This post is in three parts. The Swim (here) The Bike (here) and The Run (here).

We woke up at 4:10 and I ate a breakfast of 4 fried eggs, 4 pieces of bread, some olive oil on top to make things slimey, and a full tub of yogurt. I also had a few pieces of cheese as well as a banana and a kiwi fruit. I had been out of bed to pee three times during the night (overenthusiastic hydration strategy along with the great pork tenderloin for dinner the night before) and so I didn’t drink much the morning of besides a glass of milk. We were on the road close to 5am and arrived into Penticton with plenty of time. The special needs bags were deposited where they needed to be deposited and we stood in the line-up to get body-marked and did some people-watching. I then sauntered over to my bike, pumped up the tyres and added my two bottles of fluid and then sought out a toilet. There were about a thousand people in line (no joke!) and so I left the transition compound and found the toilets that were ready for the post-race crowds, and had no line whatsoever. I then found Mom through the fence, soon saw Dad through the fence and then headed in to put on the wetsuit and eat my pre-race banana (a four year tradition, it hasn’t failed me yet!). I watched over the fence as the pro start took to the water and then joined the crowd of people flowing out of the transition zone onto the beach. 2800 people. Wow.

It was only at that point that I found my brother, camera in hand, in the swim corral snapping shots left right and center while people put their caps on, zipped up eachothers wetsuits and talked about how much colder the lake was this morning than a few days ago prior to all the crazy wind that had been causing white-caps on the water by late afternoon each day since Thursday. I thought the water was plenty warm for swimming and wasn’t put off at all swimming with a sleeveless suit but I still skipped a swim-warmup opting instead for just shoulder circles with dry arms. Getting all wet and then standing around with wet arms and head and no wetsuit to keep the chill off would have been chilly. I made my way to the front and everyone was pretty happy to let me past them. I thought I might have to do some jockeying for position to get to the second row but because I was a bit left of center there wasn’t much to it. I just walked up, said hello to the people around me and promised the girl in front of me that I wouldn’t swim over her so long as she kicked hard and made a good draft. She just gave me a nervous smile, and it was at about that point that I realized that I was awfully calm considering the situation with a few dozen people poised to swim directly over me! Too late to get nervous now, I sang the national anthem at full blast along with a few thousand people and then the countdown was on. The horn went and I was off like a rocket. No hesitation like GWN that had cost me a couple people dashing by and congesting my start significantly. I was off and away swimming hard and finding very little in the way of shoulder bumping let alone the full on arm-wrestling that I’ve experienced before in much much smaller swim starts.

I settled after what I figured was about 200m and set out to start lining myself up for a draft rather than just relying on the general draft of the crowd ahead of me. I was sighting for a bit and then noted two things. 1) I am good at swimming in a straight line so I was never really thinking I needed to make a correction. 2) There was absolutely nothing I could do about altering my direction without getting hammered by people swimming over me even if we were going off course. I stopped sighting regularly at this point and just swam, telling myself to keep the gas on, but don’t go hard. I could tell when we were nearing another buoy each time as the crowd would squeeze slightly as the people way off to the left aimed in a bit more people on the right aimed in a bit more, it got tight each time but never too tight that anything got interrupted, just enough to thicken the crowd up and make the draft stronger and easier to follow. Wahoo, this swim was going so well! I decided to take a peek and looked up at one point, we were already surprisingly a mile into the swim as the first houseboat was right there. I was preparing for a little wrestling match to get around the corner but it never came and never came and never came. Then I saw a scuba diver under me and thought to myself “I’m likely never going to be back here” so I took the opportunity to coast for a second and wave at him. He waved back and I could feel a big smile spread across my face. I’d read about waving to the scuba dudes under the houseboats out here in the lake even before I’d done my first triathlon. That was a long long time ago, it seemed, and today it was finally happening. It was a bit of an emotional experience. I was already a mile into this thing before I fully contemplated how big of a dream coming true this really was. This is a big deal, it’s been a really long time in the making, and I was so happy to be out there.

Then, bam! I got hit in the head. Then again in the ribs, then again on the head, someone grabbed my leg and pulled it down, someone else swam sideways across my back, I have no idea where they were going. Okay, that wrestling match was starting. Everyone had gone into the corner nice and wide, the people on the far side all knew they were only going to wind up in a brawl if they took the corner tight so they didn’t swim straight at the boat. Unfortunately they didn’t swim far enough past the boat to keep the corner wide. We’d just merged probably 20 lanes of traffic into 12 lanes of traffic. I just tried to pull hard at the water, keep breathing and keep swimming and soon enough it was over. Off to the second houseboat we go! There was now no mountain to sight off in the background and those 12 lanes of traffic dispersed awfully quickly and I was swimming in clear water but right on track to maintain the straight line. I knew it was only 400m to the next turn and figured I’d just swim rather than go look for a draft. I knew where I was going and so I just went. Soon enough I found someone else again and hopped aboard their feet for a tow. Seeing the houseboat I got prepared for another melee but this was quick and off we were going back to shore, no punches at all.

Then I saw a huge person. I’m not kidding, she was enormous but hey, she was swimming faster than me so far because she was still ahead of me at this point. I hopped into the draft and it was like swimming into vacuum cleaner. I went from “keep the gas on” to just coasting along. I don’t know how long it lasted nor do I know how I lost her draft but eventually I realized I was having to work harder to keep up, then I realized I wasn’t behind the whale wearing the blue helix wetsuit. Oh well. Then I met a friend with white and orange goggles. I don’t know his number or his name, nor did I talk with him before, during, or after, the swim, but I still felt like he was a friend. He was nice and we swam side by side for a long long time, we had the same rhythm and were going the same speed and drafting off of two people ahead of us swimming side by side. I was behind a guy with something written in green on the calf of his wetsuit and he was behind someone who had the whitest feet I’d ever seen in my life. I swam right there with those three people all the way back to the beach. My friend with white and orange goggles never once bumped or interrupted me but we swam shoulder to shoulder all the way back to the beach together. When I started to touch the bottom I stood up and heard Dad shouting my name. I waved in his direction as I stood up and stepped gingerly over the rocks on the sand-bar and then dove back in once we got back to deeper water. I swam past a bunch of people wading chest deep in the finish chute and got up into the finish chute. I got my wetsuit undone on the first try which always makes me feel really lucky and then off up the beach. I saw 1:05 on the clock and was completely ecstatic with my swim performance. I’ve got time in the bag, already ahead of schedule, and I hadn’t had to work hard at all to earn it.

I had hoped to swim 68 minutes way back last year when I first contemplated how much improvement I could hope to expect to make on my swimming in one year. It was an ambitious goal, and even on race morning I was prepared to not be able to swim 68 minutes. I had budgeted 10 minutes of “contingency” time into my race goal to take care of things like a flat tire or a need to stop for a washroom break or things that aren’t really “racing time”, and I was prepared to use some contingency time to make up for a swim that wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. I was mentally prepared to be a bit disappointed, so when I found out that I’d scored three minutes of “extra time” I was super happy. Percentage wise that’s the same as “accidentally” biking a full 15 minutes faster than anticipated or running 10 minutes faster, really it’s amazing. So despite the fact that “compared to the average” I was less good at the swim than I was at the other two legs I’m totally proud of the effort.

I pointed at the tallest, burliest guy stripping wetsuits in the whole crowd of bodies and arms and wet grass and legs and neoprene there and got his attention as I ran through, hopped on my bum and he peeled it off in a flash and I was off. I ran directly to my swim bag, never hesitated, and was into the tent super quickly. I dumped my stuff on the ground and had my race belt on and was clipping up my helmet when a volunteer grabbed my wetsuit, I said thanks and was off jogging with my shoes in hand before I had even really realized what had happened. There were probably two hundred guys in that tent and just as I was leaving someone came in and cheered, then the whole place erupted in response. What an experience! I got sunscreen slathered on my arms in two seconds flat by a cute girl in a bikini and was off to find my bike. I opted not to run through here as at GWN I had hopped aboard my bike with what would become my maximum heart rate for that entire day. I didn’t want to spike my heart-rate so kept it to a jog. I got to the bike and wobbled a bit to get the shoes on. Whoa, steady… and then un-racked and hopped aboard. Let’s go for a bike ride!

