Someday this is going to be one of those inspirational "look how far he's come" stories. For now it's another hard lesson learned in a tough season of racing, and I'm left with a taste in my mouth as bitter as the crappy $3 coffee I had at the airport last night. So here's my most detailed race report of the season.
My training leading up to nationals was as good a training block as I have ever put together. I wasn't swimming as well as I had hoped to by this point of the season with my injury problems stemming from swim training, but overall I was happy with my fitness and was confident going into the race. That is, until I hit the deck hard on my last training ride before packing up my bike and getting on the plane. It was just one of those freak accidents that you can't do anything about (which I was well overdue for having never had a serious crash in training), and as per my luck it came three days before the biggest race of my life.
I managed to shred my jersey and shorts, not to mention my entire left side, and there's a chance I've fractured my scaphoid again. But I wasn't prepared to start making excuses so I packed up my bike (a little worse for wear) and showed up to the elite pre-race briefing covered in bandages. I got a few looks and some "I can't believe you are still racing" comments, but I was taking inspiration from a bumper sticker I saw at the Kelowna airport: "Are you gonna COWBOY UP, or just lie there and bleed?"
The weather in Kelowna was beautiful all weekend...that is until 2pm on Sunday when it began pouring, air temperature dropped to about 15 degrees, and very strong winds made the water reminiscent of Vancouver 2008. No worries, time to cowboy up! I warmed up in a wetsuit then immediately dried off and put on pants and a winter jacket while most athletes were shivering as we began lining up. When we were called to the start line I was more focused than I ever have been for a race. I hit the start hard, not letting anyone push me around and had relatively clean water for the opening 250m.
I settled into a decent rhythm around 400m and found some good feet to sit on. Prior to the race James and I had discussed race strategy, and we both noted that fellow Ontario athlete Jonathon McMillan would be a great guy to find in the swim, as we're similarly weak swimmers but very strong riders. As we came through the opening 750m I saw that it was McMillan who I was with: "Perfect, now stay the **** on his feet!"
After another rough and cold 750 (or more...many commented on the bouys moving, and the men's swim times were slower than the women's so something must have happened) we got out of the water - not last! - and I had to battle my hamstrings locking up from the cold swim as we ran into T1. I had a fast transition, relaxed while Jonathon bridged back up and we got to work. We were working well together, riding very hard and seemed to be gaining time on a few riders up the road. The atmosphere of an ITU event with a multiple lap bike was very cool and kept me motivated to keep the hammer down until we could find some more company.
On our third lap I was starting to get through the cramping and was ready to really start making up ground. I was happy to be executing my race strategy very well and was completely focused on our effort. About half way up our third time on Knox hill my focus was broken by a motorbike pulling us off the road, and about a minute later a monster lead group rolled by. Jonathon and I looked at each other wondering what the hell just happened. Despite our hard riding our race was over and we headed back to transition.
It turned out that our swim times were a full 5 minutes slower than what we did at this race last year (despite both being stronger swimmers now than a year ago), and a ton of guys were lapped out by the lead group of 10 or 12 world class athletes. I was disappointed that I couldn't show off my run form but I knew getting lapped out was a possibility and there was nothing I could have done differently. Even though our race ended abruptly I have to give a lot of credit to Jonny Mac on his work out there.
So I went to the med tent and got my various injuries bandaged again, got another "I can't believe you raced like that" comment and left with some valuable experience in the tough world of ITU racing. I really like the draft-legal side of triathlon, but there is absolutely no room for weakness.
I'm taking this week easy in training and unless I find out that I have a fracture in my wrist I'll race Cobourg on Sunday with something to prove on the run course. I'm looking at my options for one more big race this season, right now I'm leaning towards Ironman 70.3 Syracuse.
A few pics of my shortened race:
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