Muskoka race report

You know, life is a continuing journey of education and rediscovery. In fact the only time you stop learning should be when, as someone so eloquently put it, "when you pedal off to that great transition area in the sky".

I've been at this sport for a few years now and even still, every event provides an opportunity to gain experience and to learn new things. Sometimes, if you're as thick-headed as I am, you get to learn old things over again. Things like, "don't try anything new on race day", like adding a new gear bag that rubs against your leg with every pedal cycle until you can't stand it after 2km and have to pull off the side of the road to remove it. Things like, "don't carry the extra weight of multiple bottles of fluid when it's so cold you'll hardly drink more than one an hour". Also things like, "don't forget to lubricate the chafing spot between your wetsuit and your neck to avoid rubbing your neck to a bloody raw mass".

Now, on to the race report.

Swim: 41:34. 699th overall, 130th in AG.

Okay, I know. I'm not fast in the water. Even at my peak I would have to speed up considerably to be classified as "slow". This is what you get when your training basically ends in July. I knew 10 minutes in that the swim was going to be a chore on the day. Domino #1. The base just wasn't there. Being a BOP'er (I'm not even a middle-of-packer anymore) I actually don't mind the wave starts, but I do understand why my compadre Darren dislikes them so intensely - he has to spend his time and energy navigating around roadblocks like me. SIDE NOTE: if you haven't read his blog/race report, I'd recommend it. His props: dude finished 17th overall!! Won his age group.

T1 - 4:58 (no I did not have a bowl of soup!) Bike: 2:58:29, (188th overall, 48th AG)

Not a particularly impressive split. The stop to remove the gear bag didn't help. I had hoped that this would have turned out better, but this is a dang tough course. There were also a couple of stretches (on Hwy 35 and along the shore of Long Line Lake) where the wind really did pick up. And of course this is where domino #2 fell. Undertraining in the swim led to me being unable to really get my heart rate under control on the bike. I knew I was going to pay for it later, and I did. But at the end of the bike course I did see the first bright spot of the day:

Team Ironhead!

Okay, so my daughter's actually looking in the bush for squirrels or frogs or something, and my brother and his wife look very serious, but I don't blame them. They'd already been out there for over four hours in the rain with three kids, waiting for me to make an appearance. Little did they know how much longer they'd be out there....

T2 - 2:06. Run: 1:59:20. (408th overall, 79th AG).

Buoyed by the spotting of Team Ironhead, I whipped back out of T2, gave a high-five to the cheering section, and headed off down the road. I felt good, everything seemed to be clicking and I was really hoping to make up some ground on the run. I thought I had the base. If I hadn't been putting in the swimtime or enough bike mileage, at least I thought I had the run to fall back on.

Not today.

At about 7 km into the run, I saw Darren heading back in to the finish laps around the golf course, looking strong. Shortly after that domino #3 fell and the rest of the house came crashing down. Mere minutes later my back locked up. I started running from km marker to marker and stopping at each marker to massage, rub and otherwise try to warm up my back. Nothing really seemed to work. The lack of base on the swim sucked the energy out of the bike and the lowered energy level on the bike sapped the run. Shortly after this, the rain really started to come down. I have a whole new appreciation for those who gutted out Lake Placid this year, where the rain started at 7:00 a.m. and didn't let up all day/night long. The run at Muskoka (for me) turned into 14km of slogfest that was brightened up by Team Ironhead at one more point:

One hug to recharge at the 16km point and I was (briefly) back in business. The last 5k of the run winds through a golf course and passes by the finish line. The cruelest part of this is I spent the last 5k listening to other people being announced crossing the finish line as I kept winding up and down, left and right, forward and back through the golf course. Finally the finish line was upon me, in 5:46:22. One last eyebrow-raised comment: I crossed the finish line in 278th place. Nearly 1700 people registered, and 1300 showed up at the starting line. So, knowing that the forecast called for rain and cold temperatures all weekend long, how could the medical crew be out of those funky "space blankets" before 300 people had crossed the line? Just asking....

After all this grumbling, it was a very good day on a course that could be great. Weather can't be blamed on the organizers. But the 4-5km of tarry, gravelly non-pavement at about 70-75km on the bike made for a rather hair-raising section of the ride.

Will I come back to this race? Undoubtedly at some point in the future. I can't go to my grave being this slow, but maybe not next year. Next year is tentatively a "full monty" year - back up to the full distance. Mrs. Ironhead has given the okay. We just haven't decided where.

Last props go out, one more time to Team Ironhead! Not only were they out in the rain for nearly six hours, they had to wait nearly another hour near the car as I collected my sopping belongings from transition (there was so much water coming down and flowing through transition my shoes had actually floated away) and made my way back to the car. Are they the best or what?

Peace.