front of the swim, something I would have been hesitant to do in the past. With goals of swimming faster, I knew I needed to be on the feet of fast swimmers. The gun went off and so did 600 athletes. As always the first few hundred meters consists bumping into people, feet in the face, hands on legs, and trying to find open water. The swim out to the first buoy was about 900m and for me involved trying to stay on people’s feet, which I found difficult, staying on line and overall just settling in. Around the first buoy and I had 700m to the next one, I felt slow in this leg, but had a lot of space to swim so plugged along. At one point, an athlete attempted to swim through me and pulled my timing chip down from my wetsuit. RANT WARNING: I will never undersatnd why swimmers think they can go through someone. I've had this happen a few times now. I get it, feet will be slapped and even the odd leg, but when I do that to someone, I look for open water and make my next strokes toward it. What possesses people to continue swimming into someone I will never understand, it slows both parties down and usually results in me trying to kick you in the face. Annnnyway, I decided to stop and tuck it back underneath to ensure I didn't lose it. Around the last buoy and I put in a strong effort for the last 400m to the beach. 

Start of the swim

Overall Swim Impression

Very happy with the result of the swim, though I felt slow at times so there is definitely room for improvement, I need to keep focused at all times during the swim, instead of settling in to a comfortable pace and day dreaming a bit. Despite these feelings, I hit my goal times and am very pleased with the start of my race.

T1: 4 minutes

I rushed out of the water, got my wetsuit peeled off with a bit of trouble and headed to my bike. I caught one buddy just leaving and another right behind me. I put my gear on, had my sunglasses fog up and headed on out.

Coming out of the water (Courtesy of Ken Anderson Photography)

Overall T1 Impression

I lost some focus here and cost me a bit of time. I was hoping to keep T1 at 3min or less. I think the key is to really be conscious of what I need to do as I’m coming in from the swim. Also being very simple and succinct. More practice at home as well.

Bike
Goal time: Under 3hrs                         Actual: 2:49 (32.1km/hr) 103^rd Overall

Just starting the bike

The bike begins with a short climb out to the highway. Normally it would seem easy, but coming out of the water this climb makes the legs honest right away. Fortunately the first 5km of the race was basically all downhill with a tailwind, very easy way to get the legs going. I spent this first bit of the race cruising around at 50+km/hr, took an exit ramp and headed into town to start the first of two loops on the bike.

Exiting the lake (Ken Anderson Photography)

         



I would describe this bike as a fast course. A large section of it you are either climbing a longer slight grade, or descending it. My plan for the race was to keep it steady up on the uphills and hammer on the downhills. I came in at 185lbs so I am at a slight disadvantage for the uphills but an advantage for the down. I played hopscotch with a gal for the first 70km of the race. She passed me on every uphill and as soon as we began to descend I would take over. In training I found my steady efforts to have a heart rate of 140 on average and would sometimes get up to 150 when I started pushing it. This was my first race using a HR Monitor and I found that I liked it, I also noticed that my HR would not get under 150, but I didn’t feel like I was pushing too hard so I kept my eye on my HR but kept the pressure on. On the way out we faced a slightly angled headwind, so I pushed hard knowing that the way back involved a long descent into town with a tailwind. Once I had the wind at my back I kept pushing to maxmize on speed, so I guess all day I kept a strong effort on the bike. I took in nutrition as best as I could, but my stomach was not feeling well at all.

           

Round the corner and back out

I completed the first lap and was feeling good aside from the stomach issues. In the past I have found that the last 15-20km I have faded. I noticed around the 2hr mark, roughly 55km or so that I was headed out on lap two into the headwind and I was feeling tired. I also noticed the strap that held my aero bottle in had broke, which meant I’d be holding on to it as I rode the last 40km, a nuisance but not to much of a problem. I took in some sugars and just focused on getting to the top of the hill because I knew that was the only hard part I had left. I did some math along the way and knew I would come in under 3hrs, which I was pleased about. The other thing I noticed was that my body was feeling good with respect to injuries, my hip wasn’t acting up and everything felt good. This was my first time racing and third time riding my new Flo wheels. I must say they performed so well. They are very sturdy in that they like to stay in a straight line, very little movement. They are also excellent at maintaining momentum, once I got them up to a speed it was easy to keep them there. Very pleased with this purchase.

