Bracebridge

I'm going to give this one away right at the beginning...this will be my last race report. Not ever, just this season. But more on that later.

Last weekend, after a month of battling inconsistency in training, and seven weeks after finishing my last race, I finally FINALLY got the chance to toe the line again. It was back to beautiful Muskoka for Multisport Canada's Bracebridge event. After watching this one last summer I had been excited all year for this venue. Its a very unique event with a time trial swim winding around the bends of the Muskoka River, then a tough bike course and fast run.

I have never done a time trial start but I was looking forward focusing completely on my own race, especially with it being my first one back and knowing full well it wouldn't be easy. Usually the pros are given the lowest start numbers, and not that I need or deserve special treatment, but it was a bit of a surprise when my registration wasn't found and I was given #290. So I would be starting behind the old ladies and would race through everyone, being sent off 5 seconds at a time.

By the time the leaders were getting out of the water I was just starting my swim warmup. But it was actually nice to take all the pressure off and make the race a 2 hour time trial without worrying about anyone else. And it was also nice to know that Amanda was starting 150 places ahead and based on the time gaps I knew I would go by her at some point.

So I had a nice relaxing start to the race, not having to sprint the first 200. As I worked my way down river then back up I got to see all of the swim strokes of the Balance Point athletes I have come to recognize, thanks to Coach Gabbi having us always swimming loops (ie. through each other) in open water workouts.

I got out with what felt like a good swim, and turns out...it was! 21:54, I think my best open water 1500. And I passed over 100 people in the water. My plan on the bike was to push but not too hard so I had some legs left to run 10k. I continued to work my way through the field, not having any idea how I was doing relative to the leaders who were 30 minutes up the road. Having worked on my position throughout the summer I was really comfortable on the bike but I could tell I didn't have the same power as I'm used to. I like nothing more in training than banking big miles on the bike, and I definitely could feel the lack of miles in my legs. But it was a big motivator to see the bright pink Rudy Project helmet of Amanda up the road, and I tried to give her a few words of encouragement as I rode by (and almost got taken out by a car in the process). I continued to ride smart but ended up with a pretty rough bike split, probably about 5 minutes slower than I would have wanted.

I got off the bike feeling fresh and my legs actually felt pretty good as I went off for my first Olympic run in over a year (it seems to be a distance I neglect a bit). I wanted to start conservative and build to a 36-ish min run. Nothing crazy but I would have been happy with that given the summer I have had. So I locked in at 3:40 pace and the first 5k flew by. As I made the turn back I started to pick it up and surprisingly I had no problem doing so. And then the wheels fell off. At 7k my quads started to cramp up and it would not go away. I tried to loosen up while running (which according to witness accounts looked pretty ridiculous) until I had no choice but to stop and stretch it out. I got going again pretty quickly but that was all the fitness I had to give. I stumbled back in with a slow run but thrilled to actually cross a finish line!

And then it got even worse.

Prior to the race, series director John Salt (a good friend and the best series director in the world) made me promise him that I would see a specialist about my concussion before entering another one of his races. He gave me a name for a good doctor and I begrudginly finally saw a professional about this. Turns out that I am still experiencing post-concussive symptoms, which have gotten worse since racing. Despite trying to be cautious I did not take it seriously enough the first time around and now I'm really paying for it...but I'm going to really do it right this time. No training until further notice. Absolutely no racing any time soon. I shouldn't even be looking at a computer screen for this long...

Its still sinking in that its August and my season is over, and I can't even "take it easy" and hook up with the roadies for the rest of the summer. But part of me knew all along that something has been off this whole time, and its comforting to know that it wasn't just a complete loss of motivation to continue with this sport. As I have said before, a concussion is not like any other injury where you can develop a prognosis or train through it. And it doesn't matter that mine was relatively minor. The symptoms I'm experiencing - headache, dizzyness, and feeling totally spaced out all the time - will simply not go away if I don't take it seriously right now.

So its time for a little couch surfing (not too much TV though) and taking the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and after some decompressing, planning out a fun, long and motivating season next year. I already have some ideas but I'm not going to throw anything out there until I have some real time to take it all in and do it right. I'm tired of losing motivation half way through the summer, half assing race schedules and throwing in events when I'm bored. I want to continue improving and moving up, and continue on my direction in this sport.

