Provincials

Photos courtesy of Craig Taylor, supporter and coach extraordinaire.

Over the past six days I've travelled 23 hours and raced twice, but I felt great for my race today. Draft-legal provincial championships was supposed to be an A-race for me this year, but given my injury troubles from late-June to mid-July it simply became a race to gain some valuable experience in a drafting format against some of the best young athletes in Canada.

My swim training has really been limited over the past six weeks so my plan for the race was to swim my own pace and get out of the water feeling good to throw it down on the bike in hopes of catching someone, then have a decent run. I did my best not to get annihilated through the first 300 meters but I got knocked around quite a bit until I found some friendly feet to sit on. I exited the water about two minutes down of the lead group...a little disappointing but I was feeling fresh and ready to hit the bike hard.

I buried myself through the first 3k on the bike and managed to catch a couple juniors. I immediately started my barking orders but we quickly dropped one rider and were stuck trying to chase with some limited firepower. I thought second chase pack was in our sights, but with the main packs working together with 5-10 strong guys we didn't have much of a chance to make up time. I went through a few more stragglers who couldn't hang on to do any work, and unfortunately my bike fitness is not quite where I want it and I couldn't put time into the larger groups up the road.

By 10k there were two main packs well up the road from us, so I focused on riding smart and holding back a bit for the run...a nice aspect of draft legal! I led our little group of three or four into T2 and dropped them through transition. I focused on running relaxed and staying light on my feet, and to my surprise my body agreed with me today. I made up a few more places through the run and ended up with a 17:46 5k. In a perfect world I would have liked to see a slightly faster run but it's my best so far this year so I can't complain with that in my first drafting race.

Overall I was happy with how things went today. My tactics were good (or as good as they can be when riding mainly solo) and I executed well given my fitness. Two solid efforts in two weeks after 3 months of frustration...I can't complain. Back to the grinding stone for a couple weeks to hammer out some speed in the water then off to nationals.

Bala Race Report

My season finally got rolling again this weekend with the Bala Falls tri, or the start of a new season as I like to think of it. After six weeks of physio, rehab and a reset on my attitude I was genuinely excited to race for the first time this year.

So I had one last stop at physio on Friday to tape up my back and off I went to "The Cranberry Capital of Ontario" (I didn't see any cranberries) for one of the classic small-town races in the province. Just like St. Croix I was inundated with hospitality; I stayed in a cottage that was bigger than my house, was treated to some good food and wine, and I have decided that jet skiing is an integral part of my pre-race routine.

I drove the race course the night before to check things out and I figured it was going to suit me pretty well (I was wrong). I was going a little retro this time...no wetsuit, road bike setup...because this was simply a test and a tune up for draft-legal provincials next weekend.

On race morning the water temperature was measured at 75 degrees (cut-off for wetsuits is generally 78 for age-groupers, 76 for elites) but I decided I would go non-wetsuit since I've never done a race without one. There were a couple very strong swimmers at the race and I was in 4th position in a nice little pace line through 400m, until the guy just ahead of me decided that 400m was enough and completely stopped swimming. That type of thing may happen in the middle of the pack at these races...but I was a little surprised that someone in a paceline holding ~1:25's would do that. Unfortunately I couldn't bridge the gap after being forced to swim over the guy so I took the rest of the swim pretty easy and focused on feeling good coming out of the water.

I was 6th onto the bike and made up a couple places in the first 5k. As a prep for next weekend's sprint I went very hard from the start of the bike up to 20k, but I paid for that for the rest of the race. The course was constant long steady hills which I thought would be in my favour on a road bike, but they weren't steep enough or technical enough to really be better off than the guys on tri bikes. I could tell I wasn't as fit as I'd like to be, but I limited my losses and was off the bike 5th. I saw the leaders coming off the bike and I could see they were not runners so I was feeling good with my position.

By the first k I was in 3rd and I could see 1st and 2nd up the road. The leader off the bike was 4 minutes up when I started running and I made up 3 minutes through 3km, but 2nd place had come off the bike just ahead of me and we were running the exact same pace. Unfortunately I really started to feel my lack of race fitness around 5k with the very difficult run course. At every turn around I could see that I was putting time into the leader, and I could tell 2nd place was a strong runner but I had him locked in at about 100 meters up the road. My plan was to bridge up with about 1k to go and make a move on the last hill, but my lack of hard efforts in training lately showed on the uphills (there were about a million of them) as my legs were cramping whenever I tried to dig. I had to settle for 3rd about 20 seconds back of the leaders...but we all were beaten by Martin Rydlo in the second wave.

So 4th. Not bad all things considered, and I enjoyed racing for the first time this year. I haven't lost too much fitness over the last month, just felt a little rusty out there. Hopefully I can get some feel back in the water this week, and with a good effort on a very challenging course yesterday I should be ready to rock in Ottawa this weekend. I probably went too hard on the first half of the bike and run, but considering my race strategy for provincials is "race to the brink of death", that's probably not a bad thing.

