Guelph Lake race report - life lessons

Did you ever have a day when you felt like Ben Stiller? Not the dorky one in Meet the Fockers, or the mildly androgynous one in Zoolander. Thank the lord, definitely not the "franks and beans" Ben Stiller in There's something about Mary.

No, I mean the security guard in A Night at the Museum, the one referred to as "Dum-Dum". That more or less describes how my day went at Guelph Lake this weekend, but let's get on to the race report.

The day opened cold and raining. It wasn't very cold, and the rain was intermittent, but it was definitely enough to affect your thinking on the bike course. It was essential to slow down on the turns and the corners to stay vertical and keep the rubber on the road. I didn't have any big plans for the day. I wanted to pay specific attention to my transitions to try and get some free time back there.

Swim - 750m - 15:40 (2:06/100m)
The first clue here should be this - 14th in age group and 90th overall at that snail-like pace. The sprint was on Saturday - the "headliner", the Olympic distance was on Sunday. And I was out of the water in 14 minutes flat - still not fast but better than 15:40 - the difference is in running up the hill and all the way around the transition area to the timing mat at the back (?!) but a 1:19 in T1 is not bad at all, for me.

Bike - 20km - 33:52 (33.7 km/hr) 6th ag, 29th overall
Here's where the weather definitely slowed this race down. First of all Guelph Lake is a short course with a switchback out of the park and a bike course that is a three-sided square after that. With all the cornering in that weather the times really drop as taking a corner too fast can result in a nasty spill. I know - I saw one, and was very nearly involved in it. The guy in front of me slowed down (I thought appropriately) at the 10k turnaround and went horizontal. Now, you'd be thinking a scuffed leg and maybe a forearm, but it wasn't just that. He shredded his back all the way across both shoulders. I know this because he rode mad after that and we leap-frogged each other most of the way back to T2, until he dropped me when I made noob mistake #2 - shifting to the small chainring on an uphill. Drop goes the chain, costing me probably a minute of chain repair and ramp back up time. Didn't help at all that I had to restart on an uphill. 0:46 in T2, though. I will definitely take that.

Run - 21:12 (4:15/km) 5th in ag, 24th overall.
Again with most of the big guns holding out for the better weather on Sunday this wasn't bad. I got out on the run, felt good and proceeded to pick people off including Mr. Road Rash (#37 Andrew Appleton, whose hand I shook afterward for gutting it out). Here's where noob mistake #1, the key mistake of the day bit me in the butt. I got passed by exactly one guy on the run at about the 4k mark. I decided to let him go. After all, I had plenty of time to reel him in. I was feeling good and I had another 3.5km to go get him, only here's the thing. I didn't have another 3.5km. I had one more km. The run course was 5km. I had some thought that this was a 7.5km run, or at least that I had to hold something back. I do remember running this course one year where the run used to pass transition and the finishing chute going the other way, then loop around another little footpath down in the valley. That year I came up the hill going full guns, then saw the run kept on going. That year I blew up early, so deep down my memory didn't want to let me do that again. So when this guy went by, I let him go - he happened to be the guy who finished 5th in my age group, a scant 20 seconds ahead. Hence, dum-dum.

Final: 1:12:46, 6/44 ag, 24th overall - missed the podium by 20 seconds.

I had no vision of making a podium beforehand so no worries there. And the transition times look much better so at least that's progress. Due to the couple of noob mistakes, I probably left 60-90 seconds out on the course.

Here's the worrying part: there's this nagging little problem in my right calf. It started a couple weeks ago running hills in Neyagawa (I blame Tyler for this :) ). I thought it had quieted down, but it came back with a vengeance on the weekend, to the point where a flight of stairs was an adventure. It's better today, but I think I'm going to have to go get it checked out. Peterborough is two weeks away and I'm not looking to set any records, least of all a "personal worst".

PS. I still love this game. Even in the rain, cold and mud there's something about hanging around transition, or the finish line and watching the long-timers and first-timers come rolling in- soaked to the skin, covered in mud (or blood) but grinning from ear to ear and their cheering sections go nuts. Just something about that.

Peace.

Wouldn't you rather...

This weekend is/was the world famous Muskoka Chase. It's a long-course triathlon where the hook is that the pros race each other, women vs. men. The women get a head-start, based on the winning times from last year. If the women win, the head start gets shorter - if the men win, longer.

It's a short drive up the road from here and it's always also attended by an enormous number of "regular folk" age-groupers hoping for qualifying spots for an Ironman, this year Ironman Canada.

