Guelph Olympic Tri

Guelph Olympic Triathlon Race Report
Jun 19, 2011

As a form of procrastination from packing my bike I decided to write a race report.  Today was my last hard effort before Ironman France which is just one week away!!! Eek!!!!

I got to Guelph thanks to my parents who decided to come out and watch me! Yay!!!  I do enjoy when they come out and watch!  So fun to watch my parents get all excited when they see me coming! Lol!  So the photos from today are courtesy of my mom.

After a quick chat with David I got a race plan on how to attack this course! Basically, try to negative split the bike and run.  Easier said than done!  The swim was a mass start which I am really disliking now!  Ugh!  What am I going to do in France?  To avoid people I started swimming wide.  The water was pretty choppy and even though I felt great in the water, I posted a pretty slow swim time for me.  I swam the 1.5km two loop course in 28:40, 6th in my age group.  Well that was when I crossed the timing mats which involved a long run uphill.  I stopped my watch as soon as I got out of the water and it was just over 27min.

running out of the water to T1

T1 went ok.  Need to still try to speed it up a bit!  Then I headed out on the bike.  I forgot my heart rate strap so I was just going by feel and trying to keep my cadence up.  I felt pretty strong on the bike and instead of getting passed big time as in the past, I got to do a lot of passing!  I just tried to push the hills and aimed to stay over 30km/hr.  I did not however, manage to negative split the bike.  I was over 1min slower on the return trip but we did have to contend with some cross and head winds.  I also started cramping on the bike and I was a little worried.  I felt both calf muscles and  my hamstring ready to seize but luckily they held off.  I clocked the 40km bike ride in 1:17:26 for a 31km/hr average.  My average cadence was 84rpm.  And a first for me, my bike split placing was actually better than my swim split placing!!!  Who would have thought?!  I had the 5th fastest bike split in my age group.

bike ride done - heading to T2

Got to T2 and there were not many bikes on my rack.  I quickly looked up to check out the two F30-34 bike racks and noted five bikes.  Got out and started running and I started pretty hard.  I was to take two cups of water/gatorade at every aid station but I stopped taking stuff at about 7km because I felt like I had enough.  The run was where I got passed! Lol!  I tried to run hard and I actually ran faster than at St. Anthony's but I was still a little disappointed.  I felt like I never had my running legs going but I just kept thinking quick steps.  I tried to push harder on the second half and this was helped by having two people I know chasing me!  I wanted to hold them off and I did!  One is a really good runner too!  It looks like I did negative split the run but the trails and grass running made it a little more of a challenge!  I ran the 10km in 53:53 for a 5:24min/km average.  Not too bad for me but I definitely want to improve on this!  I posted the 11th fastest run time in my age group.  I would like to run closer to a 50min 10km at this distance.  I need to become a faster runner!!!

starting the 10km run

I completed this race in 2:43:11 and placed 7th out of 23 in my age group.  Two spots away from the podium.  Almost!  Good tune up for Nice next weekend though.  Oh, and Kevin Mackinnon was the announcer for the race today and he was the head coach for the UofT tri club when I first started out and when I took over as president.  Well, Kevin mentioned some stuff about me and my parents got all excited about that! Lol!  Thanks Kevin for the mention!!!  I appreciate it!!!

Ok, guess it's time to pack my bike!  Tomorrow I'll pack the rest of my luggage before I head out in the afternoon for France!!!  Sooooo excited!!!!!