Kelowna!

I got here yesterday morning, no problems with travel at all. Swam 2k easy at the swim site, put my bike together and relaxed for the rest of the day. Its a very pretty city and I've been holding myself back from wanting to climb all the mountains. I've already eyed the mountain I'm doing after I finish my race on Sunday. Real switchbacks up a real mountain!! This is like a revelation to someone who rides in SW Ontario where people dread the Niagara Escarpment.

Today started with 2-3k open water with James, Tom and Ang with a little activation and start/exit practice. I'm feeling ok in the water, not great but not bad...which I guess is more than I could say for the majority of my summer. The big talk here is whether or not its going to be a wetsuit swim...well based on how it has felt the past two days I'm thinking its going to be wetsuit for the age groupers, and probably non-wetsuit for the elite race. I'm not sure whether or not a wetsuit swim will help me, I'll be one of the stronger age group swimmers so I don't know if it will make a difference. I've gone no wetsuit both swims just in case.

I also rode the bike course this afternoon, there's a significant hill within the first 3k which I knew about. Its about 1500m of steep climbing, but after that the rest of the course looks pretty fast. Technical, but fast. So it suits me very well. The key on the course will be to not blow up on the hill, and smash the rest of the 10k loop as its a slight down hill all the way back to the waterfront.

Ok I just have to tell someone this story. When I was doing the bike course I met up with the elite bike course tour, and I saw a female athlete riding a TT bike. So I asked her if she was racing elite, she said yes. I asked her if she had another bike, she said no. She had absolutely no idea that she was racing a draft-legal race, and that she needed a draft-legal bike. Her response was "This is a triathlon bike, why can't I use it?" I have no idea if she even has an elite card, clearly doesn't have a draft-legal ICC since she doesn't own a road bike (for those of you who don't know, draft-legal elite racing requires an international competition card, certifying that you can finish the swim with the pack, and ride road bikes in a pack without killing everyone). Even if they let her start, she'll have to find a new bike in about 36 hours. So, just like other humans, there are lots of stupid triathletes out there too.


Looking down on Lake Okanagan from the top of the climb