Last weekend I competed in my first sprint triathlon at the classic sprint distance: 750m swim, 20K bike, 5K run. The race venue was Guelph Lake 1, which also served as the 2014 Triathlon Ontario’s Club Championships. I was excited to be participating with team LPC!

Race day was beautiful. Gorgeous, in fact.

My home support crew dropped me off about 7:20 am, lots of time to prepare for the 9 am start time. Since having kids, I’m late for many things, but a race is not one of them. That would just add unwanted stress to an already energy-charged situation!

I got a great bike spot in transition, arranged my stuff (although I would later re-arrange at least twice, okay four times) and headed to the registration and body marking area.

I’m never sure where the time goes on race morning (chatting to friends? bathroom line-ups? re-arranging my stuff?) but soon it was time to warm-up. I fretted over this as I wanted to do a bike warm-up but that meant removing my bike (obviously) from the rack and what if someone took my awesome spot? and when did I become so competitive? Yikes. I stared at my bike for a solid 5 min before making the decision to do it. I spread my stuff out over my space (thereby undoing all the set-up I had done) and put my wetsuit over the bike rack before doing a quick out and back ride to check my gears, brakes, etc. Next came a run warm-up of ~5 minutes on the run course trying to reign in my nervous energy. More transition organization, a GU gel, sport drink, and it was time to put on my wetsuit and head to the water, with a stop at the LPC tent to wish good luck to everyone racing, borrow some PAM for my wrists and ankles, and thank those who came out to cheer.

I had time for 5-10 min in the water, which is very helpful for calming the nerves. I was in wave 4, so 9:09 would be my start time. These 9 minutes felt long. I used to spend such time thinking of how I could get out of what was about to happen (who would notice if I just snuck off to the side and let the race happen without me? Of course I know that this would strike fear in the hearts of race organizers thinking that a swimmer had gone astray or worse). Now while I wait for my wave to go, I’m still nervous, but I just want to get swimming! I worry instead that my goggles will leak when I put them back on or that they are too foggy. 9 long minutes.

Finally, the horn!

I’m happy with my swim. I could not have asked for better conditions. I started way to the left (thanks Coach James!) and it kept me out of congestion, at least until the second buoy where I had clearly moved in towards the pack as expected. I had no problems at the buoys in this race, I fought through head down and hard strokes and then re-gained my rhythm on the other side. I had practiced this hard/easy/hard in a swim workout and it gave me confidence, knowing I could settle back down after a hard effort. I picked off one buoy at a time until I was soon heading into shore. I was pretty sure I was on-track pace-wise, although I really had no way to tell until Coach Mark yelled “You are right where you want to be” so I took that as a good sign. As it turns out, I was even a bit under my goal pace. It is hard to tell from SportStats as, if you truly want to know your swim time (and your pace/100m), you have to subtract the time it takes you to run up the hill (assuming you kept track of this on your own) and then recalculate and this is all assuming that you swam a perfect 750m and not a few extra (or more) metres, which, for me, is doubtful. Regardless of the numbers, this was my best swim yet by a long shot! Swim/run up hill time: 15:42

I sprinted up the long hill to T1. The day before at a practice session, Coach James had said “Don’t try to impress us by sprinting by the LPC tent, you should be catching your breath from the swim”. Oops. It was the first time I wasn’t hopelessly winded from the swim (this is good and bad; I’m more fit? I didn’t swim hard enough? Likely a bit of both) so the sprinting just kind of happened. Admittedly, I was a bit winded in T1 itself so next time I’ll slow down on that hill.

T1 = 1:47. My fastest yet. PAM works.

After almost wiping out at the bike mount line (getting on, which is a first even for me), I was on the bike course. My biggest achievements over the next 20 km were as follows: I drank some sport drink ~4 times, I didn’t unclip at the turn-around despite being close to other riders, I passed others going up the 2 biggest hills without blowing the effort budget, and I held my overall speed over 30 kph (SportStats had initially credited me with 32kph but given that the course is in fact only 19 km, not 20 km as advertised, this was a generous overestimation). The downside of my bike split? I would say I biked tempo/hard effort, but not hard effort the entire way. I’m a bit disappointed in this, but I was really focused ahead to the run and trying to be patient. Regardless, I was 2-3 min faster than last year on this less-than-smooth bike course (in the sprint duathlon) and I’m not done improving yet! Bike time: 37:29

 

T2: 1:11. A bit slow. I remembered to grab my Garmin off my bike and my hand-held water bottle so I could drink while moving rather than taking time to drink in T2 or wait for a water station.

I love to run off the bike. I think it might be my strength in this sport. Then again, it could just be that when I get to the run, I can relax a bit as I have made it to this point without a mechanical failure of some sort (goggles, tires, chain, etc) and I know I can just run. The 5K run course at Guelph Lake is rolling hills, far from flat and the first/last kilometre is the hardest. I gradually brought my pace down to where it should be (hitting goal pace at 3K) but then, as they say, I ran out of real estate. I was still very happy with my run; a negative split run on a non-flat 5K course and just under my goal run pace overall, at 4:44/km. My best run off the bike in a race yet (knocking 3 minutes off my time from last year’s duathlon, same bike/run course). I know I’ve got more in me and will work on getting to race pace more quickly next time. I’m especially happy that the mental demons didn’t even enter into this run. Not once. Again, this is good and bad: I’m better at shutting down those negative thoughts? I wasn’t going hard enough to get to that place? Likely a bit of both. Run time: 23:40

I had prepared myself ahead of time (because quick math is not my strong suit late in a race) that if all had gone well, the finish line clock should say ~1 h 29 min because my wave started 9 min late. So, when I saw 1 h 28 min and change, I knew I was in good shape and I crossed the line with a time of 1:19:47, 4th (of 36) in my age-group and a high-five from Coach Mark!

All in all, this race was about execution of a plan and patience early on so that I could hit my run pace and finish strong. Mission accomplished. Could I have gone harder? Maybe. Am I happy? Absolutely. With the confidence from this race, I can go forward, push harder and see what happens next. Up next? Valens sprint triathlon, July 13th.

A huge thanks to Coach Mark for the detailed and challenging training schedule, awesome feedback and all-round support, as well as Coach James, fellow LPC athletes, and my family and friends for tremendous support and encouragement, and to the many volunteers who made this day happen.

Thanks to you for reading!

Cheers,

Lindsay