Recent Thoughts

I promise I have some updates, but first I want to share something with you:

“The men’s side is a little more bleak to be honest with you”

"There's only going to be one Simon Whitfield ever for the sport of triathlon in this country and we have him "

If you didn't know already, us Canadians had a rough go in the triathlon events in London. It started with Kathy Tremblay crashing out and Paula's sub-par race that became a national catastrophe. It's a really touchy subject so I don't want to get too involved, but here are my brief thoughts. I do not know if Paula was still injured, how her rehab was going, or what was going on with her coaches. I do know that Simon Whitfield, who was admittedly far more personally involved in her result that I, dealt with the situation very poorly by immediately turning to Twitter to place the blame - regardless of how Paula's recovery went. Then TriCan embarrassed themselves in front of the world by calling out Paula as a "terrible patient" in her recovery process.

I also know that Paula forgot to put her helmet on in T1. Like the rest of Canada I felt awful for her as she was crying crossing the finish line. But she was not prepared to race. Whether it was physical or mental, and whatever the underlying reasons may be, she simply did not have the fitness or the mental resolve to get herself together after she missed lead pack. I know how hard it is to know you are racing for 20th place in a draft-legal race, and unfortunately she has never had that feeling before until the Olympics, and she couldn't handle it.

And man, it was tough to see Simon crash. There's no question he is one of my role models in the sport, and to see someone you look up to so much look as stunned as I would watching my bike bounce down the road...knowing exactly what's going through is mind: "there goes my Olympics." That hurts. And then everyone has forgotten that Brent and Kyle were racing too, but were on the wrong end of the split and ran like hell for 25th and 27th place finishes.

But more importantly than all of that, I am sick to my stomach reading Alan Trivett's media comments following both of their races. As the president of Triathlon Canada and essentially Canada's spokesperson for Canadian triathlon at the Olympics, I am insulted that he would put something like that out there. No, I am not on the radar screen for national team talent scouting and I'm not even racing ITU. Hell, I can barely even finish a race this year. But as a Canadian elite athlete it bothers me that they would rather make excuses for their utter lack of talent identification since Simon won in Sydney 12 years ago, than tell us what they are going to do about it. It took this "crisis" for them to realize how focused they have been on one or two athletes, and their response is "you're welcome for Simon, but don't get your hopes up any time soon." How about looking at all the young kids in this country who have been inspired by such a champion? Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Now that I have said enough to possibly be denied my International Competition Card next season...I'll tell you how things have been going for me!

I have been really bad with updating this thing so far this summer. I think part of it has been from my lack of racing and struggle to find consistency in training before trying to consistenly post about my training. But it has been a few weeks since my last post and over a month since my last race so I figured it was time to say something.

The past month has been a struggle in just about every way. I was forced to miss racing in Gravenhurst and essentially let go of any thoughts on winning prize money this year, and since then I have had to do a lot of soul searching to regain any motivation to train or race again this year. I was back to training pretty soon after my spill, but probably a little too soon. Huronia was only two weeks after the Welland half, a race that I put a ton of stock in physically and emotionally. I planned on jumping in Huronia just for the hell of it to try and pick up some series points. Then I desperately wanted to feel good enough to race the next weekend. After that I tried desperately to get "fast" after a few months of gearing up for long course.

That leads to about two weeks ago, when I found myself with absolutely no motivation to get my ass off the couch and train. And when I did force myself out the door, my body would give out 20 minutes into a workout. I was pretty close to packing it in for the season, buying a mountain bike and not looking at pavement for a few months.

Fortunately with some good coaches and support from athletes I took the better part of a week off training and hit the reset button on my attitude. And finally, after a month of contemplation and scattered workouts (and some really good sessions) I am racing this weekend!

(yay!)

