The race arrived this morning in the midst of mist and cool temperatures. Check in began at 8:00 am and I was there somewhere around 8:05. Simmon showed up at about 8:20 and no other athletes showed their faces in the park until quarter to nine.

Tuffest 3 is a run-bike-run three person relay that traditionally has been dominated by triathlon club in previous years but unfortunately our showing was a bit limited this year for one reason or another. Tom McGrath, Leanne Haney and myself re-entered our winning team from last year in the race this year, hopefully safely winning the co-rec category and in contention for the overall win. Tom had another idea however, he’s trying to accumulate points in the annual Men’s Intramural competition and wanted us to race as a male team so any points we won would count towards his total. I was aprehensive about the idea as I wanted to win a shirt and didn’t want to have to beat Pat Kong, Corey Dawson and Simmon Hofstetter to get it. Tom agreed that he’d compensate both Leanne and I with champion T-shirts from his amassed collection if this was the case…

As the crew of 29 or so teams lined up for the start I rolled out for about a 10 minute warmup. After the first lap Nathan (tri club) was running in second place behind an unknown dude. Tom and Pat were 50 yards back running neck and neck. By lap two of the run the unknown guy had dropped way back and Tom and Pat had caught Nathan. I got set to ride sporting my time-trial kit: my tightest jersey, favorite bib shorts, and my newly acquired Giro advantage2 helmet that I scooped up for about half-price this past week. Tom came in only meters ahead of Pat and I set out for the first of ten laps with Simmon only seconds behind.

I tried to take it easy for the first three laps, 40 kph on the gradual uphill and letting things run up to 44 or 45 on the downhill, as I’d practiced the previous weekend when gauging how fast the ride needed to be when the corners were accounted to split a full 40 kph on each lap. Lap 4 arrived and I got a bit boxed in having to pass a car and 4 cyclists in the same lap requiring a couple pauses in the ride, Tom told me after I had him a bit scared as I dropped a whole 4 seconds on that round of the park. At about that point I was really going hard and the lungs and legs were firing on all cylinders. With three laps left I thought I heard someone shout Simmon’s name as I rolled through the transition area and thought they were cheering for him to go for the pass. I hadn’t checked behind me yet and opted to keep riding my race, he hadn’t blasted past me yet and if he was going to pass me he wasn’t going to pull away much anyways. A couple more laps, when riding the downhill to the finish and trying to push in for the last bit I really could feel my hips starting to give me a bit of grief, and when one part of the legs starts to groan the rest of them do too. Suddenly my feet and glutes were sore too and I was very content to be riding in to the finish.

I unclipped my left foot and ground the spd cleat along the ground as I pulled in to transition to Leanne. The sparks flew and I got a pretty funny cheer from the crowd. Leanne was off running and I laid down on the ground fully spent having clocked a 40.4 kph for 23.4 kms on my own speedometer.

Simmon rolled in about a minute back and Cory headed out in pursuit of Leanne. She wasn’t to be caught though as she ran well and even though Corey ran a blazing second lap he only managed to gain back about 18 seconds on it.

I suppose I can check off in good conscience “Win a race” from my list of life-goals today. While we won as a relay team last year, I was out split on the bike by one rider, this year however I was fastest on the bike and on the right team. The official stats are based on a lap distance of 23.0 kms so It won’t record my speed as above 40 kph but we were prohibited from riding the “tangent line ” as it’s called through the park. We had to stay wide through a couple sections because the road wasn’t completely closed. I did meet the goal of splitting 40 kph. It would be quite something to do that for a full 40 kms… but on a different course with a bit more focussed training at that intensity I think I might be able to do it next year. Riding huge volume with Sea-to-Sea didn’t exactly set me up for super speed on a 1 hour ride… but neither did Simmon’s training for his ride at Ultraman Canada.

Turkey Trot 2008 came and went this morning… and triathlon club did a great job! Hopefully only a foretaste of the great job we hope to do next weekend at the Tuffest3 race. For the less-than-100%-informed. Turkey Trot is a 4 km or 8 km run near campus. I ran the 4 km distance because of my lack of running since this shoulder injury and it was a good choice as I was ready to fly for 4 kms and probably wouldn’t have felt the same about a whole 5 miles. Turkeys (or gift certificates for turkeys at least) are awarded to first and second male and female student, alumnus and staff of UofA at both distances. That adds up to 24 turkeys and tri club managed to win 5 of them. The alumnus category is one you can register for if you’ve got a degree from the UofA so a couple grad students registered as alumnus from the club so they strategically didn’t need to race against other club members. I would have placed higher as an alumnus but still would have been out of the running for a Turkey (I was 8th student and could have been 4th alumnus). Oh yeah my time was 15:07 which counts up to 3:47 per km which I’m really happy with.

