So I know I said I was going to take a couple weeks off racing to get a solid block of training in before Montreal. Races were going well but I wanted to make sure I'm more fit than ever for the Esprit.
Well...half way through last week while everyone else was heading out to beautiful Kelowna for Nationals I got a little anxious and decided I wanted to jump in just one more race before Montreal. Four tri's in a month? Why not!
So after a pretty solid week of training with some strong swims I hit the road once again to the Chatham Bulldog Sprint Triathlon. It's a very grassroots independent race and my sole reason for racing again was to gain the confidence of a solid swim in a race, as my swimming has been a little inconsistent despite the general upward trend.
Turns out that a few fast guys decided to show up this year, and on a super flat fast course in cool conditions I can say with confidence that it was the best drag race the Bulldog has ever seen!
I decided in my swim warmup that my focus would be staying smooth and efficient since I tend to try and power through the first 200m then have trouble getting a smooth rhythm after. So after a quick start I found Josh Seifarth's feet at the back end of a small lead pack. I was swimming fast but comfortable through the first 500. Eventually Josh pulled away and I came out of the water 30-40 seconds down on a pack of three very strong swimmers.
The bike course was awesome with two flat loops through the provincial park on new pavement...definitely one of the fastest courses out there. I was 3rd onto the bike with no one around me after the first 2km. I had no idea how I was riding because rather than my powertap wheel I was rolling Zipp 1080s (thanks to MultiSport Zone), and my Garmin wasn't giving me accurate speeds through the tree cover. I had trouble finding a rhythm over the first lap and thought I was riding pretty poorly but I came through the first 10k under 15 minutes, and found my legs on the second lap was around 43km/h average over the second 10k. I told you it was fast!
I came off the bike in 27:40 (results had me at 29 low including transitions) and hit the run with 2nd and 3rd right with me and Josh about 40 seconds up the road. As I left T2 James told me to stay with Mike Murray to run down Josh. There was tons of support at the race with Coach James and some of his athletes, Gabbi Whitlock and most of her club, and even a surprise appearance from my sponsor Darryl from MSZ.
Turns out Mike was a little too quick for me and dropped me at about 1k (he went on to run 16:40). My legs were pretty trashed at 2k and I started coming up with the excuses...all the racing I've done lately...maybe it would be ok to slow down just a bit...no one's close enough to run me down. But I managed to shut the little voices out and test my run fitness. I felt good at the turnaround and really pushed myself to find the stride I'm capable of.
At about 15k into the bike I checked my watch and saw that it was going to be really close to try and break an hour for the first time. I started the run knowing that if I ran well I could do it. At 4k I was at 57:00 so it was going to be tough...but still possible. I kept focused and felt strong and went for it. I ended up stopping the clock at 1:00:07, just a few seconds off 2nd and less than a minute down from the winner, with a PB 17:31 5k. We managed to make it quite the race for top 3.
I was happy with my effort and took some big positives out of the race. Swam with a good front pack for most of the swim (and felt RELAXED), rode well despite some fatigue and PB'd the run. I'll take 3rd, knowing I'm going in the right direction and just a few seconds off some strong athletes.
So now I'm REALLY going to take a couple weeks off racing to focus on getting those 7 seconds back and gun for sub-2:00 in Montreal. Thanks to everyone who came out to support (especially my road trip buddy) and making another fun race in a great season!
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