Sure it hasn't been the greatest block of training, then again it hasn't been the greatest year of results thus far. But I'm not letting myself fall into the trap of only racing when I think I'm fast enough. Maybe I won't have the best race of my life...but maybe I will. And I'm racing next weekend too. My hip still hasn't healed and the swelling on my elbow still doesn't feel very good on my aerobar pads. But racing is fun, and I do triathlons because they are fun. So I will actually update more than once this month and let everyone know how things are going as I get back on the horse (White Stallion is P3's name actually) and find some more positives in this season. Talk soon!

Is it in my head or just in my head

In my last post on the abrupt...and probably really cool to the old lady on her patio who saw it all go down (pun intended)...end to my race in Huronia, I alluded to bumping my head when I crashed. I don't remember actually going down, just the sound of my helmet hitting the road and then sliding across the pavement. My bike mostly survived - just some torn bar tape, scratches and bent rear derailleur - and the only thing that concerned me was what looked like a tennis ball on my elbow.

Luckily I mostly slid so nothing broken, and eventually I washed off the blood and got back on my bike. My Garmin that was paused while my bike was lying in the ditch, had my bike split at 1:07 for my time actually on the bike...the top bike splits were 1:05-1:07. But with one of my main points races, and the coolest race in Ontario, coming up 6 days later, I packed it in when I got back to T2.

Plans started to change when I started getting faint and dizzy spells later that night and the next day, and throughout the week after workouts. With the prevalence of concussions in "real" sports these days I should have taken it more seriously, but I really didn't think I hit my head hard. And that's what helmets are for anyway...right? People crash a lot harder and still get up. I tried to ignore it throughout the week leading up to Gravenhurst and avoided going to the doctor despite having a paramedic and my almost-doctor brother saying it was definitely a concussion.

Just like anyone in this sport I have had a few injuries over the years, although I have done well this year to keep everything in check and stay healthy. But even with my brief stint of recovering, I have never experienced an "injury" like that. It's one of those things where, if you start wondering if you have a concussion, you suddenly have a headache (try it!..no don't actually).

Sure I had some road rash and bruises but I continued to convince myself that I was fine. And it didn't help that I was very motivated to get back on the bike and race again. But it was a very difficult thing to quantify or explain to anyone, including myself. One person would tell me to stop thinking about it and race, the next would tell me I need to sit in a dark room for the next six weeks. Besides, every day I push myself until my eyes are rolling into the back of my skull and my head is pounding. It's called training. So how did I know that those around me, telling me my eyes were glazed over and I wasn't paying attention to what they were saying, weren't simply seeing me on my third rep of 10k ride @ 330W/sub-10min 3k run? And how do I know when I'm healthy when I push myself to that place in my workouts?

All in all it was a very difficult week of sucking up the superficial injuries, trying to ignore those telling me to STOP, doing my best to be honest with myself in figuring out what were symptoms of a concussion and what was just "in my head", then finally accepting that I would not be racing and telling my great support team at Multisport Canada that I would be letting them down after getting me on the start list of a sold out race. It also meant accepting that I likely will not be chasing the top spots in the series points, and will have to re-motivate myself to race a full season for a crack at a couple hundred bucks (still better than nothing!)

Luckily my plans were already set for Gravenhurst, so I still got 4 days off work to enjoy in beautiful Muskoka with Amanda, friends and family. And as hard as it was at times, I got to take in all the great racing in the heat and hills, and helped out a little volunteering in the morning. Amanda had another awesome race...seriously, I talk about her a lot on here. But she is just starting to find herself in this sport and is a 3x provincial champ already, and you can look out for her name in the near future! She is also an amazing support system for all the dark times in my racing endeavors.


What's definitely not in my head is I'm sitting here with no concrete date for my next race, working through a number of painful reminders of a really stupid crash, and - whether it be a lack of preparation, execution, or luck - it is late July, I have trained smarter and more than ever, and:

1. In six planned races have seen the finish line twice this year
2. I have racked up about $3000 in damaged equipment in races and about $100 in prize money so far
3. I flatted out of my A-race and can't afford to travel to another international race

I have taken it all in stride and used it all as more motivation in each workout, but I can only piss vinegar in training for so long. There are athletes I have shared the start line with heading to London next week, athletes I have shared a lane with winning three months worth of my wage at World Cups, and I have found my direction in non-drafting races yet I'm having an incredibly difficult time justifying my time and financial commitment to the sport right now. Ultimately I do not compete in this sport for the results and I do not measure my success by prize money envelopes. But I am training my ass off and it has been a horrendously frustrating and unlucky season so far.

