Bike ride to whistler.... longest ride to date!
Early year open water swims at the beautiful sasamat lake!
First mountain climbs including seymour and grouse is one day!
And of course my first half marathon which was a total blast! A gorgeous day! I failed to run a negative split (possibly because the first part is all the downhill) but managed to exceed expectations with speed. I was aiming for 1:45 and managed 1:43! (4:56/km pace) It took me longer to recover from that than I expected, but I ran fast and hard. I've been playing with ice baths for recovery but it hasn't been working too well as I have a slight injury again... femoral anterior hip impingment is the latest. It's a weird injury that causes random pain throughout my upper leg. Working with the awesome people at Dunbar Physio to get that sorted out.The main event of this blog is the shawnigan lake triathlon! What an amazing weekend with amazing people. It was my first road trip race being part of a club and it just made the experience that much cooler. We left on saturday afternoon and took the ferry over to the island. Good banter and fun on the ferry as about 15 of us made it on the same one. Got to the course in lots of time to check in and ride the loop. Made me really pumped up as it was a very fast course. First time I had to check my bike in the night before, I was sad leaving her in transition :P
Had a meal together and more fun at the camp near the race site and got to bed by around 11am. I got up early to have breakfast with my friends doing the half and saw most of the race starts before getting myself sorted for the 9:51 female sprint start.
feeling pretty good to start the race, nerves aside, and shitty weather aside. I got a bit creative and fashioned toe warmers out of socks and electrical tape since the 22 and sunny weather they were calling for turned into 12 and rain. Did a 500m swim warm up since I know my first 500m of swim always sucks.
SWIM - it was a short swim for a sprint, whch i don't really mind because my swim is weak, but I actually posted my faster 500m time ever so I'm pumped. It didn't feel like a good swim... it was really crowded, I've never felt so smothered in the water but I just held my position as well as I could trying not to get run over by other swimmers. My sighting is improving and swimming straight. All those late night swim practises are paying off.
pace 1:47/100m
T1 - Came out of the water feeling pretty good, had a fast T1 which included ripping my wetsuit off thats to tri-slide. Just an incredble product. I was really cold and didn't put my bike shoes on, they were attached to my bike like a boss... unfortunately this is where the race went a bit off plan. The T1 entry onto the course was really crowded and slow. I got knocked around a lot and actually had to wait to get onto my bike. While this happened one of my shoes came loose and the velcro actually came out of the hole. I hopped on my bike and tried to slip my foot into my shoe but it was impossible because of the velcro so I actually had to pull over, rip the shoes off my bike, put them on and clip in. I couldn't get the velcro back in the hole fast enough so I rode with the strap out and shoe undone. All a part of the joys of racing!
BIKE - I was kinda bummed out about the bad start of the bike and figured my race was over, but decided I came all the way out to the island better and it was such a fast course that I better just see what I could do. Bike felt great, course got busy at parts and a few times I got stuck behind cars (Wasn't a closed course) and had to brake at the bottom of a couple hills where I didn't really want to. Asides that I TT'd the whole thing in aero and only got out of my big ring for one climb. I yo-yo'd back and forth with a fast team canada biker and finished strong. Got my shoes off on the bike without a lot of trouble and a fast run back into transition
Official 33.5 kph, but according to my polar which didn't include my stop to fix my shoes I was at 34.4kph
T2 - all good except numb feet (even with my awesome toe covers) meant it was really tough to get my shoes on. Thank god they were race shoes.
RUN - the run started off on a hill which was no good for me. I was in quite a bit of pain due to my hp injury and uphill runs are the worst, so I'm sure the first km was slow. I chugged along high fiving the other UBC tri club members running the other races, didn't stop for any water, actually only drank once the whole race. At the turnaround I realized there were VERY few women infront of me and none of them looked my age, but close behind me there were quite a few so I attempted to pick it up despite the pain. Just past the 1km mark I heard members of my club yelling at me that there was someone right behind me and looked back. Sure enough there was a lady of the same age within 100m and gaining, so I turned on the engines I had left and sprinted for the finish (downhill thank god) and managed to cross 3 seconds before the girl behind me....
I was a minute slower than UBC tri but we will chalk that up to injury
4:46/km
the kicker to this whole race is that is was a world qualifier. Thats why I decided to race the sprint distance. Figured I had a shot because of my result at UBC tri. Set out to win, and in the face of adversity still managed it. Feel pretty over the moon right now. THis means I"ll get to wear a team canada race kit and race in the worlds next year!!!!!
Had a fun trip back, ferry buffet with awesome company to discuss our races. 20 club members total went and I think 10 got on the podium!!
Next race is my first half ironman if my leg holds up...
Stay tuned~!