Overall Bike Impression

I knew the course would be relatively fast and I am happy with my result. The last 3-4 weeks my training on the bike faded a bit, I think with a bit more threshold work, I could drop another 5-10min off. I’m happy to have had my HR average 155 and it not be too high for me, something I wouldn’t have guessed during training.

90km done. Ready for running shoes

T2

T2 is pretty cut and dry, come in, put on running shoes and grab hat with 4 gels in it, then go. As I left T2 I went to the portapotty and as I approached a lady said, just take her out. I gave her a quizzical look and was hesitant to open the door, she took action, opened the door and pulled her 4 yr old out with her pants still around her ankles just so I could use the washroom. That was about the only thing that was interesting in T2.

Run
Goal: Under 2hrs            Actual: 2:10:29 (6:11min/km) 237^th Overall

I knew this leg of the race was going to be a challenge in a few different ways:

1)   I have had a relatively small amount of run training through my preparation for this race.

2)   Running has been the biggest issue when it comes to injuries. During training for this race I suffered from left knee IT Band issues, left leg peroneal strain, right achilles issues, right medial knee pain, and right hip flexor tightness/pain.

3)   The training I have been able to do is most slow running, not much for speed=not much for fitness. The longest run I got in during training was 11km.

Fresh out of T2 (Photo credit to Dom Rankel)

To the run, I came out of transition greeted by my dad who gave me some words of encouragement and quickly ran into another friend Dom that made it out with his camera, hence some of the running pictures. The first KM of the race is slightly uphill which brought about a burning/tight feeling through my lower legs. I figured this would disappear eventually and kept on trucking. My goal was to run, at a minimum between aid stations, if not more. I kept this up for basically the first lap, (2x10.5km loops). It took about 40min for my legs to finally come around and feel they were meant for running. My stomach didn’t improve much so I stuck mainly to water and coke and choked down a few gels. Around the 45min mark came some lateral left knee pain, likely IT Band stuff. This is the thing that plagued me during IMCDA and so I was quite nervous when it came on. Luckily it settled at a rather uncomfortable ache and I was able to run as much as possible before taking quick walk breaks.

Last few steps (Ken Anderson Photography)

            A serious lack of run fitness is what cost me here. Despite averaging a HR of 157, I could scarcely keep my pace under 6min/km for my run. NO. RUN. FITNESS. I trucked on for the second lap with little excitement to share and my knee pain even dulled a bit, until about 1.5km to go. I was passing the gentlemen (see pic left) that was walking and I quickly asked how he was getting on. Cramps for him. I gave some encouragement and carried on, no sooner should I carry on than my right calf pulses quickly with a couple cramps of my own. I quickly stretch it on the curb and carry on, running much more cautiously, trying to stay off my toes despite the fact that I always finish hard in races. With about 400m to go I was passed by one person, but was managing to keep 3 or 4 more at bay. I was nervous to have been picking up the pace, as I wasn’t sure if my calf would fully seize up on me. It was holding together and with about 75m to go I heard very heavy breathing. It’s the guy that was cramping so I picked it up and sprint/low ran the last bit to hold him off with my calf almost going on me. Alas, I am finished.

Finish 5:40:36 159^th Overall and 24^th in my Age Group.

Dad and I at the finish line

Overall I am very pleased with my result. It was an extremely difficult training season riddled with one injury or another almost the entire time. I am happy to report a Swim PB by 7:30min and I swam an extra 100m, so very pleased with that result and I feel like I can be faster yet. A bike PB of 28min, on what I would say is a fairly fast course, but again, I have more to give. I set a run PB by 14min for the Half Iron distance, but I don’t count it as a PB as I have run a half marathon faster. What I am most pleased about though, is I finished with far less pain/injury than I expected. To come in with just a little knee pain when I was expecting so much worse was the best part of the day.
            Special thanks to Dom, Josh, and Robbie for coming out and cheering me on and of course to my Dad because none of it would be possible without the support from him and my Ma

 So what’s next? 

Well I just bought a mountain bike, so I might have a go at the Xterra Canmore Offroad Triathlon in August, but the big push will be for the Banff Sprint. I’m changing gears and looking for speed. My goal? To win my age group and qualify for the Age Group World Championships in Chicago next year. If I train hard, I feel I have a shot at it….depending on who shows up of course. Last year I could have won my age group, the year before, not. It’s kind of like a lottery, we will see.