One of the runners for my Tuffest3 team placed second overall in the 8 km distance. He’s running the 6.9 km leg next Sunday morning at Hawrelak. I will be riding 23 kms and hope to split above 40 kph. Fearless Leanne will be sealing the deal for our team with a 4.6 km run. I understand that Tom hopes to run under 25 minutes and Leanne hopes to be under 17:30. If I actually pull through with what I’m hoping: 34:30 or 3:27 per lap (ahh going under 3:30 takes a ton of work and to nail 10 in a row will hurt) our team might get close to the 1 hour 15 minute mark which would be pretty spectacular. I make no promises though, at the same time though I feel like racing under pressure will be a good experience and look forward to giving that phenomenon a shot. I know the pressure was a real contributing factor to Kyle doing so well in out ITT this summer. I also know that getting some personal records next season will require specific goal setting and capitalizing on training during a race. You’ll hear from me next weekend about Tuffest3 but until then here are a few photos:

The time-trial was set to go this morning beginning at 9 am and was to occur starting at the 45 km mark of the ride today. That meant I needed to leave at 7 am for sure but that was absolutely no trouble as I was staying at Cynthia Aukema’s house with all of the perpetual early risers. I was on the road at a record time of 20 minutes before 7 and doodled my way along to the start point of the time trial an hour before my scheduled start time of 9:17 am. (I would be the 18th rider to leave)

I hopped off my bike and took a bit of a break for my bum and legs as more and more riders arrived. The funny one was Kyle Meyerink who was very nervous about the whole situation and wasn’t afraid to let anyone know that fact. He had never raced before but is very strong and everyone was putting big expectations on him to really get out there and perform well. I on the other hand was testing out my new clavicle brace and people were just happy to see me out there going to give it a shot. Low expectations are great sometimes.

How time trials work… at least on the C2C tour
• Riders set off at 1 minute intervals from the start line and head down the road as fast as they can for 40 kms at which point we have our times taken which have the offset removed and we see who was fastest.
• Normally a time trial is an out-and-back so that the wind has net-zero effect but people weren’t interested in that so we dealt with a cross-headwind for the whole 40 kms.
• Normally the race is done on a closed course but we had marshals out instead to give riders warning if they had to slow down at intersections but were ultimately at the mercy of traffic whether or not they had to stop.

Like I mentioned I had hopes of 66 minutes which wouldn’t be completely unreasonable in zero wind with my shoulder in such condition and no aero-bars which I couldn’t use also because of the shoulder. (aerobars are at a minimum a mile-per-hour advantage so 2 minutes or so) I set off and pulled off equal splits for the first 2 10 km markers of 16:45. My third 10 kms had the toughest wind and I ran into a bit of trouble concentrating 17:13 seconds. In my final 10.65 kms I really had to hammer on the brakes at an intersection which torqued my shoulder and left side of my back and I was pretty sore, I collected myself well and with my finishing push managed 16:44 split there, my fastest split considering the extra 650 meters.

The results of the race were rather expected. Reuben Vyn stole the show by a full minute finishing in the 63 minute range, Jon Vanderveen claimed second a minute behind and Nick Ellens who was riding Andrw Aukema’s TT bike claimed third 2 minutes back. Kyle Meyerink didn’t crash into the ditch and didn’t run out of steam halfway and didn’t save too much for the second half, executing the race very well and proudly finishing in slot #4. I rounded out the top 5 and was content with 1:07:42 considering the headwind it would probably have been very close to 66 minutes in no-wind conditions. Eritia humbly accepted the award for fastest female.

Riding through London’s Springbank park I decided to stop in at my mom’s house while growing up… it’s still there and I got a tour of the renovations by the current owner.