This post is in three parts. The Swim (here) The Bike (here) and The Run (here).

Aboard the bike, I was initially floored by how many people were along the fence, and how loud it was, They must have been three people deep along the fence for the first 500 meters and one deep for the rest of the first kilometer. I gave the crowd a wave, turned the first corner and then started to reign in the focus. I’ve got to start paying close attention to my effort level and establish an appropriate effort right off the start. My heart rate was high but it was coming down steadily and actually quite quickly. I just rode along easy to the top of the hill in town and then rolled along really really easy down the gradual hill towards Skaha Lake, my heart rate fell right back into the zone around 140 beats per minute where I wanted it and then I started sucking back the Gatorade. Nine minutes into the ride I’m already at the south beach, I’ve averaged 39 kph so far and have a half bottle of Gatorade in me. Things are going well, I’m not using any effort yet and I’m moving along quickly.

(Note that all I had on my computer was time, distance and current heart rate – the other stats are observations from afterward – I didn’t want to over-stimulate my brain by feeding it statistics while riding as this has proved to get me in a poor mental state rather than a good one on most occasions I’ve ridden with too much information)

I hit the turnoff to McLean Creek road having averaged 40.5 kph on the cruise along Skaha and finished my first bottle of rocket-fuel. I had negotiated my way through a couple packs of riders forming but otherwise had just been sitting on the bike and letting my legs spin gently. I hadn’t expended an ounce of effort yet. I hit the turn to the climb and told myself to put some wood on the fire, make sure you don’t waste time getting up here. Then whoosh, across the top of the hill before I knew it, I ate my first clif bar and whoosh again as I descended into OK Falls. I had been concerned about congestion on the twisty descent and having to pass people who would be riding their brakes down the hill, fortunately for me I’d swum like an absolute fish today and had 300 less people ahead of me than anticipated. No traffic jam on the descent, but enough people that I couldn’t pedal down, just coast with the flow. Around the corner in town and off towards the south. I wanted to keep going quick but not use any energy here and I was pretty successful. Some guys around me had started to pace off one another and were sticking to their guns riding at the legal distance and swapping turns setting the pace. I thought to myself that this was going to cause a peloton to form if they kept it up and any more people joined their crew but we started a gentle descent and I left them behind. Before Oliver I already had to pee and watered the ditch grass at about 38kph. Just as I was re-adjusting my shorts I heard a “chi-chi-chi-chi-chi” and thought I had a flat, and was hearing the air escape as the wheel spun around. I kept rolling along and mentally ran through the action plan for a fast tyre change. Then when I looked down to see if it was a front or a rear I suddenly didn’t have a flat, maybe it stopped? maybe something happened? maybe it was a miracle? I had no idea what was going on and just got back to racing. Only later would I realize that it was a sprinkler in the orchard with the flipper-head kind of top spraying water in an arc across the apple trees, “chi-chi-chi-chi-chi”!

Leaving Oliver I was eating my second clif bar… yes I’m not kidding, the ride has been going on for an hour and 5 minutes and I’m eating my second clif bar, I’ve drank an entire bottle of gatorade and chowed down four banana halves. My average speed thus far is still over 39kph, although I’m probably going a bit slower at the time as I’m putting the wrapper of the bar into the leg of my shorts. Then I get passed by the dudes who I’d seen starting to co-operate 20 minutes ago. There are now about a dozen of them and they’re riding three wide down the road. Whoa, I don’t want a penalty and let the whole mass of them go past me and drop back from their pack. Then I’m sitting off the back doing about 120 beats per minute heart rate… far too easy, what to do? I figure I can ride faster than the group when I’m not horsing around and eating, we’ve got quite a ways to go until the first pass which should split this up a bit. I wait for a slight downhill which stretches the peloton out long and thin (just like road-racing) and I make a pass up yellow line and put in an “attack” and go off the front of the group with enough speed that they’re not just going to start drafting me (just like road racing). Inevitably though the breakaway is brought back (just like road racing) and I start to let people by and back up the requisite 4 bike lengths from each one. I eventually realize I’m going to have to back myself up to a complete stop if I keep letting people by. I resign myself to staying behind the peloton until Richter’s pass starts where the long hill will break up the pack (just like road racing) and sit in a quasi-legal position behind the peloton. I’m probably within 4 bike lengths of the dude in front of me some of the time, especially when the peloton goes up a slight hill and bunches up a bit (just like road raciing). I don’t know what the solution to the situation is, I can’t break up the pack on my own and so I figure that I should do the next best thing and try to not make it grow. Sitting far enough off the back that I’m in the tail where we’re again riding single-file as opposed to the front trouble-causing part that is three or four guys wide I’m not contributing to this thing, but there’s no way I’m going to drift off the back, nor is anyone else. Such is life, the portion of the ride with the peloton we’re doing somewhere near 37 kph, a far cry from the 40kph I was doing with the gentle tailwind up until this point, but I remind myself that I’m supposed to be reminding myself to stay patient on the bike…

I think a bit about the difference between patience and waiting… Patience is accepting things without getting irritated, waiting is just a state of being. I’m waiting for Richter to drop these wheel-suckers like the leaches that they are. At the same time, I’m playing the patience game entirely inside my head. It’s alright I tell myself, I’m going quick and I can treat this like it is effort in the bank. If I go to the front and try to get away they’ll chase, they’ll inevitably catch me, and I’ll get more worked up. Patience patience patience.

Finally we come around the corner to Richter’s, I down a tube of shot bloks (200 calories of sugar) for my body to process on the climb while I’m letting it work on solid food like clif bars on the easier parts of the ride. I find a rhythm on the climb and strike a good balance between standing and seated and riding aero on the parts that aren’t so steep. It goes well and I’m very quickly at the top. The climb takes me less than 28 minutes which is faster than the 30 I anticipate. Nicely done I tell myself, I can tell I’ve broken a sweat when I get to the top. Partly because the temperature is finally coming up and partly because I’ve done a good long climb. I crest the top and say to the dude who is next to me “this will be fun” and he says, “go ahead” and proceeds to draft me down the hill. What a dude, no shame at all. (He rode 5:27:13 in case you want to know) I mostly rest on the descent but make sure I’m turning over my 53×11 gently aiming to keep the momentum up. I drop the wheelsucker on the first big roller and don’t see him again. I pace the rollers very well, averaging 33 kph through this stretch into a mounting headwind. By the time I make it to the flats by Cawston I’m really realizing that I’m starting to run out of people to pass. The people ahead of me are no longer going slow, and there’s a long way from one person to the next. My brain tells me that I’m slowing down because I’ve been getting accustomed to whipping past people like they’re standing still. I take stock of the situation, narrow my focus again and focus on getting to the turn onto the out-and-back, I feel like I’m crawling along but still doing 32kph on average, not bad for such a stiff breeze. I have some people riding near me into the headwind and once I hit the out and back and the wind goes behind me I aim to maintain effort and fly off down the road, or so it feels now, I take the U-turn and head back in to the headwind. It feels good and I’m in far sparser territory now than I was previously.

The out and back goes by in a flash, I water the ditch-grass again before the long gradual ascent to Yellow Lake begins. I reel in more people. My Heart rate monitor starts going on the fritz. I don’t really care any more. I am prepared for this and I’m aiming to race according to effort level now, just to maintain what’s already been established rather than worry if it’s ideal every minute of the way. I feel like I’ve established an appropriate effort. Climb Climb Climb. Surprisingly I’m reeling in and passing people faster on the ascent than on the flats. They’re fading, the headwind is getting inside their head, their focus is wavering. I don’t even feel like I’ve been riding that long. My bum is just fine sitting on the seat unlike the guy I see shifting himself around obviously in serious pain, I’m well nourished, I am in the aerobars when it counts to be in the aerobars, there are others sitting up into the headwind, some are stretching their backs mine feels just fine. I’m staying cool enough. I feel great, I’m going to have a great run. Despite feeling great and working hard and passing comparatively a lot of people my average speed is just 28.5kph into this headwind on the gradual ascent, ouch.

