The inaugural Valens triathlon (750 m swim, 25 km bike, 6.5 km run) was July 13, 2014. The venue was Valens Conservation Area, off Highway 6 south of the 401, in the Cambridge-ish area. An easy drive from Guelph for a 9 am start.

One thing I didn’t expect about becoming hooked on triathlon is that I have also become a frequent checker of the radar/weather map. The simple hourly forecast will no longer suffice; I must SEE the weather patterns in the area. A bit ridiculous, I know. But, the difference between a thunderstorm at 8:40 am (over and done before the horn goes off, no problem) versus 9:10 am (exactly when my wave group is swimming to the first buoy) is significant. Luckily, the radar map showed no major active weather in the area until about 10 am and I knew all swimmers would be out of the water by then. So, it was likely that the swim would go ahead as planned, and it did.

Swim: 16:54. Slow, but various factors were at play here. I had a good swim (for me) and if the pace/100 m was calculated over the 800+ m that I likely swam (instead of the 750 m that I was supposed to swim) I’d be quite happy as I felt fantastic in the water.  Poor sighting by me near the start meant that I went off to the right, very (VERY) wide of the first buoy, covering a fair bit of extra distance in the process (and you don’t get rewarded for this; Sportstats divides your total time by 750 m regardless of how far you might decide to swim that day). I knew things were less than ideal when, on breathing to the right, I saw a) no other swimmers (who had previously been there) and b) a race volunteer in a kayak gesturing me to TURN! Not the start I was hoping for. But, there is an upside to this. I gained a ton of confidence as I swam hard when I realized I was off course.  Less than two years ago, this mistake would have sent me into a panic, possibly tossing my swim cap in the air as a signal to the kayaker to come to my rescue. Now (although annoyed at myself), I’m confident enough to carry on, picking up the pace to  catch-up to other green swim caps and even some red caps from the previous wave start. I won’t lie, I noticed the extra effort when I finally stood up in shallow water and my run up to T1 was more like a fast jog. Given all of this, I was quite shocked coming in to T1 to see that most of the bikes in my age-group were still on the rack. My swim was 4th (of 17) fastest in my age group.

T1: 1:29. Thanks to a Google search (“tips for triathlon in the rain”) the previous night, I had my bike shoes under a plastic bag to keep them dry (although it hadn’t yet started to rain) and, in my haste to retrieve my bike shoes (I am not yet at the shoes-pre-clipped-on-bike stage), I didn’t replace said plastic bag over my running shoes. See T2 for how this turns out…

Bike: 48:53 (30.7 kph). I am happy with this given a) I had never been on the course, but had heard that the “relatively flat” 25 km course has some short/steep hills in the last few km, b) the WIND, and c) the RAIN! Oh and I especially liked how the hilly section and the rain started at the SAME TIME (at least for me, given where I was on the course at that time)! Before this race, I had never biked in the rain. Not even a drizzle, let alone a downpour…and did I mention the wind?  It is a funny feeling being tipped at an angle where the ground is coming up to meet you…now I know (one of many reasons) why Coach Mark puts “core/strength” training in my schedule. If I ever feel like skipping these exercises, I will remember the effort to keep my bike upright using a strong core. Phew.

I was grateful for my photochromic (sun)glasses (shout out to Sara Purcell for “making” me buy these at the Ottawa Race Weekend expo!) that change with the light conditions. If only they had little tiny wipers on them as when that rain pelted down I was b-l-i-n-d and speeding down a hill. There is an upside to this. Any impending fatigue was overshadowed by a rush of adrenaline that carried me back to transition. I want to send a special shout out to the guy in the Pearl Izumi jersey. I focused on him (PI, as I was referring to him in my head) and we traded up places on and off over 25 km until we eventually parted ways on the run.

T2: 1:44. S-l-o-w. Soggy running shoes. Ugh. Apparently, the plastic bag only works if it is covering your shoes. Ugh.

Run: 32:40 (5:07/k). At first, I was really disappointed in my run (during the race I eventually stopped looking at my watch and just ran, remembering the workouts where I’d practiced running based on feel, not the numbers). I knew my effort on the bike had been hard in order to stay over 30kph in those conditions and maybe I was paying a bit for that, but I also under-estimated how much a wet, slippery trail run would slow things down (my 4:45/k pace was nowhere to be found today). Single file at times was kind of fun (I was running with a line of 4 or 5 guys and thinking how we were all choosing to spend our Sunday morning like this..la de da..losing focus!) but I quickly snapped out of it and realized that precious time was ticking by as I was stuck on this s-l-o-w trail.

There was a turn around (not a true turn-around as it wasn’t an out and back course) at one point and I started counting women coming towards me (i.e. ahead of me, if they were in my age group/wave start). Since age is written on the back of the calf, I couldn’t tell who, of the oncoming athletes, was in my age-group. If I’d been thinking clearly, I should have remembered that the bike rack in T2 had been quite empty when I put my own bike back and I hadn’t been passed by anyone on the run, but these thoughts don’t come easily when I need them to!

I crossed the line in 1:41:37, which was a good 3 minutes slower than I’d hoped, but I knew by how I was feeling (not well, as my friend Wendy Cudmore can attest to!) that I’d pushed hard to the end.

It turns out that only one 40-44 y old woman was ahead of me so I placed 2nd (of 17) in AG, 12th (of 117) woman overall.

As I always tell our kids, “You can’t control the weather, but you can still have fun”. Today was a perfect example of that. Overall, this was a great experience focusing on effort and staying calm when things go wrong (swim) when you have a new experience (rain on the bike), or when the course is slow for other reasons (wet trail/grass/gravel/boardwalk run). I worked hard, learned a lot, and am excited for my next triathlon later in August. Next up, holidays! While on holidays on the east coast, my next race will be the 108th Dartmouth (Nova Scotia) Natal Day 2 mile run and possibly the inaugural 1K BrigaSwim in Halifax Harbour, just for the experience of swimming to George’s Island and back!

Thanks to Coach Mark Linseman for his awesome coaching and encouragement and all of team LPC for the support and fun times in training and racing. As always, thanks to my amazing husband, Glenn Parsons, for all that he does for me every day and to many friends and family members who support me from near and far. Lastly, thanks to the amazing volunteers for braving a not-so-nice weather day and making the inaugural Valens triathlon a truly memorable experience!

Thanks to you for reading.

Cheers,
Lindsay