The hosts here organized a trip to the velodrome in London which is one of very few indoor cycling tracks in Canada and about 15 riders had a fanatastic time there.The track length is 128 meters compared with Edmonton’s 333.3 meter track so everything feels much faster and the adrenaline really gets flowing. We got a bit of a lesson from a few of the coaches there and did a few drills riding around the track on the apron (the flat section just inside the track): accelerating and deccelerating: turning up and down over the “cote” (the blue strip) on the straightaways and doing a bit of fallen rider avoidance.

The jump from riding the apron to riding the sprinting lane on the track is a pretty exciting step, you just have to go for it. With about 7 at a time we hopped up there and all basically at the same time hopped up there. It felt a bit like this was something I’d prefer trying alone on the track but I was sandwiched right in there between Kyle Meyerink and Eritia Smit. I had to get it right on my first try and really had to hope everyone else did as well. Of course as seasoned pros it didn’t end up being an issue and we were soon doing laps of the track!

After getting the first feel we each were given a chance to let it rip alone on the track and see how it felt to choose your own pace and select your own line. I felt like giving it a real shot at speed but found out rather quickly that while I of course have the legs to get that bike up there as far as kph is concerned I did not have the experience to keep it smoothly between the red and the black lines. I didn’t crash but I did get the joking threat of having a chair thrown at me if I didn’t slow down a bit. From there on out we rode as a group once more all in single file and by the end of that I did feel like I was beginning to collect the skills needed to keep a much straighter line. My problem had been assuming that at the end of the turn I would be spit out in a straight line and that is not at all the case. Getting out of the turn smoothly takes significantly more concentration than getting in.

Upon returning to camp I had my Aunt Anita waiting to find me… I had no idea she would be there so the detour to the velodrome perhaps wasn’t such a great timeline choice but she did seem to know many people who were here and we did get to chat for quite a bit before she headed back north to the farm.

We’ve had a few days in a row where SeatoSea has been on the front page of the local paper. While it feels good and gets everyone excited it also does mean that the message of the tour’s purpose is getting out there.

Saturday we woke up to a cool Michigan morning just a bit south of Grand Haven ready to ride the final stretch of our route into Grand Rapids. The day was to be a short 75kms with no elevation gain worth noting, a couple stops at CRC churches and the home of Tyler Buitenwerf. We were anticipating riding past 11 different CRC church buildings during the day. In addition to our contingent of 150 cyclists 130 others were joining us “officially” for the day and numerous others “unofficially”. Considering the fact that I met 3 of the bandit riders and- never figured out who was riding along as part of the “official” ride-along there could have been many more than 300 of us on the road. Leaving camp in the morning at around 8:05 we were of course taking up the tail end of the group and had approximately 300 people ahead of us to pass during the day. Riding with me were John Vanderveen, Brad Geerlinks, and Marc Vanotteren. This was a group of guys included all of the perpetual City-Line-Sprinters and we were excited to compete in what we’ve been calling the second biggest sprint race of the summer. The race into Grand Rapids, Jersey city being the other big one we were looking forward to. (The Canadian border sprint will happen on a Ferry and therefore doesn’t exactly count because we couldn’t race it).

The day started out with us riding along hovering just below 40kph keeping a running tally of how many people we had passed so we could gauge how many were on the road. We were all the way up to 126 riders within the first hour of riding and everyone had smiles from ear to ear. After rounding a bend we saw in the distance a town line sign for Lemont Michigan, a little race to scope out the strategies of the other guys we were riding with. It was a long gradual downhill followed by maybe 100 yards of flat to the finish. I was up front and could see John Vanderveen was perched just over my right shoulder. We were heading north and the sun was still low in the sky so I decided I’d try to lour him around me on the downhill hoping to make my move at the bottom of the hill. I looked left and watched his shadow and could see him move further to my right and come up alongside me. Exactly as I had hoped I felt confident I was positioned correctly as we neared the bottom of the hill. I quickly glanced down at my speedometer and noted we were traveling at 54 kph. I was going to need every gear I had if I was to get ready and stand to sprint this line against John who is geared faster than me. At this point my chain skipped and I lost tension in my chain and my pedals went for a whirl. If you’ve ever been walking up the stairs and expected there to be one more step before the top you’ve felt the same feeling. You try and place your foot somewhere and there’s nowhere for you to put it. My left foot made that attempt and landed nowhere, it came unclipped from my pedal and my bike veered sharply to the left. I wasn’t about to make any sharp corners as I was now moving faster than 54 kph so I continued in a straight line. I tucked in my arm and went for a slide down the road on my right shoulder and then on my back. I saw Marc ride by while sliding on down the road and began to scramble to my feet so I wouldn’t be hit by any one of the other riders coming behind me. Marc told me later I was on my feet before I had stopped moving. A quick couple steps and I was in the ditch and made my way to a patch of grass in the shade where I parked myself.