The climb gets steep now and it’s getting colder, I get a great sendoff up the steep climb from a tunnel of fans at the Green Mountain Road junction. Then I’m alone. I can’t see anyone ahead and there are basically no cars. Just me and the mountain, I dump my water and keep my gatorade. I climb well. There start to be people around. No-one has been through in a couple minutes and no-one lies behind within sight. I’m alone on this part of the climb but the people are all cheering. Just for me, it’s pretty crazy. I’m nothing special and by now I know I’m fading off pace to get in under 5:10 for my bike split, this is hardly worth cheering for. I catch myself getting negative and flip a switch, time to start thinking that I’ve prepared well to run a good marathon as I climb. Then one guy yells “You’re doing it, I’m not doing it, you’re doing it”. I smile a bit, it’s true. There’s something to be said for just doing it too, but when I consider the fact that I’ve ridden a sub-5-hour century without trying I am indeed convinced that the marathon is going to be good. I want to start running right now! The rain is coming down pretty hard now, it’s no longer just raining. Anyone would say that it’s now raining hard, pissing it down. I chow down my last food at the summit and grab a bunch of gatorade to make myself as heavy as I can be for the descent. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to drink any as I’m peeing like crazy on this ride. Off I go across the top. I catch two guys on the flat stretch before the descent. Then we go down the hill. It’s not just raining hard anymore it’s pouring and I’m getting drenched. Raining cats and dogs. The water is flowing noticeably on the surface of the pavement. That’s a recipe for hydroplaning. I go as fast as I feel is comfortable. That’s a heck of a lot faster than one of the guys near me but slightly slower than another. It’s not congested on the road at all and I have a full lane to myself so I’m not scared but I am smart enough not to be stupid and I do use my brakes. I hate using my brakes. I still do 60kph for a long ways, but I know I should be doing 75-80kph. I start to shiver a bit and I’ve got chicken skin all over my arms and legs. Then I start to shiver a lot, not enough that I’m worried about controlling my bike but enough that I’m worried I might need to start worrying about controlling my bike.

I hit the corner onto the main highway and Dad said he’d be there. I see Mom first, decked out in her yellow rain jacket waving her arms like she’s trying to get the attention of a rescue helicopter flying overhead to pluck her off a rooftop in the flood. She gets my attention. I am shivering too much to make much of an acknowledgment. Then I see Dad and my brother. They’re trying to a photo. It’s going to be a great photo I think to myself, this is outrageous. I put on a tough guy face instead of the blue lips and shell shocked eyes. Hopefully he got it I think as I scream off down the hill. I’m pedaling again but not really trying to ride hard. I’m going fast so I don’t think it matters much. Get your shit together I tell myself and as the temperature rises I recollect myself. I re-consider the fact that the bike conditions were tough, pretty stiff headwind on the way back, I’m not going to make inside my goal time on the bike, I’m using up a bit of that contingency time I had allocated. That’s OK, I know I can’t get a flat tyre anymore. I don’t need so much contingency time because I’m ready to run a good marathon I tell myself, I’m not just telling myself at this point, I know it. I’m at peace with things as I roll into town. I see the lead female heading out of town on the run and she gets a huge cheer from me as I whip by on my bike. I ride the last 2kms with my feet out of my shoes. It feels good.

Into T2 I hop off my bike but I can’t pull the Garmin off the handlebar because my fingers are partway between stiff and numb. I didn’t really realize they were so cold. It takes a bit but the volunteer pulls my Garmin off the bike. Off I go. Get my bag handed to me. I head into the change tent and dump it on the ground and start picking things up. Hat, then socks, socks are tough with sausage fingers. The volunteer unwraps my bottle of coke with extra salt that I have wrapped in tin-foil to help keep frozen. I get the arm-coolers on, slap on the shoes, and I’m on my way, holding a slush-bottle of coke in already pretty cold hands. I hit the run course after a slightly slower than anticipated T2. 10 hours is still on the table. I’ve got to run a 3 hour 35 minute and 25 second marathon.

The Garmin file is here: http://connect.garmin.com/player/47045795 but as you can see the heart rate monitor was going berserk on occasion after 3 hours.

This post is in three parts. The Swim (here) The Bike (here) and The Run (here).

Out of T2 I felt fantastic. Having mostly jogged transition I was ready to hit full stride the instant I was on the pavement and immediately dialed in all my attention to the pace I was planning to run, I narrowed my focus and started dealing with the splits one by one. My garmin was going to take a split each 500m for me. 5:00/km is the goal, 4:50 is too fast 5:10 is too slow. All the stuff in between is probably alright, because worrying about 5 seconds here and there will make me go crazy. It took a bit to start getting them right but by the time I’d hit the first mile I was on track. I was carrying a bottle with two cans of cola in it with extra electrolytes added. It was still partly frozen slush as I drank and had 90% gone by the first aid station so I dropped it there rather than carrying an empty bottle for another mile and took a stop at the toilet to empty my bladder. That bottle drank and my stomach feeling perfect, my energy levels up and my body temperature back within normal ranges all had settled me down, I ran, I breathed and I let my heart beat. That’s about it. I didn’t think, I just rode on auto-pilot, 500 meters at a time.

By three kilometers in I had shaken off the early run nerves. I was hitting splits on target. I would continue to get every split correct, or be able to get back on track for the next split all the way through until 10 miles where the hills begin. I was repeating the same pattern each aid station. Check if it’s a multiple of three, if it is, eat a gel drink some water, if it’s not, drink some coke and gatorade. By mile 3 I was adding ice to my top. I’d stash it there and finish with the eating or drinking and then while I ran I’d redistribute the ice that was stashed at my chest into my arm-coolers either in the crook of my elbows where the veins are at the surface or on my wrists where the veins are on the surface. I was staying cool, calm and focused, predominantly on not running too hard. I hadn’t worked hard yet. It was 3pm in the afternoon.

I caught one of the pro men who was trundling along at about this point. He’d had a 15 minute head start on me but I caught him just as Matt Lieto was going the other way. I gave Matt a big cheer but he wasn’t doing so good apparently surviving instead of stalking the guys ahead of him. Too bad, I was rooting for the guy. In any case it prompted myself and Lewis to start chatting. He was having a rough day and I trucked along up the first hill (and really the only one of significant consequence when heading south) with him and then dropped him on the descent when I let my legs run down the far side. I trucked along towards the turn-around some splits faster and some slower but all were ok I thought, I trusted the average was 5:00/km instead of trying to calculate anything, don’t think, just run.

I made the turn and grabbed my special needs bag, I had another bottle of salted coke in there but I didn’t take it, just took a fruit leather and a mini ziploc with gummy coke bottles and left all the other stuff there on the ground. I gave Dad a hug, and then started running again. I didn’t see Mom, she would have got a hug too, but apparently I waved at her when I thought I was just waving to the crowd. Oops. I saw my brother with his camera out, did some eating and got back to focused running again up the hills back towards home. Some of the splits here in the middle weren’t so stellar but they were not a disaster either. I reached the big climb that I’d gapped Lewis on at that point and hunkered down thinking to myself “don’t let you HR come up too much” and I didn’t but threw away some more time taking it easy on the ascent and relatively easy on the descent instead of letting my legs run full tilt down the back. Down the steepest hill and into the toilet at the next aid station, I thought I had to go or at least I felt like I had to go while running, apparently not, the body does weird stuff. Soon back on the road I skipped taking any calories at the next stop, just water and some ice in the arms. The gut feeling was gone quite quickly as I ran through the next stretch but I had discovered some cramping in my quads, rector femoris, probably brought on by the hills, the stopping, the sitting, the standing, the starting, they weren’t too bad initially but my function deteriorated slowly and my running form got a bit modified. I got a quick cramp in my left hamstring at one point and hop skipped to a stop, I leaned forward and stretched it out and got back running in a couple seconds. Not bad, just keep moving. I had crossed the 10 miles to go point with 1 hour 21 minutes left on the clock to stay inside 10 hours. I had now all but run out of that contingency time even though I didn’t think I had been using it. I had a minute to spare on top of the 5 minute pace and that was it. I had made it to within 10 miles of the finish before I started to contemplate what remained in the task ahead. Not bad at all. I knew that salt was likely not going to do nothing for my legs but it wasn’t going to do anything bad. I pulled out my little stash of salt pills and ate a dozen of them all in one shot. I swallowed them dry, who needs water to swallow a handful of pills? I’m going to be an Ironman by the end of the day. I narrowed my focus again and got back to trying at knocking off those 5 minute kilometers.

