I couldn't have been happier with my race in Knoxville to start my season, and after recovering well from the race I put in a few good weeks of training in preparation for some shorter and faster races through the middle part of my season. I had posted some solid bike workouts and I was looking forward to seeing what I could do in Welland, which is just about the flattest bike course out there.
Swim: 11:10 (1:30/100m)
The sprint event in Welland is a time trial start, something I've done once before in Bracebridge a few years ago. Some people love the TT start, I guess I'm pretty impartial as it means racing through a steady stream of athletes through the first half of the race.
The one advantage of a TT start is not having to start as fast as a mass start race, but I kind of threw that out the window right away and took it out hard...I guess out of habit. The 750m went by really quickly and while it wasn't my best swim I felt better than in Knoxville and I'm alright with my time. I think I have to accept that if I'm focusing on long course racing without the luxury of training full-time, I can't expect to be PB'ing every swim and still see steady gains on my bike and run fitness. Regardless, I had a not-bad swim and was set up well to push the bike.
Bike: 44:16 (40.7km/h)
After a quick T1 I was steadily moving past athletes who started ahead of me, and by 4-5k into the bike I had settled into a good rhythm and knew I was riding pretty well. We were heading into a pretty good headwind on the way out but I managed to keep my average speed at 39km/h at the 15k turnaround. At that point there were only 4-5 athletes ahead of me despite starting in 57th position.
Once I made the turnaround I was pushing my biggest gear most of the way back and felt strong with my average speed slowly creeping up. Its been a long time since I've felt that good on the bike in a race and I was riding with a lot of confidence. I had a lot of fun on the bike course but unfortunately I got stuck behind cars on the way out of, and back into town. After getting my average speed close to 41km/h near the end of the bike I got stuck behind a couple cars and had to come to a complete stop as they made their way through a stop sign, not wanting to risk going around them and getting DQ'd.
It was really tough to keep my frustration in check given how well I was riding but I knew that nothing positive would come from dwelling on it. Its a reality of local races with open roads. Fortunately my little slow down didn't affect the end result at all, but I was agonizingly close to grabbing the top bike split from pro Wolfgang Guembel. But if that's the only minor complaint I have with my race, I guess it went pretty well! I ended up with my fastest bike split ever, a nice confidence boost moving forward.
Run: 28:47 (3:51/km)
I was 4th onto the run course and by that time the race was totally spread out with the varying start times. I felt pretty good despite pushing the bike but I had no idea what my position was relative to the three athletes ahead of me who had all started quite a bit earlier.
Not much happened on the run besides a good amount of suffering, and I ended up in 3rd with the 3rd best run split (behind the two who beat me). I felt pretty good and I'm confident that I ran faster than my half ironman pace, and after spinning over the run course the next day it looks like the course was 300-400m long. Regardless it was a fun race and I was really happy with the result and how I felt throughout. I'm looking forward to continuing to build on my fitness and see what I can do for the rest of the season!
Race Report #2!
After finishing my race it was time to change roles and become support crew/gear sherpa for Amanda's race the following morning. Having experienced a whole lot of ups, downs, blowups and gear malfunctions in my long course racing, I tried to give her some words of advice and encouragement, but the great thing about long course is that ultimately the only way to get to that finish line is to go through all of that yourself and find the mental strength to come out the other side. I know that Amanda is not one to write up race reports but having seen her put so much time and effort into her preparation for this race, I feel like talking about it on her behalf!
So after some nerves (mostly mine!) the gun went off in her race and off she went, along with a few LPC teammates! I managed to catch her swim start and - unique to Welland's course - again about 1500m in thanks to the swim course going under a bridge before turning around and finishing. Her plan was to stay relaxed and swim comfortably and she nailed it. I barely managed to see her get on her bike after a fast transition and away she went for a fast 90k.
I had expected her to ride around 2:40 (a conservative effort for her), so when 2:45 rolled around and I still didn't see her I started to think that something happened out there. Turns out she took a page from my book and flatted around 37k. Luckily for her, our friend Jason was racing in the swim-bike event and he just happened to be only a couple minutes behind her at that point and helped her fix it. I know far too well how much it SUCKS to flat in a big race and I know that she was really bummed because without the flat she was right on her target wattage and well under her target time. I did my best to give her a quick pep talk on a short out-and-back at the start of the run and told her to forget about it and take the run 1km at a time.
Unfortunately her bad luck wasn't done, and around 7k of running right on goal pace she tripped on some loose gravel on the run course and took a big spill and had to tough out an extra long 22km run course! But through all of that adversity she made it through and got to the finish in a very respectable time despite everything. I know that she was disappointed with how everything unfolded, and for good reason considering everything that went wrong, but I'm confident that she will take a ton away from this race and she's going to be strong for the rest of this season! We've both bottled up lots of motivation to tackle this race again next year and take some serious time off our previous results there.
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