It was a "get the job done" kind of day at Multisport Canada's season opener in Woodstock this past weekend. Nothing out of this world, in fact I know I have a lot more in me. But I got exactly what I needed out of this race and it was an all-around awesome day.
This year is a pretty substantial departure from my racing plans over the past several seasons. After Louisville last year I decided to spend a year staying a little closer to home and getting back to my roots racing the Multisport Canada series. So that meant not only a very different approach in training with a lot more hard yards and a lot less long training days, but it also presented a very different yet exciting challenge for the season. I'm chasing points in the MSC Elite series, which means putting together at least four solid results throughout the season to be in the running for the prize purse at the end of the year. Quite honestly I've always admired the journeyman career of the "average" ITU or WTC pro travelling and chasing points for a living, so this year is my very small and humble taste of a similar goal.
That being said, I've planned my season around some key races that feature higher points and courses that suit my strengths to challenge for a top-5 in the overall series. And first up was the season opener in Woodstock. I was actually a bit wary of choosing Woodstock as one of my races; it typically brings out a number of strong athletes kicking off their year and I wasn't sure how I'd fare against some seriously speedy dudes. But as the season opener it also carries some bonus points so my goal was simply a top-5 overall placing to ensure that I started the year off with a decent number of points banked. And after some surprising early season fitness tests that included a big 10k PB of 34:18, a best-ever time trial at LPC TT#1 and a couple solid CX results, I was cautiously optimistic about how I'd stack up in Woodstock.
I could sum up my race simply by saying that after the first ten seconds, it was an hour of my body doing this:
Despite lining up with a solid elite field I decided to take the swim out a little more relaxed that usual. Those who are long-time readers of this (you ROCK) know that I often struggle to translate my pool fitness to the open water early in the season. This year I've tried to be really diligent with finding my balance and rhythm in my wetsuit, which has been an ongoing and frustrating struggle for me over the years. So at the gun I decided to let the fishies swim away while I focused on trying to stay efficient and not burn myself out too early. It's hard to tell exactly how the swim went as all of our times are on the slow side, but it looks like I was about a minute off the main pack of pro's. Not great, but not bad. A better start to my open water season than the past couple years.
After a good T1 I could just barely see the guys up the road who would eventually make up the top-3. I thought I had a shot at getting up there and I'm confident in where my bike fitness is at right now, but unfortunately my legs had other plans. I couldn't find a rhythm and struggled to push my usual 70.3 wattage, but rather than mope about my power output or dwell on how I felt I knew I had to stay focused with plenty of strong guys not too far behind. The wind was keeping things pretty interesting too! I got off the bike in 7th, a little further back than I had hoped but I still had a good shot at getting my top-5.
Out onto the run it was a similar story, I wasn't feeling all that great and had to fight a lot of negative thoughts. Fortunately it was only 5k so it still went by pretty fast! I managed to reel in one athlete about 2k in, and I knew that if I just held it together I could still move up into 5th. When the top-3 went by coming the other way I was encouraged that they were at least in the same zip code...based on how I felt I thought I'd be going backwards all day but I must have been moving a little better than I thought I was. With about 800m to go I caught 5th and just managed to hang on through the finish.
At the end of the day it wasn't a standout performance but I'm still really happy with the result. I managed to stay focused on a day that I wasn't firing on all cylinders and still picked up 5th in what will likely be one of the most competitive races in Ontario this year outside Nationals. I know my fitness is good, probably the best it's ever been in June, and I think this race will really help kick things into gear for the rest of the season.
In good company with this group, who not only triathlon better than me but are also better at knowing what to do with their hands for the podium shot
The race was made even better by seeing lots of familiar faces and teammates coming out of hibernation to kick off another season. Team LPC brought out a strong contingent of athletes who all threw down big efforts. It was also fun to hang out with a number of my fellow Recharge with Milk Ambassadors, most of whom are long time friends in the sport but there are also some newer faces to the series. As I've said since the first Multisport Canada race I entered in 2007, no other race series has such a strong community feel and sense of camaraderie after the event.
And of course it was an honour to toe the line with a strong field of homegrown pro's who always inspire me to keep pushing myself harder. The legendary Lionel Sanders took the win, and what was even more impressive than his race was the number of pictures he took with people after the race. Having known him and raced him since he got into the sport it's pretty amazing to see how many people he has inspired, and we truly couldn't ask for a better ambassador for our sport.
Next up for me is the new Long Course distance in Welland in a couple weeks. This is a big one in terms of series points and the distance suits me well so its one of my higher priority races this season. I can't wait to check out the new course and race venue at one of my favourite stops on the series schedule. Thanks for following along and stay tuned for the next one!
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