Now it wasn’t a matter of effort. I couldn’t expend any effort without my muscles failing me so I trotted along just as fast as I could go never really being able to push or try hard at all. I had visualized and imagined so many times getting to some point in the run where I was tired and I just needed to dig deep and bury myself on the run in to the finish. Now I couldn’t, I couldn’t try as hard as I wanted to try. I was fit enough, I was fueled enough, I was mentally strong enough but my muscles were just not strong enough to run any faster than I was going. I wasn’t really slowing down initially from the pace I had been running prior to the onset of the cramps but eventually I did, going up the gradual hill back into town put the reigns on me and I slowed enough that I would now find myself for the first time having to run faster than 5:00/km to get under that 10 hour barrier. Reaching the top of the hill with about 4 kms to go I could see down to the lake, a 2km long gradual descent and then a flat 2kms along Lakeshore before the finish. My ‘fastest capable pace’ quickened a bit but I was still just running easy. I felt like I wanted to start sprinting but my legs would have none of it. At 40kms I checked my watch for the first time to check the actual time of the day while on the run. I had about 11 minutes to run 2.2 kms. I still felt it was possible and gave it my best shot. I was within earshot of the finish when Steve King was getting the crowd to start cheering in people to nip under 10 hours. Today it wasn’t going to happen and I knew it. I let off the gas with a couple hundred meters to go. Spotted a high five in the finish chute, stopped and walked along the blue carpet for a moment, my first steps walking on the entire marathon, and soaked it up there were so many people cheering it was on the border of overwhelming so I stopped and turned and gave a big wave and finally I made my way over and broke the tape and made my way across the line.

The Garmin file is here: http://connect.garmin.com/player/47041360 my heart rate monitor was doing stupid stuff for the first hour and a half and then settled in. I had quit watching it after the first 100 meters so never noticed what it was saying when it started to report correct information in the second half. Not that it really mattered anyway.

The race report is coming – but don’t hold your breath.

Thanks to Reuben Krabbe for shooting this photo in pouring rain and what my Edge500 recorded as 12^oC. Official results are here… detailed splits to follow sometime later this week:

I’m racer #184 on August 29, 2010. To check up on my race splits as they occur you can input my racer number into the appropriate spot at:

At ironmanlive you’ll have to scroll down a bit and look for the link to “Subaru Ironman Canada” coverage because there are two races happening on the 29th, the other over in Louisville Kentucky, and then follow the link for “Athlete Tracking Tool”. Some other people that you might be interested in checking up on during the race are Stefan Schreiber, racer #298 (Friend and training buddy from the UofA Tri Club), and Sister Madonna Buder #3026 (who is trying to be the first 80 year old woman to complete an Ironman). You might also find it interesting to check out the pro races as they unfold. My picks are:

Pro Women:

1. Tereza Macel – Last year’s champ went on to fourth in Hawaii last fall. She was on the podium in Roth this summer and she slaughtered the competition at the hardest irondistance race in the world last weekend at Embrunman… but her coach is Brent Sutton and his athletes seem to be prepared to race well back to back… so let’s see if she can defend!
2. Heather Wurtele – Won at St. George this spring and is really making big improvements this season. Second place to Mirinda Carfrae at Calgary 70.3 a couple weeks ago. She’ll also likely be treating this as a “home” race which I think should be an advantage.
3. Tara Norton – She did “Epic Camp – Length of NZ” this winter. Enough said.

• I’m also expecting a good performance from Janelle Morrison last year’s AG champion at this race, and a sub 9:45 PR by training buddy Annett Kamenz which could put her in the top 5.

Pro Men:

1. Doe-Boy (Kieran Doe) – Won here in 2007 and hasn’t been back to defend, he had a smoking fast race at Calgary 70.3 4 weeks ago.
2. Petr Vabrousek – this is only his third IM this year as opposed to 2009 when he raced 8 times. Less racing seems to be paying off and he was second at Lake Placid last month.
3. Viktor Zyemtsev is here too, the dude has only ever run sub 2:50 marathons in Ironman… and will be clearly trying do do that for the tenth time in his career on Sunday (not counting a 3:29 explosion in Hawaii one year), look for him to come from behind a pick off a lot of people on the run. I don’t think he’ll make it all the way to the front though.

• Tom Evans – the 2004 champ… has got the local support behind him and will be pulling out all the stops in front of the hometown crowd. It would be sweet to see him on the podium but I’m not sure it’s really all that possible considering how stacked this field is.
• Matt Lieto is the guy I’m really rooting for but he’s spent so much of the season sick that I just don’t expect him to do so well.
• Stefan Vuckovic is also likely to race well (he was the silver medal dude when Simon Whitfield stood atop the podium in Sydney), although his fastest days are behind him he could be in the mix if conditions are tough.
• Scott Curry, while I wouldn’t consider him able to win, has had a great season this year and will probably be the fastest Albertan.

Race Day: I’ve also given access to my twitter account to my brother who will be tweeting my progress throughout the day whenever he can get a bit of internet access on the ipod. Who knows how often that will be, but I’ve included my twitter feed here for reference. If there’s anything new it will be there.

Last but not least if you’re wondering what the race is like, you can get a pretty good idea by having a look at the maps of the course. Swim, Bike, & Run. Stefan and I are staying at a hotel at Christie Beach in OK Falls, that’s at the run turnaround.

Today’s post in three acts. There was also a prequel to this blog entry available here, which has all the graphy goodness so you don’t want to miss it.

Act 1 – A Story

Bring a steak knife to the carbo-dinner for Great White North 2011! The steak was great, but the flimsy knife given to cut it was not.

Simmon and I rolled out of Edmonton shortly before six with a mostly blue sky greeting us as we headed west towards the lake. Between the time we arrived and pumped up my tyres (running new tires on both front and back now… conti-podium on front conti-sprinter on rear) the cloud cover came in and by the time the race started it was a grey day. The weather was fantastically forgiving, not punishing you for making small errors in early pace judgement and inadequate fueling/drinking in the same way that blast furnace heat would.

Prior to the start I did my best to stay away from the large crowds of stressed out triathletes and was able to stay calm while 750 other people managed to seem to do everything but. No real start line was drawn but the waters edge was what I believed to be implied. With the 10 second warning there were people up to knee deep in the lake and arranged myself into what was a third row kind of position. The start was quick but not crazy and a general desire to not get punched in the face seemed to prevail amongst the melee of arms and legs so despite looking like an absolute washing machine every time I lifted my eyes to sight there was minimal actually hitting and kicking going on. The 400 meters to the first turn went by quickly with mostly 2 stroke breathing and the occasional 3 stroke to change sides with hopes of avoiding breathing in big splashes of water. Then we hit the brakes… and we hit the brakes HARD. 750 people all needed to make the turn at the first buoy and to do so people were slowing so quickly that I slid right up someone’s back as I was trying to glide coast into the traffic jam. Then zoom, sprinting out of the corner to clear the bunch. The drafting opportunities were fantastic and I took advantage of many of them as we progressed in to the beach and I was back to bilateral breathing for the rest of the way. The approaching shallows of the lake-shore were tasted before they were seen or felt. All the muck (muck is just a nice way of saying goose poo I’m sure) was churned up and I had a good laugh as I stood up and jogged around the buoy for lap 2. I hoped to swim the same perceived pace as the previous lap but this was easier said than done. Getting through a thick pack of swimmers is no easy thing, especially when there’s the occasional person swimming perpendicular to the generally perceived direction of flow. I had a good laugh inside on more than one occasion and placed myself in some very excellent drafts… but the effort level on lap 2 was lower than I would have liked, there wasn’t much I could do. I can’t really complain about the clowns swimming zig-zag all the way along the course, if I was a faster swimmer I wouldn’t have to deal with it… and that’s no-ones fault but my own.

T2 was pretty quick, I heard Steve King announce my name as I headed out of the lake and also heard him mention Travis Anderson at about the same time so I hoped to see him on the bike and wish him a good race. Tough luck, Travis’ transition was slower than mine and I wouldn’t see him until well into the run. I gave Glenn a big high five and he stripped my wetsuit like a real champion, one swoop and it was off, and then so was I. Helmet, shoes, number. Go! No fancy ITU mount for me today, the bike course started on an uphill with no room to coast so I put my shoes on at the bike rack and the executed a mount that any cyclocrosser could have been proud of. I think I probably passed 30 athletes in transition and another 5 at the mount line while I flew through the air before landing on my seat. Good thing too as I had been the 99th swimmer out of the water and I wanted as little traffic ahead of me as possible.

