Ever since this event last year I had been looking forward to doing it again, another year stronger and especially after last week's little confidence boost in winning Bala. But there are so many variables in draft legal racing that I was just looking forward to mixing it up and putting in a solid effort.
After an absurdly long drive I got to the race site the day before to find that I wouldn't be able to get a pre-race swim in due to dangerously high levels of e.coli in the water. But it was made pretty clear at the pre-race briefing that we were swimming regardless of the risk. I don't mean to knock the race staff too much because they do work very hard to put this race on for developing/elite athletes. But it was a little disconcerting.
Race morning came around and everything felt pretty good in my warmup. I really wasn't nervous at all before the race, actually I was much more nervous last week for Bala. Everything felt routine and I was just ready to go.
Since I was one of only a few elite/U23's in comparison to the large number of juniors I had a good starting number and had a good position on the start line. But within literally the first second of the race I experienced the first of many times I got "Wiltshire'd".
As the gun went off the athlete behind me - rather than even attempting a swimming motion - grabbed my ankle with both hands and pulled me backwards. As I attempted to retake my position I was intentionally kicked by two more people. How do I know it was intentional? Well most swimmers don't kick with their heels in a normal swim stroke.
I did my best not to let it bother me and just tried to make up ground a little at a time, but I was absolutely disgusted by what went down in that swim. Many of the 40+ juniors were in their first draft-legal race. Maybe it was just some inexperienced/over-excited juniors, I call it blatant lack of respect and sportsmanship and it has no place in this sport, and I wish I had seen their names.
Anyway.
I'll admit that despite trying to shake all that off, I simply didn't have a good swim. Last year my swims were consistently bad. This year I'm just inconsistent...I guess I'll take it.
I was well back exiting the swim and made up 4 or 5 places on the 500m run up to T1. I was in no man's land getting on the bike with a few solo guys ahead of me, a line of stragglers behind me and a 5-6 man pack 1:10 up the road. I rode through another 3 or 4 guys by 2k in and realized that this far back in the race I wouldn't have anyone to work with on the bike. Chase 3 was barely in sight but it was either sit up and wait for a weak pack, or ride myself blind and see if I could put a minute into a 6-man group on my own.
At the first turnaround (5k) I knew at that effort (I averaged close to 45km/h to that point) I would either have to catch them soon or I would completely blow up less than 20 minutes into my race. The next 5k was just staying focused while I was riding at max effort until I finally bridged up on a small hill at 10k. We made a group of about 7 guys and for the last lap I just tried to recover enough to not be useless on my pulls, although the pace of the group was not very hot.
Lead the group into T2 and my legs actually felt pretty decent. But within 50m of the run I had to try to hold back throwing up. By 100m I had to completely stop and emptied my stomach on the side of the run course while my pack ran by. I had swallowed quite a bit of water (and ecoli) in the rough swim and with my effort on the bike my stomach gave in.
I couldn't move or breath for about 2 minutes while I was throwing up...and had to make the decision to either walk 100 meters back to transition and mope that my race at Provincials was done, or suffer through the run while everyone was passing me. Not much of a decision there.
Once I got rolling again I saw James who clearly was wondering why I was 2 minutes behind the group I lead into transition and I told him "I puked up all my breaky!". He told me just to focus on an even split and push through. A few hundred meters later I saw Craig Taylor who must have seen that I was suffering (or just felt bad that I was so far behind) and said "Be tough Ryan". Exactly what I needed to hear.
I was desperate to get some water in me after all that so I was just trying to survive to the aid station. And just my luck, no one could be bothered to set up the aid station for our race. Oh well, time to soldier on. I managed to get my legs moving a bit just before the turnaround, but about a minute later I had to pull over again and purged the rest of the ecoli I ingested earlier. Got going again, and started to find my legs through the cramps and heaving.
I finally crossed the finish line, 5+ minutes back of where I wanted to be, and managed to throw up one more time before finally finding some water. Turns out that - not counting the time that I spent on the side of the road puking - I ran about an 18:45 5k.
Old Ryan would be pretty pissed off about all that. But I'm actually ok with it. That was probably the toughest race I've endured...worst swim start I've ever been in, solo for most of the bike, sick on the run. But I sucked it up and did what had to be done. No excuses.
I vaguely recall mentioning that this was going to be brief. Sorry.
So with that little kick in the ass and a wake-up call that I'm still nowhere near where I need to be to find any success in draft-legal racing, I'm going to get reacquainted with my tri bike. Next up is the Tecumseh triathlon, then maybe a small tune-up in late August before the Esprit tri in Montreal. I'm hoping to find a good Olympic non-drafting race to finish off the year, but the verdict is still out on that.
If you're still reading I just want to share one more thing. My support crew from Bala!
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