The day before this year’s Guelph Lake 2 sprint triathlon (750m swim, 30K bike, 7K run) was our son’s 5th birthday, which we celebrated with a trip to the movies followed by homemade pizza, birthday cake and presents at home with friends. It was a busy fun-filled day of dragons, Chima, Pokemon and StarWars that took my mind off the race, which is always a good thing!

Part way through the birthday festivities, the news came through Facebook and Twitter that, due to high E. coli counts in Guelph Lake, the swim had to be moved from the main beach to the pit, or camper’s beach. A huge shout out to the Subaru Triathlon Series organizers for relocating the race and revamping the bike and run course, transition area, and finish line on short notice – a truly impressive and amazing job! Another shout out to Mother Nature for giving us no rain and manageable winds, although some high humidity and heat!

I got to the new race site early so I could check out the transition area, swim/run exit, bike mount/dismount, etc. I was the first to rack my bike in the 40-44 y group, but somehow I didn’t choose the best spot. I realized, too late, that I would have further to run with my bike, and this part was already long enough!

I had a good warm-up, taking my bike out through the park so I could see what the new route was like with speed bumps, etc. I also checked out the start of the run course, since it seemed to be a maze of orange pylons but really it was pretty straightforward. I then put on my wetsuit and did my swim warm-up. During this, I realized I’d forgotten to have my usual pre-start gel! Luckily, with the swim so close to the transition area, I easily resolved this issue and seeing as my wave start was at 9:12am it was maybe a good thing that I’d consumed the gel a bit later.

Swim: If I’m disappointed in anything today, it is with my swim, but that’s par for the course this season. I thought I swam quite a good line (for me) keeping tight to the buoys, and I was working hard effort-wise, but my time was slower than I’d hoped. I can’t blame the slow time (15:42 on SportStats or 2:06/100m) on the “run up” as this re-vamped course really had no “run up”; it was the shortest run ever to the mat that marks the end of the swim/start of T1. In hindsight, I think two things went wrong: 1) I started too fast. I’m sure Coach Mark is not surprised by this! Somehow on the beach with all my nervous energy I get it in my head that THIS TIME I can swim fast, in the front. This is just not true, but I fall for it every time. I can, however, swim faster than 2:06/100m so it is frustrating and something to work on.  2) I stood up too early. I’ve gotten good (not today) at swimming in as far as possible but today I just couldn’t wait to stand up (my gasping for oxygen may have had something to do with it) and I did it too early, before I could run in the water. I don’t wear a watch in the water so I had no idea of my time at this point, which is likely a good thing as I’d worked hard and that’s all I could do. I was, however, disappointed when I saw my swim split after the race, but I am more determined than ever to figure this out and to come back better in the water next year!

T1: 1:36: I was at my bike before I knew it. The long part of T1 was running with my bike up (UP!) a hill to the mat that marked the start of the bike, but then more running up (UP!) to the bike mount line. I remembered to start my bike split at the mat and not when I mounted the bike…that way I would be more in-tune with what SportStats would tell me. I regret this now, as I’d like to see my actual bike pace without the run up/down to the mat pushing my bike. Anyway, obviously I’m obsessed with numbers, but you knew that already 🙂

Bike: My best bike in a race yet! For the first time in a race, I used my aero bars as much as I could, even with others close beside me. I think the best part of this was that I was much more comfortable and had no soreness in my back during the bike. I also improved my nutrition on the bike with more drinking and a gel at 20K. With more of the bike course being in the park than usual, the buzz seemed to be that the bike would be slow getting in/out of the park due to the speed bumps, etc. I averaged ~ 31.5 kph for the 30km bike course but this dropped down to 30.9 (and YES that 0.1 is bothering me..I like numbers remember!) with the run down hill (pushing my bike) to the mat.

T2: 1:07: Slow. I got my bike racked, shoes changed, helmet off and then, wait for it…I grabbed my bike again…while my arms were reaching for my bike, one part of my brain was saying “this doesn’t seem right…”..luckily I realized, dropped my bike (gently) back on the rack and took off towards the mat, vaguely wondering what caused that mental lapse…low blood glucose? the head cold I’d had for 2 days now? early Alzheimer’s? Jeez.

Run: 33:26 (4:47/k): I knew that the revamped 7K course would be more or less the same as the original course and anticipated that it would include more of the trail section in the middle, which it did. I started out a bit slow, averaging 4:55/k for the first 3K partly due to the rolling hills and trail and partly just getting my legs going. At the turn around pylon, I figured we couldn’t be simply retracing our steps, as the math wasn’t working out. Sure enough, there was a loop in the campground on the return trip. I found this loop the hardest with the sun/heat and the mental aspect given that I hadn’t really been expecting it, but once I got that done and started up the incline back towards the finish, I felt better and my last 4K were faster overall, giving me a nice negative split run and hitting my overall goal pace. I found it helpful to repeat what Coach Mark had told me, “trust your fitness” over and over in my head and I even passed someone in my AG in the last 500 m, which gave me a boost to hold a strong pace through to the finish line, which came up more quickly than I’d expected as the course was ~100m short by my Garmin. I still need to work on getting to my run pace faster, but given I’d had my best bike I was happy with my run off the bike today, especially as last year’s run pace at Guelph Lake 2 was 5:07/k so I knocked 20 sec/k off my pace.

My time was 1:50:05, which is 6 min faster than last year (although the course was not quite the same) and just a bit faster than my goal time from Coach Mark (1:50:45). He’s pretty amazing at race predictions/goals, eh?

This was my 5th race of the season, including the Milton try-a-tri in early June followed by 4 sprint (of somewhat varying distances) triathlons: Guelph Lake 1, Valens, Orillia and Guelph Lake 2. Although I executed my race plan and had a solid race, Guelph 2 was my only race this season where I wasn’t on the podium. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed (who doesn’t like a shiny medal?), but of course you can’t control who shows up on race day (thanks Coach Mark!). There were some amazing athletes in my AG, including the overall 1st place woman!

Overall, I finished 6th (of 26) in my AG and 19th (of 158) female overall. It was a fantastic last race of the season and I am super excited for 2015!

As always, the biggest thank yous go to my husband Glenn and kids for putting up with my adventures in triathlon!

and to Coach Mark Linseman for his awesome training plans and support throughout the season, as well as all of team LPC for the fun group training sessions! Of course, lots of thanks to all the volunteers and race organizers for making the 2014 version of Guelph Lake 2 a great experience!

Looking forward to training hard in preparation for next season!

Thanks to you for reading!

Cheers,
Lindsay