When I saw my HR for the first time on the bike it registered at 175bpm… which was only 2 bpm shy of the maximum it would see for the day which occurred somewhere in the process of my heroically fast transition and mount. I took it almost silly-easy as we rolled down the long gradual hill away from the lake towards town with a tailwind, I followed another dude at a legal distance as he did the job of shouting at everyone else that he was passing them on their left and I could just follow suit. This was nice and it saved me adrenaline, stress and lots of breaths. Once we turned south my HR had recovered back to a level were I felt like I should be allowed to start turning the pedals with any effort I passed the shouter as he had served my purpose and drove off. My HR was too high through town, 160bpm or thereabouts, and kept it easy as I waited for it to come down. Was it taking this long to recover from a hard swim? Was it just taking time to redistribute the blood through my body to the big movers in my legs? No stress, just keep riding easy, I unintentionally jettisoned a bottle of gatorade as we crossed the railway. I was evidently not the only person to loose stuff there as there were bottles aplenty lying in the curb. I didn’t really care about getting those calories or picking up other drink on the course as there were so many aid stations. Off I rolled.

By the time I passed Mike Downey (the fastest UofA Tri-club swimmer of the day @ 28:58 – huge props!) my HR had settled down to 155 with me starting to pedal with any effort. I wished him luck as I was now able to start riding a steady pace. I continued on at the steady pace adding in periods of moderate effort when we went up slight inclines through first a long crosswind and then a headwind section. I rolled through 40kms at 60:48 ride time and calculated myself to have an average speed of ~39.5kph. This was pretty slow but considering I’d basically coasted down the hill away from the lake and hadn’t done any work yet I wasn’t worried. It would pick up as I had now started to get into a groove and could ride as I felt I wanted to and had planned to. I soon saw Dave sporting his compression socks and saw he was riding with Kelly and Annette, whom I presumed to be the leading females. I chatted with Annette and then set off. I calculated Dave’s average speed through 40kms to have been between 38 and 38.5 kph presuming he swam 2 minutes faster than me, I figured he was having a good day and was happy for him as I started to enter lonely territory in the race. There was no-one around, more motorbikes than cyclists! I suppose that the marshals want to make sure that the leaders aren’t cheating, but the real issues are back in the packs, which would inevitably be forming without enforcement from officials. When I caught the next cyclist I realized why, it was the lead female, Kristina, to whom I relayed the info that Annette and Kelly appeared to be riding with eachother quite a ways back.

I eventually caught another mini-group of three cyclists just at the top of the hill near Genesee and was getting water and a banana as the leaders started to go the other way and I missed seeing who was who. I wasn’t planning on trying to take a split at the turnaround but I was interested to know which place Stefan was in, and where sat overall. I made the turn and rolled off back down the hill through the valley. Big gears, huge speed, then suddenly not enough gears and just coasting. I was focused on getting another banana eaten in the aero position on the descent, so I didn’t get to see where all my friends were ranked in the field. I noticed a couple as they whipped by my peripheral vision. I climbed the second time out of the river valley very reserved even though the plan had been to start picking up the effort here to moderate or even somewhat hard on the return. I was rolling well off the top of the hill with the sidewind and was going quick, I could feel the sidewind harder than it was before and was getting excited to drill it with the tailwind as soon as we turned right. Schooler passed me as I slowed for a bottle of water in the aid station, but I took some energy from the big crowd at the only reasonably spectator vantage point on the bike course and got up and put in a minute of hard effort to catch back up to Schooler (he was racing for a team so he was irrelevant but I was interested to see what kind of pace he would ride). I rolled along near him for a while and then took over in front when my steady effort was bringing me near to the end of his draft zone, eventually he would re-assume the pace setting. But when he slowed again and I went by I realized why he was no longer maintaining his speed. He couldn’t ride the aerobars anymore! I joked that if you want to race like a triathlete you’ve got to train like a triathlete. He smiled and complained about not being able to sit down anymore. When I went around the corner back into the sidewind I thought I could hear his carbon wheels behind me, perhaps though it was just the deafening sound of my disc going around the corner at 35kph. Off I shot into the sidewind. I waited until there were some trees along the road to lessen the sidewind so I could relieve myself into the ditch while coasting without getting blown over. I then set a new PR, for the fastest speed grass watering job I’d ever done. 40kph. By the end of the bike I’d consumed 1200 calories, although the number is a bit vague because I have to estimate how much HEED I took from the aid station to drink instead of the planned gatorade which got dropped. All in all this was a good amount and I was happy and confident with how it felt (well, the fact that it didn’t feel like anything!)

I coasted into T2 quite happy with my ride knowing that I’d kept it conserved enough to run fast but had still put down a satisfactorily quick ride, I waved to the crowd which gave me a great cheer and hopped off my bike. I had my bike racked and my socks and shoes put on quite efficiently and then was off.

Almost immediately I could tell that the muscles in my lower legs were tight. The most concerning spot was just on the outside of my right shin, Extensor Digitorum Longus, and it wasn’t happy. (Thanks to this great resource for the muscle ID and treatment suggestions: Athletes Treating Athletes) It wasn’t classic shin splits but it wasn’t nice. My goal was to try to just run at a 1:30 half marathon pace until 8kms and if my HR was low then it was just effort in the bank that I could spend on the second chunk of the run. I could see Cal Zaryski ahead and knew that he would be running closer to a 1:22-1:25 pace, so I told myself if he wasn’t putting time into me then I was going too fast. This likely sounds like a counterproductive racing strategy, but my goal is to make it to the finish line as fast as I possibly can, not to compete and so this wasn’t a hard pill to swallow at all. I was largely concentrating on trying to be able to run at all with the frustration of my lower legs and didn’t control my pace as well as I could have or should have. It took until about 4kms at which point I had finally got my pace dialed back. It was partly the fact that my HR had come up that helped slow me back down to goal pace, this is something that continues to need practice, not necessarily in general, but specifically in brick workouts: running patiently slowly with a low HR.

Pace/HR Chart

From 4kms through to 8kms I felt fine. I was increasingly frustrated as I passed through successive aid stations that did not have any gels on hand for me. This was frustrating and I tried to figure out how I was going to make up for the calories I’d planned to down from the gels which I had understood by the emails to have been promised at the aid stations. I tried drinking the flat coke, but it was flatter at some aid stations than it was at others. After a couple tries of that I wasn’t happy and switched to drinking HEED at each of the aid stations, this turned out OK. It meant that I missed the opportunity to try and feed on the run as I would have liked to have practiced for Penticton. Such is life.

At around 8kms I was hoping to switch to HR based running and lift it up to 162 bpm. It took me a while of just observing the HR before I decided I had actually better close the gap between the HR I was running and the target I had set. I came across an intersection where Ben and Lindsay were volunteering and they gave me the extra boost to make the change. Ben’s voice sounded really encouraging when I saw him and I believed him when he said I was running well, from there on I ran well, then a long stretch of tailwind pushed me along for a while and I kinda tricked myself by thinking the wind would push me like it does on a bike… it doesn’t really, but it makes you feel better about your running and I ran well. Then into the headwind I paid the price for cheating my brain into thinking the headwind had previously helped and was now hurting. I ran hard into that headwind, and when I got out of the wind I ran even harder. Once I was within 5kms of the finish I made the dangerous calculation of how fast I’d have to run to still meet the goal of a sub 1:30 run. The answer was 4.8 minutes (That information is dangerous, it could have slowed me down if I was not feeling good) but the motivation continued as I was quite regularly seeing other members of our club. The traffic on the path through the one final stretch and I had to do some cross country to get around the big clumps. With a mile left I broke out into an uphill headwind section and things weren’t pretty but I stuck with it, and then inside the last kilometer there were people watching… you have to run fast when people are watching!