It was about here that the serious praying began and group at the side of the road in the ditch began to grow. John who had dislocated his shoulder numerous times before started to feel things and get the lay of the land. His initial reaction was that it was dislocated and asked if I could move it. I moved it up from by my side to above my head without much trouble and it just felt better there so that’s where I kept it. Soon enough Betsy, a nurse, rode up to the scene and did her version of the little diagnosis. Hers sounded like 50% dislocation and 50% broken collarbone and the prospect of the end of my tour loomed large. The other guys were all rather sobered by the situation and did what they could to help out and throw in a few words of encouragement. My new camera which had taken a grand total of one photograph was absolutely destroyed so Brad snapped a few photos of the wreckage on my behalf. Art Smit pulled up in one of our 10 passenger vans and my bike made its way in between the seats. Soon enough we were headed for the hospital Art driving and Betsy along as my hospital tour guide.

The hospital visit included a few Xrays which seemed to be “Let’s put this arm in the 4 most painful positions I can think of and then take photographs of it” and some rather suspenseful moments waiting to hear what the news would be regarding my prognosis. Betsy was great to have along and even though we never really did discuss the fact that my tour might very well be done her comments did help to bring peace to what was far from a peaceful situation. When the doctor eventually arrived back with the news the results were good, or great, or fantastic. I had no breaks in my shoulder and by his physical exam my shoulder was no longer dislocated and the X-ray did confirm that fact. He commented that I had done a number to my AC joint and he was going to call it a shoulder contusion. Later on a physiotherapist checked it out at camp and said that the AC joint was most likely separated. For all the non anatomy majors out there that is the bit of your body that holds your collar bone “down” and I would have to agree that mine is more likely described as “up”.

So basically from the time my foot came unclipped everything went in the best possible direction it could have. There is no question that I had God looking out for me. The road was smooth and I slid a long ways rather than grinding to a halt. I also was fortunate to have been able to tuck myself in before sliding and did so in a more elegant way resulting in less road rash than any other sprawl on the pavement would have. My head never smacked into the ground but my helmet does suggest it would like to be replaced so I will do so as to not suffer any consequences at a later date. I had people with me who knew what to do and insurance to make treatment and a full diagnosis available. The doctor’s orders included no mandatory rest and he told me that if I could ride there from Seattle he figured I was able to attempt continuing on Monday. My front wheel ended up in the shape of a pringle and while my bar tape, seat and derailleur are scraped up they are not broken. I had access to a new front wheel which has replaced mine now and should treat me well for the rest of the summer. I also was notified lated that I was named the honorary winner of the sprint into Lemont. John Vanderveen did end up winning the big race into GR for those of you who are interested.

My arrival into camp was a bit overwhelming to say the least. I had just been sitting for a while in the van and just wanted to lay down in the shade and get some food. I had 4 complete discussions after opening the door before I could even get out of the vehicle. I then proceeded to do the awkward left handed handshake with all sorts of people who I would have loved meeting and talking with under almost any other circumstances. If you’re reading (and I know a few of you are) I apologize for lousy first go of things. I didn’t catch a single name in the whole process but did figure out that I had an hour before someone was coming to pick me up to shower in her house, to let me do my laundry and have a real bed for me to sleep in. I finally got on my back in the grass and put a few drugs in me and that’s where I stayed for the entire hour letting everyone who asked know that I was allowed to ride on Monday and would be making an attempt to do so. The conversation repeated itself all weekend long and I’ll have to admit I am a bit sheepish telling people that we were racing when I crashed.

My host for the weekend was Cobi Hofman, the wife of the pastor who way back more than 50 years ago baptized my Dad. She had been a part of the CRC that I was riding as a representative of during its very early years meaning even though I’d never met her before we did have an endless supply of topics for discussion. We did watch a bit of the Olympics, which I haven’t otherwise had an opportunity to do and I was fed well. I also had a good bed to sleep in for the weekend and got a ride to check out Neland Ave CRC on Sunday morning.