I won't be where I had hoped in the swim but the plan is to annihilate myself on the bike until I bridge up to a group, then run a PB 5k off the bike. I can't wait!

Dear Triathlon Canada,

There must be some sort of mistake. The start list for the Kelowna ITU Pan Am Cup (ie. Canadian Elite/U23 Nationals Champs) was released this morning (here), and in between such athletes as Brent McMahon, Kyle Jones and Simon Whitfield, there is some poser named Ryan Power.


What the F*** am I getting myself into?!? I still haven't learned how to swim!

...maybe I can apply for an exemption to wear paddles and fins, on the basis of inexorable suckyness.

Green Light

Spondylolisthesis:
-anterior displacement of the vertebrae in relation to vertebral column, caused by stress injury or degeneration
-an awesome combination of a stress fracture and a slipped disc...I like to think of it as the Transformers of injuries
-the underlying cause of my reduced training and lack of racing over the past month, and what I'm referring to when I talk about my gimp back

So it's a funny sounding injury that I have, which unfortunately flares up from time to time when my training volume or intensity increases. It's something I've had to accept and deal with over the past two years, and will continue to do so if I want to keep racing.

Some minor muscle imbalances on the bike and poor swim form has caused it to flare up a couple times this year, but after a month of base training and no races I finally have the green light to hit the start line. Just in time for Elite/U23 Provincials and Kelowna ITU.

My patience has been tested the past few weeks but this week I finally got to test my legs instead...and it went well. Test #1 was an open water swim then brick into 2x20min intervals on the bike, and averaged 38.2 and 37.8 at tempo effort. Today was some brick intervals for test #2, and with a little help from motor pacing I did 2x 5k bike/1k run in 9:35 and 9:12. Fun stuff!

Unless something goes terribly wrong this week I'm going to race Multisport Canada's Bala Falls tri next weekend, and will enter my first elite race in Ottawa on the 31st. And despite the speed bumps lately things are still looking good for my A-races in Kelowna and Puerto Vallarta.

The Bright Side of Rehab

Visit to my physio confirmed that things are progressing in terms of muscle imbalances. I still have a lot of work to do to get healthy in the pool, namely a ton of backstroke to become a more balanced, therefore fitter, swimmer. I'm realizing it's not as simple as just jumping into 20k swimming weeks in an attempt to race ITU...with absolutely no swim background. Feeling pretty good on the bike and I finally get to - gently - test things out on the run. I was getting desperate to run fast for the first time in a month and the legs felt good.

But for now the weekly training hours are pretty low. It's a good thing I have become an expert at the art of post-workout laziness...uhh I mean recovery (as outlined Pt 1 and 2). The best part about rehab is sitting my bottom in front of the TV for hours at a time. I get to watch Canadian Ryder Hesjedal work his way up to 3rd in the Tour, and I can spend my mornings with Canada's greatest TV personality, Jay Onrait:

Quote of the Month

Ok this story is a little dorky for typical blogging material, but FF to 1:35 into the video for my favourite triathlon quote of the 2010 season.

In other news...there really is no news. I'm still stuck spending more time watching Le Tour while doing prehab than actually training (at least it's very cool to have a Canadian 4th on GC!). It's getting a little frustrating with some of my big races for the season on the horizon and being limited in training for three weeks now. I'm feeling strong on the bike again, runs are coming along but swims are still very inconsistent. Some days its just a no-go when I get in the water. Which is not a good thing when I'm trying to race ITU.

I have another visit to my physio tomorrow to get a better idea of how things are progressing, and hopefully figure out how to get back into training and racing. But when it comes down to it I am more concerned with getting healthy and getting back to feeling good - physically and mentally - in training. Even if it means having to take a few steps back and reconsidering my races this season.

Limiting Losses

A theme I'm sharing with a few of the Tour favourites after today's prologue. It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I'm still in rehab mode and getting a little impatient given that it's the mid-season and I'm restricted to base mileage and haven't gotten the green light to race. But I'm making the best of my training and worrying about what I can control - not doing anything stupid and really put myself in a hole.

Today was my first little test of how things are feeling with the LPC Training Day. 4hour workout with a main set of 2x ~300m swim/11k bike/2.6k run on the Loaring Tri course, with my focus being to push the first ~2mins of each leg then shut things down. It felt great to run fast for the first time in a few weeks (maybe a little too fast), but overall I feel that I'm not yet ready to hit the start line despite getting very anxious to race again. Step one is getting the mileage back up in the pool.

My plan is still to race elite provincials on the 31st as one of my key events for the year, and I'm hoping to sneak in a small race before then. But for now I'm forcing myself to hold off for a little more rehab, and then get a few hard yard sessions in before racing again. I hold myself to very high standards in racing - not always a good thing - and I'm not satisfied with my fitness even if I was feeling 100%.

Seems like a bit of mid-season chaos, but I've had a good early season of training, and I'm taking all this as an opportunity address all my weaknesses. And I still have all my big races ahead of me.