I didn’t realize that there was a clock for me to see at the finish line until I was almost under it at which point I had to make a mad dash to get in under 4:14, which I did. Not that I had to sprint the last 10 meters, because I’d beaten sixth place by more than 6 minutes! After the finish I was really dizzy just like Chinook two weeks prior. This time it lasted an uncomfortably long time and I just lay on the pavement waiting for it to go away. Once I got up and walked over to sit in the golf cart and drank a bunch of calories was able to stand up again without feeling so bad, I’m not sure what to make of it.

Act 2 – Race Plan Execution

Stay calm at the start, stay away from groups of over-stressed people. Permission to be nervous but stay calm.

Just an on-shore warmup like I normally do before getting into the pool. Line up near the front, second row in center for the beach start. Run in to get going quick, don’t spike HR with a sprint.

Go hard for up to 200m if I can tell that there are feet around I should be catching. Hopefully something is found and I’ll settle into a moderately hard effort on someone’s feet or the same thing if I have to swim on my own. Hopefully I’m ahead of people who will be swimming faster than me so I can pick up some feet as they come around. Don’t redline for too long.

Keys to swimming well: long strokes, quick transition from hand entry to vertical forearm, don’t let legs snake after the torso through the water. Finish the strokes.

Aim to swim the second lap at same perceived pace as the first. If I’m alone, key is to find a rhythm and sight well to stay on course.

Goal: No specific goal set for swim other than to do my best. Aim for a slightly higher effort level than Chinook, anticipate that with an accurate course a 32-33 minute swim is possible.

Not able to go too hard off the start due to immediate congestion. Probably wasn’t close enough to the front, the wide start also meant that fast people were likely spread very widely. The bottleneck was going to happen anyways though. Did same or lower effort than Chinook Half and hence the reason I was a tad off my target time with the swim.

Bike General Strategy: Reserved effort on the flats to start, settle in and ride fast and efficient. Work harder through the rolling hills by the bacon farm and the two climbs in the middle of the course, maintain harder effort on the way back. Sight off of the remaining cyclists ahead of me and reel them in, don’t race to T2, but begin racing for the finish line with about 40km to go on the bike, meaning ~2.5 hours left in the race. Stay on track for ~1100 calories minimum.

Total food: 2×24oz bottles of Gatorade = 350 calories. three half bananas = 180 calories. 2 tube shot bloks = 400 calories, 3 gels 3×110 = 330 calories. If I want bananas then I don’t eat the gels, grab water along the way, ensure I drink minimum 1 bottle, 2 if hot.

Do not pace off of other cyclists, they are likely going too slow. Enjoy the ride, say hello to team-mates that I see while on course. . When passing stronger cyclists especially near the front of the race, take a drink first as a regulatory measure so that I know I’m not breathing that hard and then go past with sufficient speed that they’re not generally going to feel confident to come with me.

Let HR gradually rise towards 150bpm rather than hammering to get it up there. Fast cadence in headwind, run the big gears in tailwind with slower cadence, keep the power output smooth and my body aerodynamic. Aim to conserve momentum.

Once back into the smaller streets on the way back into town remain cautious, sprinting corners is only going to induce cramping so might as well be gentle here.

Goal: Average HR > 150bpm. Mentally pace bike to begin racing home from Genesee.

Incorrectly anticipated I’d be starting the bike with a HR that was going to need to come up to 150bpm instead of a HR that needed to come down to 150bpm. I think I made the right decision taking it so easy on the bike, if I were to have raced with no HRM I definitely would have been faster through this stretch, whether or not it would have cost me though is an open question… My heart rate wouldn’t have come down unless I took it easy, so I would have been faster but it would have been at the expense of doing it… and then likely the rest of the bike at an even higher effort. Nailed the goal with 152bpm on the bike, able to ride aero the whole time without any issues of muscular discomfort in glute-med or lumbar back, although I did find the shorts less comfortable today than at Chinook, likely because this course is only out of aero position for a grand total of 11 corners and optionally on two hills. Whereas Chinook has bum-shifting opportunities at less corners but more climbs are relatively notable durations out of the saddle. At the end of the race I thought about switching shorts for IM but on sober second thought IMC has a course with more opportunities for ass-relief than GWN so I’ll stick with what I’ve got.

Run General Strategy: Gradual start to the run, reserved on first out and back, 4:16 pace cap until the school, then with about 2/3 of the run remaining aim to pick it up through final hour, building pace.

first 8kms: focus on breathing, want feeling like I’m running easier than during a MAF test, notably short of breakpoint of deep breathing. Keep it capped at 1:30 half marathon pace, MAF HR cap. Let people get away from me if they are going to get away from me, self control.

On the way to turnaround, Run efficiently. Picking up pace from first 8kms slightly, goal to run 4:10kms or MAF HR whichever is faster. HR cap at 172bpm.

On the way back from turnaround Go Hard! MAF Pace is target, MAF HR is the absolute floor of acceptable effort. Keep lifting knees and picking up my heels, maintain proper running stride even if tired

Final mile back from junction: keep it flying! No need to sprint unless I’m contesting a position as this will exasperate recovery.

Nutrition: Gels at the aid stations, 3 miles, 6miles, 9miles. HEED at all aid stations. Water on body and ice if available and heat warrants it.

Goal: Run sub 1:30

As discussed in Act 1, I struggled with quite a bit of discomfort and then was focused on doing what it took to run and experimentation with how that felt, it meant that I didn’t have the mental focus on getting the pace quite right. I was able to dial it back as I was aware that I was going too fast but it took a while to reel myself back sufficiently. Picked up to MAF HR nicely once I tried and got in a groove, I found the pace feedback every 500m to be variable due to aid stations etc so paid less and less attention to it as I went because I knew that it was acceptable. Ran harder in the last mile than I needed to but I was seizing the opportunity and having a blast doing it, so if it means I hurt more the day after then that’s fine.

Act 3 – The Club

Stefan put in a good effort on the day, he really pushed it on the bike hoping that he could win the “fastest bike” prime which he did and then still managed to run well. Dave also had a great performance, he didn’t look like a champion when he rounded the last bend and came into view but, with 100 meters to go he pulled his form back together and ran across the finish nicely inside 4:30 which is really a great performance. Darren passed Andrea on the run which I wasn’t totally sure if he’d manage when I saw them go by in the other direction, but I’m sure makes him secretly super happy! The womens team wrapped up a win in their division with a swim that was more anticipated than any other swim in the history of triathlon, a bike ride from Shari that showed everyone who was boss with the 6th fastest female bike split of the day, and a personal best half marathon to wrap it up. Travis rounded out a great swim and frustrating bike ride where he struggled to feel good about putting food down with a run that is much more respectable than he gives himself credit for. Then came two big surprises. Or perhaps they weren’t surprises, just well guarded secrets regarding the performances that they knew they had it store but weren’t willing to divulge? Mike Downey made his HIM debut in 5 hours (if we give him the 30 second benefit of the doubt just like the Boston Marathon, which of course, we will) with the aforementioned swim a quick bike and a good run. The rumour from the spectators is that he needs to work on his transition though! Then Lesley cruised across the finish line with a mighty fine “crash course in last minute training” performance, breaking her PR from last year on this course with a notably improved bike leg. While she seemed to be chalking it up to “I don’t know how”, I think the consistency of training through ‘cross season and through the early winter when the majority of people do nothing of substance, and she maintained consistency did a wonder of good, combined of course with chasing Travis around on some challenging bike rides. Michele cruised across the finish in her debut performance having suffered a rather lengthy flat tire pit-stop on the bike putting together a run within only a couple minutes of her open half marathon performance in April, which has got to make her happy. Not far behind, Jen Moroz cruised in with a full trio of times that I believe she will be happy with, having also made her debut at the distance. Anita chopped an enormous 23 minutes off her time from last year, greatly improving both her ride and her run. Aisling also scored her first finish at the HIM distance and was quite pleased with it all things considered at the finish.

Thanks to Becky for not getting mad at me when I stole some photos of the race from Facebook without asking her

I’ll recount the day shortly… but ’till then here’s some statistics of my race:

Run Splits and HR: [Click for larger]

• Swim 33:29
• T1+Bike+T2 2:12:59 (Map & HR Data Link)
• Run 1:27:31 (Map & HR Data Link)
• 99th fastest swim (includes some teams), 2nd fastest bike, 5th person to T2, 8th fastest run
• Overall: 2nd M18-29 and 5th Overall

There is also a sequel to this blog post as promised.

