Yeah... I'm lazy. Big shock. So, here is a race report from the Guelph Sprint I did over a week ago. Guelph is an awesome place to race a triathlon - very nice for both athletes and spectators, with a huge grass transition area, and lots of picnic tables for setting up a good home base. My future wife and in-laws were originally going to attend this one to cheer me on (it's only about an hour's drive for us), but my father-in-law just had a knee replacement and can't really get around too well yet. So I was flying solo for this one, as usual. No biggie, I'm used to it. I didn't really have a specific plan for this race... I was mainly looking to gage my fitness, and see what kind of improvement I had made (if any). I was hoping to see some improvement in my transition times, and I guess I was looking to have a good swim. Now, "good" is relative, of course, given that I'm really not that fast in the water... but sometimes I still have trouble in a crowd, so I knew this would be good practice for my mental game. First, though, we had to wait and see if it would stop raining and the lightning threat would diminish. It stopped a little before race time, so we were good to go. The swim (750m): Thus far in my brief triathlon career, I have been taking my time getting into the water at the start... I'm usually content to let the faster guys sprint out while I calmly (read: slowly) make my way into the water. This time wasn't really all that different, but I had more of a jog/saunter thing going on, which - believe me - is a big improvement. So off we went - wave #2, wearing our white caps. "White caps making whitecaps," I thought, as a churned away in the water somewhere in the middle of the pack. For some reason, this struck me as absolutely hilarious and I started laughing as I swam. As I laughed with my face under the water, the sound it made reminded me of an episode of Family Guy, and the sound Stewie made when he was learning to swim and saw a band-aid at the bottom of the pool. This made me laugh even harder. Unfortunately this didn't really help my efficiency in the water, and I had to force myself to focus. I actually passed quite a few people from the wave before, which made me feel good. This race has a long, uphill run to the transition once you're out of the water, and your swim time doesn't cut off until you're actually at the entrance to T1. Result = 16:06 (2:09/100m) for 750m of swimming and a long run. I don't know what my actual "swim only" time was since I opted not to wear my watch, but I'm happy with that result. T1 After the long run out of the water, I had my wetsuit half removed and continued across the mat into the transition area. As I was running, my wetsuit zipper got caught on my cycling shirt that I was already wearing. I was almost to my bike and it was still caught, but luckily one final yank managed to tear it loose. Off with the wetsuit, on with the helmet, glasses, race number, and shoes. Grab the bike and off I go. Result = 1:45... perhaps slow by some standards, but my best ever with a wetsuit involved. It was my first time ever wearing a tri top under the suit... it helped a lot and definitely kept me under two minutes. The Bike (19km): Kind of a weird number for a biking distance, but apparently this course used to be 20k. One year because of construction it was reduced to 19 and hasn't been changed back since then. I felt fairly strong on the ride. There aren't really any steep hills, just mostly rollers. The worst part was probably the crappy condition of the pavement... quite bumpy and more than a little uncomfortable at times. I didn't want to hammer the bike, but I wanted to keep up a relatively constant speed and a high cadence as much as I could. It worked most of the time, and I finished strong and ended up with my best showing so far, although I just missed out (by 9 seconds) on a goal of an average speed 30km/h. Result = 38:09 (29.9 km/h) T2 Uneventful transition. Decided to go with socks for the 5k run. Didn't have any trouble putting them on, and T2 was 1:12... also a personal best (when putting socks on!). The Run (5k): Felt terrible for almost the whole thing. My stomach felt really full the whole time and I was cramping like crazy. The only possible reason I can figure is that I drank too much on the bike for such a short ride. Then I decided to make matters worse by taking some water at the first aid station. Mistake! I ran the rest without drinking anything more, and I slowly started to feel better. I remembered having to pee back when the swim was getting ready to go, but I got some serious stage fright and couldn't make it happen... even while standing out in the lake before the start. Maybe a full bladder had something to do with it, I don't know. I got passed by a ton of people of all ages, and just tried to hang on as best I could, finally making it to the finish. Result = 27:18 (5:28 per km) Overall result = 1:24:28; 201/506 overall, 37/55 age group. What I learned:
- need to adjust amount of liquid consumed for distance of race and that day's temp.
- my transitions have improved, and I look forward to making them even better... it's an easy way to gain positions.
Next up -- a report on the Lisa Bentley Muskoka 70.3 training camp.
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