I've always wanted to do the Chase, also known as the long course - 2km swim, 55 km bike, 15 km run.

This weekend was way more fun. I got to pull out the old dishwasher and install a new one. Didn't flood the kitchen or anything.

Now tell me, who had more fun today? Huh? Huh?

Milton Tri

I love this game.

This race has always been the sign that the season is "open for business" for me.  The fact that this year is the first time I've managed to do it just speaks to my own organization level at this time of year.  Milton is always the trigger after which I say, "oh yeah, I better get to signing up for a few races".  This year I got there on time.

Chapter 1:  the weather

Holy crap, was it cold.  Race time temperature was 8 degrees Celsius (47 degrees F, for you southerners), and there was probably a 10-15 km/h wind blowing in off the lake.  One of the few races I've been to where it was warmer to get in the water rather than stand around on land waiting for the horn to go off.  I had a new wetsuit to try out this year and it got top marks - I may just have to buy it after all.  The real downside to the weather was the effect it had on my T1 time (2:42 - ugh!)  One of my goals going in was to focus on my transition, which have always been rather, um, leisurely.  That T1 time in better weather could have been half that - I had to stop to put on a second top layer and gloves. 

Chapter 2:  Bloodfoot the swim - (750m) -15:22 - 2:03/100m, 32 in ag, 195th overall.

Look, the swim is what it is.  I've been at about that pace (1:52 - 2:00/100m) for five years.  I haven't really put a lot of focus on it, so it hasn't changed.  I'll take it for what it is right now.  I will say that I've never had another swim where I've come out of the water with a bleeding toe.  I didn't step on glass or anything like that.  I must have stubbed my toe on a rock getting out and the cold just numbed my foot so much that I didn't feel it.  Really, I didn't feel it at all.  I saw it getting out of the water and felt it later as a squish in the shoe on the run.

Chapter 3:  Bike (bottle rockets the sequel) - 30km - 54:35, 33.0 km/h, 20th in ag, 90th overall

On this course, with the training I've put in, I was pretty pleased with that time.  I did make an effort to rein it in going up "the Monster" in order to keep something in the tank for the rest of the course and I think that paid off.  Of course the 15 km/h tailwind also helped on the second half of the bike.  Of course on a flat, bump-free section of the ride where I wasn't passing anyone or changing gears, I launched YET ANOTHER BOTTLE!!!  xlab is CRAPOLA!!!  I'm throwing that piece o' junk out the window - that's it, it's over the wedding's off.

T2 0:56 (much better, but could still use some work).

Chapter 4:  the Run - 32:22, 4:19/km pace (10th in ag, 68th overall)

The run course covers paths through the park (Kelso Glen) then up Appleby to Halton Falls where it winds through trees and over mountain bike paths - NO CARS!  What an awesome run course.  I didn't know where I was in the season so I held it in until about the 4k mark and then decided to crank it up.  A great course - definitely forces you to pay attention to where you're stepping.

Overall results

1:45:44 - 17/79 in a.g., 87th overall.

I must say I'll take it.  I didn't really have a solid goal going in but I thought 1:45 was realistic.  I gave all that away in transitions.

And even with the squishy bloodfoot, I've still got the happy feet.

Epilogue:  circle of (tri)life

It just so happens that one of my old university roommates pulled off his first tri in the try-a-tri at Milton this weekend.  I saw him go off and come back in on the swim and I cheered him on.

This is the guy who used to come downstairs in his ratty blue bathrobe, pour a bowl of cheerios and watch CNN coverage of Operation Desert Storm while the rest of us went to class, labs et al. (well actually, none of the rest of those dudes went to labs - I was the only one).  Twelve years later he ran a half-marathon for one of our friends who was suffering from (and later succumbed to) leukemia.  At the time I figured, "look if he can run a half-marathon, so can I!"  I decided to go him one step better and the next fall, I ran my first marathon, the 2004 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront.  I also broke my tri virginity that summer.  So, in a neat little circle of life turnaround the student (me) became the grizzled veteran teacher this weekend to my buddy Richard A., who has joined the tri circle of weirdos.  Welcome, Stash!

Post script:  to top off the whole weekend, my son went to his first ever rep baseball tryouts.  Although his batting was "average" (in part because his father the assistant coach was pitching to him) his defence and throwing arm, in the words of the other coaches were "outstanding".  He's made his first-ever rep team!

Peace.