Race Report 2010

• No HRM… I’m stupid and left it at home
• No spare tubular… I’m stupid and left it at home
• Swim. COLD!
• Bike. No fun
• Run. Totally incredible

There’s basically all you need to know… but I’ll record the day for posterity sake, I’m sure one day someone will want to remember it even though today I don’t really.

Tapered my running after completing 40 runs in 40 days on June 9th, big bike weekend prior and consistent swimming during race-week. Rested up enough to get TSB back definitively on positive side for the first time in 36 days. Still tired on Thursday, felt good Friday and felt physically great on Saturday morning despite being mentally not so great… impacted by some forgetfulness (see preamble).

Swim: Goal was to practice drafting in the open water as much as I could but keep to a moderate effort. Started front row and with a little beach run I was way off in front of the pack, got off to a moderate effort start, no need to hammer as people were just gingerly getting going due to the cold this all seemed really weird to me, then things started to pick up at maybe 300m, at which point people started to pass me, I tried a few sets of feet as they went past and held some for a while each but eventually lost them all. By 500m I had picked up a good draft and held it until maybe 800 feeling just steady. At this point I got pretty dizzy, not because of waves I don’t think, probably a cold head, but I just grimaced and dealt with it, trying to focus on three stroke breathing until the end of the first lap. I passed 5 people on the beach run and caught some feet upon re-entry but quickly lost them and swam by myself at a steady pace till 1500. At this point I got a draft and held it to the finish again. Got a bit dizzy through the same section, this was the shaded part of the lake so that’s why I’m pretty sure it was a cold-induced dizziness. 19th/120 on the swim.

35:48 – distance was supposed to be 2km but everyone seemed to think it was a bit long. I swam totally within myself but did think that I had swum a very straight line and had kept the pressure on. I thought for sure this was going to be closer to a 33min swim until the results went up. Disappointed but not surprised based on a recent 1 hour swim TT last week where I managed only about this pace.

T1: Hands were a wreck in T1, luckily the strippers got me out of my suit and I was on my way. I decided to run hard to try and warm up at least a bit before mounting the bike. In retrospect I do think this was a good decision, I did get on the bike relatively quite a bit warmer than leaving the lake.

Bike: Race plan was to average 150bpm, having no HRM (see preamble) I was going to just try and average an RPE of 14/20 and 16/20 on the big hills, which would likely get me around 150bpm under race circumstances. Out the start I felt like the bike was all a strange muscular effort and breathing/HR was low… Did not feel like I was strong on this bike at all… I’m strong on the road bike right now, the TT bike was not feeling great. Eating and drinking got underway and was doing OK, pulling in lots of people and I’d worked my way into fourth. I was certainly not feeling strong on the bike, searching around through different cadences and not able to find something that felt good and strong and fast. Similar trouble to early May on the TT bike for the first time in the season, just couldn’t get in a powerful groove.

Flatted my rear tyre at about 30kms. Very frustrated with myself and had a big internal debate about what to do, kept riding while I would decide but focus was lost. Dad was parked maybe 5km up the road and I opted to stop, and put my training wheel on the rear at 35kms and accept a DQ for the race for accepting outside help and then get going. Did the swap, and spent the next 10miles not focusing well, not riding hard, not doing anything right. Got more frustrated with myself, sad, angry… etc. At halfway I tried to turn things around a bit but struggled to do so. Average pace picked up due to general downhill and sections of tailwind, this was probably deceiving as I felt a bit better about it but wasn’t really making up as much time as I could have been. I caught myself dropping into easier gears when I probably shouldn’t have been, certainly not having fun at this point. Then started to get an achy lower back… race plan was to avoid having this happen as I anticipated it meant I was going too hard. When it happened I backed off the intensity, this was the wrong choice as I was already going too slow, I was likely just out of practice on the aeros and should have kept pushing. Wrapped up the effort with 1km to go and rolled into transition in third place off the bike.

Last minute announcement that they’d be serving HEED instead of gatorade despite posting otherwise on the website. I had tried HEED before and know that I do like it so this wasn’t going to be an issue except that they’re slightly less calorie dense and I didn’t know what size bottles we’d get. (Aside: Oh well, this is what athletes deal with when corporate multinationals decide to adopt targeted marketing campaigns… do you think this makes me want to buy more Gatorade now? Honestly, what kind of marketing genius thought this policy up?) 340 calories gatorade. 300 calories HEED. 260 calories powerbar and a banana ~120calories. No gels. = 1020 calories. Ate two hammergels, raspberry was nice, and drank HEED on the run at every aid station where I could get a volunteer to pay any attention to me, this was not a majority of aid stations unfortunately.

2:38:10 96 km. Second overall, 7 minutes slower than last year. 6 minutes slower than fastest cyclist on the day. Map (started at about 2.5 km into ride).

Run: My plan was to run a strategic combination of MAF heart rate governed pace and tested MAF pace from two weeks ago. This was ambitious, and became more ambitious when the heart rate strap was left at home and I was now basically going to have to run purely according to pace and RPE (goal 16/20 – cap 17/20). Brick was super and I felt great going out onto the run, felt fresher than in any transition run in training, highly motivated to try and redeem my day with a good run split as I had done a lousy job on the bike and was going to get DQ’d after the race anyways due to the wheel change and I knew it (because I planned to request it). Split the first 500m in 2:02 (exactly MAF pace) and was mighty proud of myself. Ran through to 4kms basically all at MAF pace except for the aid station where congestion (with Olympic race) caused trouble with me trying to get what I wanted, ran myself into second place, soon caught by Jeremy in third, we ran together from 5km through until 10.55km (halfway). I felt like I was taking it easy here and just cruising along next to him despite logging a couple splits below 4:00 pace here. As we passed transition I ducked in where I took a quick pee and he got maybe 80m up the road. I subsequently lost a bit of time to him through kms 11-16 despite lifting the effort level. I struggled to run 4:15-4:20 pace and got a bit worried when I split one at 4:30 pace. I pulled my socks up then and started to focus on the finish line and my pace improved. I actually started to gain back on Jeremy through the fourth quarter of the run meaning he faded even harder than me, which is what I anticipated based on his breathing when running side by side, but his fade started quite a bit later and in the end he ran the fastest split of the day so who am I to suggest otherwise. Kudos to Stefan for the win, good bike ride and good run, when you get both right you typically have a good day, and he got both done quite nicely indeed.

Splits: Green is up heartbreak hill, which has been re-landscaped and re-paved and is nowhere as steep as it was last year. Blue is the pee break.

1:30:09 Placed second overall in run, goal was to run within 2% of my open half marathon PR, which I certainly did, only 22 seconds slower that my PR, and considering a porta-potty break, this is totally impressive.Map.

Overall: 4:44:06. A hair over 2 minutes off my time last year. Similar swim, 7min slower on bike, 9 min faster on run. I went and talked to the race director afterward and told him that he needed to DQ me for outside help, he wasn’t really sure that he wanted to do that but in the end that’s what he and the other official decided. This was a very costly mistake, mentally it cost me on the ride a lot, and cost me some really good data from the run, what was my HR actually doing during the third quarter of the race?

Lessons learned:

• I need to log a lot of time on the TT bike in the next 2 weeks, even if it’s all easy, riding that bike allows me to feel powerful on that bike and that’s what’s necessary for me to ride to my potential. I also think I’m going to experiment with raising the seat up a bit to de-stress the quads slightly. I also think I should probably try to almost ride in the aerobars by a large majority until Ironman, or at least never go a week where I’m not logging at least some serious time on it.
• Swim frequency needs to stay higher than it has been. 4 day weekends between Thursday nights and Tuesday nights have caused some trouble I think, it means the Tuesday swim is almost always a write-off in terms of getting in some quality swimming as it’s hampered by re-familiarization with the water.
• Run – I’m doing well. Hopes are high for continued development, but some tougher run sessions lie ahead, when I lifted the effort level in the third quarter I actually dropped in speed slightly. Negative splitting my longer runs should become a strategic plan.
• I discussed how to avoid costly mistakes like forgetting gear with my mom, there is no easy answer. I had everything packed, and then double checked, and then left one bag on my bed when loading the car. I have a checklist, but these things only work when things go according to your plan. The best laid plans are only plans. What do you do?