Saturday are great

• We wake up and the kitchen staff always cooks us pancakes and bacon on Saturday mornings. They make sure we’re going to have a great day.
• The kitchen staff often cooks too much bacon and by the time we’re allowed to have a second go round at it all of the early risers are already an hour down the road. Anyhow that means those of us still bumming around camp get to have a dozen pieces of bacon and put it on our sandwiches.
• We don’t have to ride the next day so no-one complains about going a little faster on the road or having a few more sprint races along the way.

I left camp just as the rain for the morning was slowing down with Nick Ellens, Steph Webb and Katrina Miller. We rolled along clocking a good pace for the first 30 kms and the rain finished up. Nick and I contested three city line sprints within the first hour. Each one played out slightly differently but each was great here’s the inside scoop. Hopefully it’ll give you a little taste of why we love these little races, there’s alot of strategy involved:

1. Long gradual uphill to the finish – The sign was obviously placed and Nick and I discussed whether or not we’d be sprinting today. After we agreed yes I pulled out from the back of the paceline and went to the front leaving him 3 people deep so I could keep an eye on him. He decided to go for it about 150 yards out and I have no trouble catching his draft as he moves by. We accelerate to ~55 kph and I have to debate whether to jumpt one or two more gear to go for the pass. I luckily choose to gear up double with 30 yards to go and win by a wheel length (finish speed 64 kph).
2. Long downhill with a kink uphill to the finish – Nick has been first in the paceline and we crest the hill and see the sign. He opts to back off the pace and tries to let me pass. I refuse and pull up next to him instead watchin if he’ll put on the brakes as an indication for me to go for it. Nick knows this trick and just coasts next to me as he selects his gear. The finish line is getting painfully close and he begins to accellerate and tries to box me in. I cut across to the other side through his draft at the bottom of the hill and pass him to the other side. It’s mano-a-mano to the finish and I was probably better rested as I had been drafting him. It’s only a half wheel length but our finish speed was still 55 kph.
3. Blind finish over crest of the hill – I’m leading the paceline this time and we see the 1 mile marker, I note the mileage of the finish for my odometer and assume that Nick has done the same. 400 yards from the finish he begins to query me where the next water stop is and I’m sure he’s trying to plan a sneak attack. With one eye over my should I check my cue sheet as he moves out of the paceline alongside me but seems to still be pretending he isn’t going to race. With 200 yards to go I decide to just go for it and sprint over the crest of the hill, three in a row! Whether or not his strategy was planned or not is still an open question because he left Steph and I in town when we stopped for water (Katrina had dropped back by this time) and he didn’t need anymore.

The rain had stopped by the time we got aboard the local bike path that I understand is built on an old railway bed. It’s called the “Military Ridge Trail” or something similarly nondescript but it was really really beautiful. A tree lined path that we followed for about 13 kms through trees overhanging the curvy route thrugh the forest… anyhow, I’m lousy at decribing this so I’ll just post photos and a video instead:

I don’t know if you can understand the video but we’re discussing that the rain was probably a good thing as it meant we were not subject to a massive dustbowl riding down that trail.

The trail spit us out onto a weaving road through rolling hills surrounded by bits of forest and crops… again super beautiful. This road spit us out into the town of Mt Horeb which was, of course, super beautiful as well. We pulled over at a little sidewalk bistro flying a dutch flag where a dozen other SeatoSea cyclists were stopped. Someone ahead of us had stopped in for coffee and the owner decided that all of those cyclists needed a few treats. Muffins, cookies and banana bred were on the house and we sat curbside with a bunch of cups of fantastic coffee and shouted “free goodies” to the rest of the seatosea-ers who were riding by.

From there on in to town we were riding the coffee buzz and hummed along some more spectacularly paved roads into Madison and caught a bit of familiarity with the local bike scene in Madison. This city loves bikes and is proud of it, the riders we talked to all spoke highly of the cycling community here and are proud of how cycler friendly the layout of the city is.

Prior to our arrival in camp cyclists gathered at a local park and proceeded to ride in to the church together. Again… descriptions are lousy compared to videos so here’s the footage:

Our reception at the church was great. There were women here willing to cut hair, there were those tubs that bubble and shake that you put your feet in (I’m sure they’ve got a name, I just don’t know it) and people were getting massages. I did the foot thing while waiting for my turn in the haircut chair, I don’t think it did much for my feet but the haircut is a good improvement, no curly mess above my ears.