I'm ready to race to my potential and my fitness, set bike course records, run 3:20s and win one by 10 minutes. I guess it just doesn't work out that way though. So for now I will continue getting back at it one step at a time, knowing that in my small successes this year there are some big positives, and hopefully I will prevent this from being the season that wasn't.

The race that wasn't meant to be

Man, this sport is an emotional roller coaster. But I guess that's why I like it. Trying to find success and searching for the "perfect race" is like trying to figure out the meaning of life. Work your ass off, make minor improvements, get wrapped up in your own expectations, fall apart, rebuild your attitude, work some more, get the sh*t kicked out of you, repeat.

After the the big emotional high of actually finding the finish line of a half ironman (with what I would consider a modestly successful results, with lots of promise :) I had to hold myself back from wanting to sign up for a few more this season. I made the decision to stick to my season plan of a few big races but mainly competing in the Multisport Canada series for points. I didn't get much in the way of points in Welland with the tough field and my first serious long course result, so I put together a schedule of 5 Olympic distance races. If I had 4 good results out of the 5, I would probably end up in the prize money at the end of the year.

So that brings us to this weekend in Penetanguishene (Huronia) for the newest race venue in the series. It was a bit of a gamble having no idea how my body would respond two weeks after an emotionally and physically draining race. But I wanted to give it a go and find my limits at the shorter distance.

As is the norm at these races now, there was a handful of very strong swimmers on the start line. After switching the swim course to a 2-loop 750m course due to the heavy rain and possibility of thunder, and a good warmup I was feeling ready to go. I started strong and found myself sitting comfortably between Angela Quick and Alex Vanderlinden at 100m in...until my goggles got knocked off my head. Although I have never had them kicked completely off in a race, I have forced myself to deal with it in training and didn't panic. But after a quick stop to get at least one eye on I had lost the lead pack. I tried to calm down and find a strong rhythm for the 1500 and exited the water about 30 seconds down on my main competition. Time to get to work on the bike.

Through the first 5k with a few good hills I was making up ground on a small group ahead that included the eventual podium finishers. At 9k I was feeling strong and confident, and made a dig up a steep hill. We were warned about the slick roads and technical corners on the bike course, but I made the conscious decision to take all the risks having gained some experience on sketchy ass bike courses in St Croix, and knowing that I would have to make my move on the bike if I wanted a good finish. Over the hill I went, about to bridge up, and my thoughts went something like this:

Strong over the crest...
53x11...
Tuck...
65km/h...
CORNER...
Back wheel locking up, try the front...
Pavement is hard...
Please stop sliding soon...
Are my new wheels ok!?

I really am stupid sometimes. I have been pretty lucky (or just a decent bike handler) and have had very few crashes in my career, but this one was the fastest and hardest to date. Luckily my bike was fine except for some shredded bar tape. No broken bones, just some road rash and a severly damaged ego. I also smacked my head pretty hard, but thanks to my Rudy Project Wingspan I escaped without too much brain damage. I spent about 20 minutes on the side of the road trying to gather myself, check my equipment and decide if I could keep riding. I figured the guys in the Tour can get up and finish after a crash, so there's no reason why I can't.

I couldn't ride aero since I had banged up my elbow but I rode a steady tempo, and according to my Garmin I would have had one of the top bike splits if you discounted my little pit stop. It was a beautiful and technical course and I was bummed that I couldn't truly race it. It was a tough decision seeing athletes out on the run course, but with another series race next weekend I decided to call it a day and heal up for the next one. I was lucky enough to see some awesome finishes from the top guys. Damn this series has gotten competitive. But after a long and lonely drive home contemplating life, trying to come to terms with a frustrating mixed bag of results this season, and searching deep down for some more motivation, I'm looking forward to the next chance to throw down. That is, after paying a visit to the doctor to determine just how hard I bumped my head...not that I listen to them very well anyway.