Chinook is behind me for 2010, and I’m looking forward: two weeks until the GWN. I will be mentally stronger on July 4 than I was on Saturday, I’ll also be considerably less rested, faster? who knows, but it will be fun to mark myself up against Paul Tichelaar’s anticipated sub 4 hour time. To wrap up I’ll re-post a quote that I scooped from the EnduranceCorner website today:

“Feelings are a choice.” – Scott Molina

Better late than never:

Pigeon Lake was to be my debut in category 3 at least as far as mass start racing is concerned (Cat 3 TTs are just like Cat 5 TTs) and we rode south with the Hardcorians. The sun was shining, it was going to be nice and hot, and the field was all full of smiles as people ran around to get their spare wheels ready and sign on, and do all their pre-race rituals etc. etc. We set up the Hardcore tent, pulled out the lawnchairs and sat down and shot the breeze while we watched the goings on. Peter and I loaded up on sunscreen, L’Oreal of course, because we’re worth it, and started to get excited.

As I got dressed to head out for a warmup, I noticed that my cassette wasn’t quite right, I was missing one of the spacers that should have been in there when I swapped it over from my other set of wheels and instead of doing a whole ton of fiddling with the derailleur I opted to go fetch my spare from the car, put it back on and race with a race-wheel on the front and a training wheel on the rear. All the running around cost me time to do a warmup and as soon as I stepped out of the toilet names were already being called for the start. Everything would be OK, likely there’s not going to be anything crazy right off the start anyhow. The lineup included myself, Peter, Andre and Mark representing the green Hardcore colours along with quite a few other people I know, including fellow cyclists from the Penticton camp: Greg and Masa from Bicisport and Bruce from ERTC as well as Stefan repping the Fiera Race Team solo.

I headed up to the front of the pack after about 5kms and took a good long pull on the front down a long gentle hill, got things fired up a bit with my legs and did my warmup while the whole peloton drafted me along the road. Kinda fun. After I felt ready and had brought my HR up and got my legs loose I declared myself ready to respond to an attack or put out some good power if the situation warranted it. I quickly dove for the cover of the peloton and sat up in the draft and watched the goings on as we began the first of 4 laps of the Sundance loop. Relatively early on a break went off the front with 4 people. It included Andre from our team and I was quite pleased as it gave us free license to draft without mercy and contribute nothing to the success of the peloton: what fun! Peter got it in his head at one point that he wanted to bridge up to the break, but couldn’t get off the front of the peloton and clawed back a bit of time from his own team-mate in the break. We heckled him about it later. Stefan did quite a bit of work to pull the first break back and by the middle of the second lap they’d rejoined the peloton. Basically everyone toned it down again to wait and see what was going to happen. Some toned it down way more than the others and three people found themselves off the front including Stefan, we were doing maybe 30kph when the gap formed so I’m pretty confident that none of them intended in getting in the break. Eventually though they decided they were going to make a go of it and the gap started to grow. It went out to 30 seconds quite quickly and then kinda hovered there before starting to balloon past the minute mark and I wasn’t keen to see it grow much further.

In the leadup to the biggest climb on the course on the previous lap there was some serious slowing with our group, the general consensus being that we didn’t want to arrive at the bottom of the hill tired. The break wasn’t going to go for that though and they’d be gaining more time if we took another breather. I decided I’d go to the front and ride tempo to the bottom of the hill. It worked and the gap didn’t grow but I suffered on the hill as a result moving from first wheel to last wheel between the bottom and the top.

I took it easy on the fast long ride down the other side and when we turned south towards the gas station we decided we collectively really needed to pick it up. I went to the front and drilled it for a while. The pace came up and the peloton strung out into a long thin line. The gap started to fall and I really buried myself on the front. I took some seriously hard pulls and was riding a few people off of my wheel on the front and had to stay a bit more reserved to keep the peloton coming along. As I was doing it I just kept thinking to myself, that I hoped Peter had a good draft back there. He was our man for the uphill sprint at the finish and the other three Hardcorians were all up front pitching in on the chase. By halfway on the last lap we’d pulled them back having done a few good stretches on the front between 45 and 48kph.

The last hill was pretty tough but after that the peloton collectively decided that we were going to finish with a group sprint. I chatted with Peter and things seemed good, I got in what I thought was a decent position and hoped he would be on my wheel. As we came in towards the finish and things started to speed up and I should have been going towards the front I was pretty toasted already and couldn’t really move up very much. Things were tight and fast. Peter did well for himself without much help in the run in to the finish from his team-mates and wound up second overall. Mark and I crossed the finishline together in the mid twenties I think. Not great, but that wasn’t the point.

A quick note on nutrition for the day, we did 111kms in slightly under 3 hours, this was the timeline I anticipated and judged I’d drink two tall bottles and one short bottle of fluids. I made a good guess, but as it was hot I probably would have liked three tall ones instead. One was gatorade mixed pretty strong, one was two thirds coke, and one third water with some extra salt, the small bottle was just water. Along the way I ate 300calories of coke-bottle candy, a clif bar of 240calories, and a gel 100 calories.

The other news from the day was from a bad crash in Cat 5. The peloton got itself all excited in the run-in to the finish and someone went by Simmon with his bike waggling all crazylike between his legs and clipped Simmon as he went by. The result was Simmon taking a hard crash, breaking a clavicle, removing a load of skin and taking out his bike in almost it’s entirety, apparently the pedals might be salvageable. He was transported via ambulance to Edmonton and pulled through with a remarkably fine attitude on the whole thing despite the majority, or entirety, of his triathlon season getting a pretty big kick in the pants.

What’s the story of the race? Here’s a brain clearing dose of information.

Pat swam faster than Dave by 5 seconds but was beat by Simmer by more than a full minute (HCH = 10:28 which amounts to 1:27 pace is meters which is a mind blowing sub 1:20 yard pace… which is how fast I swim in a 10×50 sprint workout). Downey had the … See moresecond fastest swim but didn’t crack 10 minutes. Michele swam 12:20 which is unfortunate because I think I could have swum 12:00 and she should be able to swim faster than me for 750m. Intervals in the pool she has me beat for everything longer than a 200. Antony was sub 20. The guy who won the swim really choked on the bike, it made me feel good, I know it’s not nice, but it did.

Dave needs to practice T1, I think he could have been at least 3 seconds faster. Afterwards he told me he debated not putting on a race number, and that’s why he was fumbling. Pat didn’t wear a race number until the run, he asked permission from the Race Director and he game him special permission.

On the bike Dave won by almost 45 seconds with a split that was still slower than my time last year on the bike course by 30 seconds. Simmers’ weak link appeared to be the bike, he faded on a 5km run which means he really killed it while pushing the pedals. Shari actually beat Emily and split 40 minutes. Only 16 people went sub 40 minutes which is disappointing… I think more guys from the club including BEsch, Brent, Derek, Nathan, and Mike are capable of this. Robyn needs a road bike, enough said. Travis thinks he rode nearly as fast as Dave but lost it in transitions. I might buy it because putting on those giant socks probably took a minute per foot… but transitions need to be seconds not minutes if you’re going to be a triathlete, there is time to change before Oliver.

Dave’s T2 was the fastest of the day I think (one of the Ft Mac Guys was second and Pat was probably third).

Pat was fast on the run, sub 18 by a few seconds. Only 3 people went sub 20. It’s good to have an accurate run course because it’s humbling, no 17 minute runs from last year! I thought that Jeff should be proud of his run. Sanja probably could have run faster and won that race overall if it weren’t her first triathlon ever, I’ve seen her run and she could probably have run 4:20 pace for a 21:40 instead of a 23:20. Michele looked to be slow out of T2 but came around with an alright run although we all know from the apple triathlon that she’s capable of 4:40 pace at an Olympic (Apple Tri). Despite how much HCH didn’t look good at the finish his net run time was pretty good, definitely head coach worthy. If he gets the bike strength up he’s not only going to make up those 3 seconds he missed out on the podium by… but he’s going to be scary fast.

Overall PK took it out, I think this was his first ‘W’ but it’s a good thing Dave was within a minute. Kept the guy honest.

More photos courtesy of Angela Ziemann are available for purchase here.