Race morning arrived when the clock ticked over to Sunday morning from Saturday the 3rd of May. I was still 75 kms out of Edmonton and heading home for a race that was to start in only 8 hours. A wedding the evening before in Calgary posed a bit of an issue with leaving myself the option to try and get 8 hours of sleep. I decided that I would resign myself to that as pre-race sleeps are never that good anyways.

After arriving at the house I unpacked, repacked race gear, mixed up gatorade, swapped my leather brooks saddle for my tri-styke neoprene seat, swapped the race wheels onto the bike and checked all the gears. I then discovered that my bed’s mattress had been stolen by one of my room-mates who decided that it was a good upgrade while I was out of town. So, at around 2:15 am I crawled into a sleeping bag on my pullout couch and set my alarm to go off in just over three and a half hours.

Bam! it was suddenly quarter to six, I chowed down on breakfast, pumped my tyres, and was out the door. I claimed what I considered to be one of the top 5 spots in transition, set things up and went off to get marked. In contrast to previous years I opted to skip out on trying to be warm and resigned myself to a cold bike ride. I set out only my triathlon club jersey and helmet. I had neoprene gloves attached to my handlebars with elastic bands and shoes pre-clipped, only 3 things to do in transition, that’s the minimum requirement for a pool swim: cover the torso, put on a number belt, and clip the helmet. I can go one better for open water races: remove wetsuit, put on helmet. I’ve been frustrated in previous years by clothing that sticks to wet skin, sand on my feet, toques, sunglasses etc. etc. efficiency was the order of the day and I was prepared to suffer the consequences as I reaped the benefits. I cannot shave any more seconds off in transition, I’m confident about that.

I was registered when I arrived but wasn’t on the start list, so I got to re-state my expected swim time. I pared it down from 17:30 to “16:00 or 16:30″ with the desire to get pushed in my lane, I felt ready to go hard in the pool even though my total swimming for 2008 to date had been 2900 metres.

I had been convinced by tri-club members to start the swim with a backflip off the start block because the club’s past president was supposed to be counting laps in my lane, unfortunately an impromptu lane swap resulted in some rather intimidating women counting my laps, I was scared they’d make me swim extra so I gently entered the water and got to work.

Upon exiting I had passed everyone in the lane once and doubled up on one girl, I turned out to set a sprint-swim PR of 14:25 (60th out of 145 places).

Transition was quick and I was out on the road, there didn’t seem to be any quick cyclists around (you only pass the slow ones, it’s not really a surprise but always a disappointment) and I was out onto the 4 lap course. I have had success making race “plans” in my head regarding motivation and focus for the course. It started out last summer with the half-ironman on the run: I broke the 21 kms into 4 pieces with different labels, “get your running legs” followed by “hold back” (A reminder that I’ve still got a long race ahead) then “let’s go” and finally “hold on” (don’t waste the success thus far).

I decided (while driving in the dark the night before) that it wouldn’t hurt to try a similar strategy for both the bike and run portions. The race plan was therefore “pay attention” (get cadence up, start drinking, note locations of potholes), “focus on efficiency” (don’t drop the hammer quite yet), “remember this is a race – go!”, “Cycling is awesome” (reminder to not waste any seconds on the bike leg which is my strongpoint) followed on the run by two sections “it’s only 5 kms” (there isn’t time to get used to the brick feeling, you’ve just got to start running) and finally “leave everything on the course”.

I suppose there’s not much to say about the 4 laps of the bike ride and the out and back run other than I kept to the game plan and was well under the 38 minute split I was expecting (including 2 transitions) at 37:12 on the bike. The run split hurt a ton and I wasn’t very fast but I did my best to put in a solid effort resulting in a 22 minute split for 5 kms.

The grand total time was 1:13:36, I was more than pleased with that, having shaved time off of last years race, amazingly in the swim and swim-bike transition.

So, how does a hard 75 minutes of effort play into the Sea-to-Sea preparation?? 75 minutes of work isn’t going to get me over the Cascades on Day #2 in Washington State. Basically it’s fun, and marked the middle-end-ish of a tough week of work. In theory it would have wrapped up the first periodization of the spring. Of course, things work better on paper or in your head, it was obviously modified a ton. Half Marathon Sunday, road ride Monday, hill run Wednesday (bonus: swims on Tuesday & Wednesday). I nailed a rather hard 75 kms bike on Thursday, and ran 10 kms medium pace on Friday. Monday following the race I fit in a very windy 50 km ride immediately followed by 6 kms hilly run. 10 kms run on Tuesday to finish that off, the moving average for weekly volume passed 10 hours for the first time this season (12.5 hours max)!

I’ll be keeping intensity down for a short break (conveniently aligning with the snowfall today) and then will begin period 2. The focus is on volume with the idea of packing the hours in, hopefully pushing volume beyond 15 hrs/week consistently, I don’t really know if I want to consistently eclipse 20 hours; when I did last summer I wasn’t useful for much else other than cooking and eating. I’ve got a long weekend in southern BC planned followed immediately with a week of training with triathlon club members in Edmonton while spending days in the research lab and then potentially a day in the mountains.

On Sunday April 27th I ran the Calgary Police Half Marathon as an “I wonder how I’ll fare” kind of race. Last week I wrote about why I ended up with an entry slot in this race that sold out within a few hours of it opening. The route starts at Mount Royal College and proceeds to do a lap of the Glenmore reservoir before heading back to the college. It’s not flat but it’s also not particularly hill either. The one big hill that you could hear plenty of people discussing on race morning was less than 90 seconds long and was strewn with people cheering so it didn’t pose such a challenge.

Having received ~16 inches of snow in Edmonton the previous weekend and having three final exams and a massive paper to write before getting back to Calgary my grand total race-week mileage was zero. So, things weren’t exactly according to plan but I felt pretty good on race morning and the weather was great. I was in tights, long sleeve tech shirt, windbreaker, beanie and running mitts. I was lucky to have Dad coming along with a vehicle to cheer at different spots along the course. I was able to loose the beanie and mitts at 7kms and the windbreaker at around 10 miles. I kept probably a perfect temperature for the whole race which is something I certainly cannot say for any other half marathon race I’ve ever run. The Moose is Loose Half Marathon in Edmonton always tends to be above 30 degrees by the time I’m done.

So the grand total time was 1:42:17, which is significantly better than the 1:50:00 I was hoping to aim for. I also set a 10k PR of 47:17, but that is mostly because I’ve never run a 10k race, the only ones being triathlon 10k-run-splits that are typically not 10 kms. (Chaparral was 9 kms and summerside is around 10.5). I was poorly seeded (no one’s fault but my own) and got jammed in with a pack that ran the first mile in 8:55, well off my final average pace of 7:48 per mile.

My observations from the race are that I’ve been riding fixed gear A TON in the past bunch of months. Leg strength was never an issue and I cruised past loads of people on all of the uphill stretches while saying to myself “take it easy on the hills”. I also managed to really ache in the hip flexors already with 3 kms to go. I suppose I’ve been tending to ride lazy and doing more pushing than pulling on pedals in recent months… Something to remember in the next weeks of preparation for SeatoSea.

I raced the UofA Tuffest Three race with Campus Rec this morning. It’s a run-bike-run relay in Hawrelak park. I was on a co-ed team and we won the whole thing, beat the guys only teams! My portion was the bike, 23 kms (approx) and consisted of 10 laps of Hawrelak park. My splits were as follows:

1. 3:59.65
2. 3:50.10
3. 3:53.70
4. 3:51.90
5. 3:53.10
6. 3:53.75
7. 3:50.40
8. 3:52.00
9. 3:51.10
10. 3:39.45

• Total Time: 38:35.2

That’s 35.8 kph. I was just over a minute behind first place of all the cyclists. The dude was pretty crazy who beat me though, he came with a trainer and rode for 30 minutes in the parking lot to get warmed up. That’s probably a correct amount of warming up to do but it was a bit odd for a low key event like this one. I honestly don’t think that I could have gone any faster. When I decided to give it everything I had on the last lap and was only 10 seconds faster that lap than all the rest… I think it’s an indication that I had dialed in exactly how quickly I could go. Average heart rate for the trip was 191, that’s about 90% of my reserve, pushing 95% MHR. Anyhow, well into the anaerobic zone.

More…

Before shot (in red), and after (in championship green T-Shirts)

I decided to do a last minute registration to race at Summerside in the olympic distance triathlon… I figured that with a solid 215 km bike ride and my lsd run still comfortable somewhere around 2.5 hours I was in good enough shape to register and race purely for fun. My goals were:

1. Give the swim my best shot but stay aerobic
2. Cycle at approx anaerobic threshold minus 3-5 beats, perceieved exertion steady-plus-plus. I was aiming for above a 36 kph split, considering that the roads are brutal.
3. See how I would manage on the run, not particularily interested in aiming at the 43-45 minute range that I think I was capable of but making the bike split count and having a tough run. I hoped I would be challenged to keep it under 50 mins if I had the chance.
4. Have an enjoyable time at all costs, I love triathlon and that is the point.

I had a good swim… it was really cold and I opted not to warm up in the water because I didn’t want to stand around and get cold arms (sleeveless wetsuit) waiting to go. I crawled out of the pond after just less than 33 minutes which was pretty good considering the only swimming I had done that month was a little splash the wednesday before (even colder!). I got into transition and fumbled getting the arm warmers on due to a combination of cold hands and wet arms (well duh!) I was out on the bike and ready to get to work.

I averaged 37 kph through the first half (out and 2 laps. I was stoked and had really picked up a huge portion of the mens olympic field. I passed at least 28 guys, which in retrospect means that I had moved up to nearly 5th place.

Then things fell apart, summerside is a brutal course and there was construction and deep gravel on the road. Volunteers had swept gravel from the corners to give a bare patch to ride across. The corners (luckily only 4 on each lap) were a big bunching up spot for riders and I ended up going into one following someone around. I paid attention to just matching their line instead of getting through the gravel and I ended up in the gravel bank. My front wheel went out from below me and I landed on my side. Bleeding from the hands and knee I tried to get going again but I had bent my front derailleur. I stopped, caught my breath and decided that I would take it off the bike instead of trying to fix it, I only needed the big ring anyways. That worked alright and after 15 minutes of fiddling to make the bike ridable I got out of the ditch and headed “home” to T2. I had bottle cages hanging out of my bike shorts (littering is a DQ so I was careful) and looked an interesting sight, there was no flying dismount, I came to a complete stop and steped cautiously off of my bike.

After paying a visit to the paramedics to scoop the gravel out of my knee I headed out on the run and met up with my friend Jill who was doing a sprint distance race. I ran her 5 kms first and got her in to the finish in just over 28 minutes and then I headed out for my last 5 kms. I was aiming for a 21 minute run which would certainly be a stretch but I figured I should make it a challenge. I got my 2.5 km split correct and was starting to experience cramping in my left (bleeding) side. I didn’t feel like I slowed down but obviously did as I finished in 21:30, still inside 50 minutes for the run but outside 3 hours for the whole shebang.

All in all it was still a fun time and the most important goal was still realized. We had a great pasta lunch, I stopped bleeding and the sun came out; things turned out great!

The run went well this morning. Most of it is in the trees through the river valley on footpaths which is nice because it keeps you cool and gravel is alot easier on the knees than plain pavement on concrete. Whenever you get out on a bridge to cross the river though it was extremely hot, no shade and you get the reflection off of the water which seemed to make it worse. Briefly the route follows:

• Hawrelak Park, start at the shelter.
• Run clockwise around the park all the way to the north end
• Follow the “upper” path till you get till groat bridge and turn 180^o.
• Run back to the hawrelak bridge on the “lower” path.
• Cross to zoo side and run (up the hill) to Quesnel bridge.
• Follow whitemud creek trails up to rainbow valley campground.
• Turn around and follow back down whitemud creek, cross quesnel and go through Beuna Vista.
• Re-enter Hawrelak and run counterclockwise along edge back to the shelter.

I had calculated what time I needed to be at when I got to certain spots along the run if I hoped to finish in 100 minutes which was my goal. I started off well and was on track for the first half of the race (50 minutes) but there was a hill followed by a bridge and it was sweltering and I fell behind my “agenda” by about 45 seconds. I made up a minute as we ran through the trees in whitemud ravine but then needed to climb back over the bridge through the sun, I again fell behind my pace by about a minute. Then through the last bit I was able to latch on to a girl who was still running quite smoothly. I passed the 1 km to go needing do pull off about a 4:20 km to make it in time but speeding up wasn’t about to happen very easily. I did my best to hit a 4:20 km but had nothing left for a sprint to the finish and managed to finish in 100 minutes and 6 seconds (1:40:06) so I would consider it a big success, that is a personal record for me and considering the hot conditions it’s a time I am really quite proud of.