What a great race

I raced in the Element TLC Triathlon today at the Tri Leisure Centre in Spruce Grove and I had a fantastic race. I didn't get dehydrated like I did in the race in Oliver a couple of weeks ago. Good thing triathlons start early or I may have gotten dehydrated with the weather being as hot as it was. The distances - 750 metre swim (15 laps); 20 km bike; and 5 km run. The day started out great, other than the fact that I had absolutely no sleep the night before. Actually, I'm yawning as I type this.

I swam 45 seconds faster than I thought I would and lapped two of the swimmers in my lane. Time - 16 minutes and change. I was sure I would be way behind because I haven't swam for about two months. I plan on starting to swim on a regular basis this coming week. My swimming background has served me well.

There was a killer hill on the bike course. I remember thinking 'my legs are burning; I don't know how well the run is going to go after this' - yikes. The downhill coming back almost made up for it, but not quite. Nothing seems to make up for a long climb. There was a head wind coming back into town, but I still managed to get up to speeds of 55 kph coming down the hill, ticking one person off at a time. I love speed and I seem to pass a lot of people while traveling that fast. It turns out that the bike course was at least 21.5 km instead of 20, so I was extra pleased with 47 minutes. My goal is to lose five pounds and I will be a fiend on the bike.

The run was a two-loop course on paved running paths. One woman, two women, three women, tick, tick, tick. I think I had a negative split, which means that my second lap was faster than my first. I felt strong through the entire race and I finished really strong and fast. Again, if I lost five pounds, I would be a force to reckon with. My running has really improved. Time - about 26.5 minutes. When I train, I just don't run, I do speed work and track workouts.

I came in third in my age group out of 10 women and 42 overall out of 104 competitors. There wasn't a higher age group than mine, so I may have been the oldest, or at least one of the oldest, competitors in the race. Check out my results.


Angela and me.

My Mom volunteered by being a lap counter for the swimmers. Most lanes were paired up with another person, but she was by herself. Along comes a young buck and is basically putting my Mom down, as if she can't do the job. She finally had it with his superiority complex and told him "I may be 80, but I've done this many times before". Way to go Mom (high five). Some people come across as thinking they are superior, but I think they must have an inferiority complex to have to put people down like that.

Elise at Element knows how to put on a great triathlon. She also manages to get great food for post-race as well. Strawberries, grapes, pancakes and of course sour gummie worms.

After the race I came back home with my Mom and cut the grass for my Dad. It is Father's Day, after all. When I finished doing that I went grocery shopping to buy picnic supplies for the office picnic I am organizing tomorrow. The day is supposed to be splendid and we are going to have a lot of fun. I am planning all sorts of activities, including pinata smashing, three-legged races, the egg race and sack races, not to mention eating hamburgers and hot dogs. Beats working in the office all day, don't you think.

Sheesh, no rest for the wicked!

The Day Started Out OK

The day hadn't turned out the way I had hoped. My finishing time was 6:56:39. When I knew there was only 10 minutes to go until the seven hour mark, I had to dig deep.

The half marathon was a beautiful course along the canal and on a combination of dirt and paved paths. The weather was just spitting a bit and was windy, but it was the perfect temperature. The first lap of the run was great; I felt strong and my turnover was quick. I was actually thinking I may be able to do this in a sub-six hour time. Well, then came the second lap. About three km in, my stomach started flip flopping and I couldn't run. My stomach hurt with every step. "Maybe it'll go away", I thought. I forced myself to run, but just couldn't do it. 'This is a very familiar feeling', I remembered thinking. 'This is the same feeling I had when I did my first long distance race and then again the same year at Ironman'. It had to be my nutrition on the bike, but then again, maybe not.

The bike went OK. The course was absolutely beautiful. It's the most picturesque bike course I had ever done, including Ironman Canada. The ride was through tons of vineyards and orchards. No fruit was on the trees yet, which may be a good thing because I might have got off my bike to grab an apple. Just kidding. My maximum speed at one point was 65 kph. It is such a rush going down a long hill in the aerobars, no brakes, rounding bends in the road at that speed. I can't allow myself to think about crashing, but I tell you, I am very focused when traveling at that speed. There were times when I was passing younger men on the course and that made me feel pretty darn good. I can tell they were younger because of the race number on their legs.

My shoulder didn't bother me at all in the swim and I was very happy about that. Sighting on a regular basis, I didn't go off course at all for the first leg of the swim. I went off course a couple of times in the second leg because my left shoulder was getting fatigued so I veered to the right without knowing. All of a sudden I would put my head up and a lady in a kayak was telling me "No, you don't want to come over here. Go over there". D'oh, there's two minutes gone. The third leg was uneventful, but I was glad to get the swim over with.

Transition was long. It must have been a three minute run to the bike. Maan! My heart rate was elevated before I even started the bike. At that point, I decided to walk, like a lot of other people. Better to have a low heart rate to start the bike leg.

My coach has totally reassured me after my complaining about my performance. There are so many things to consider - from nutrition at breakfast to how hard I may have ran in the first half of the run, or even that I didn't drink enough on the run. He also checked out everybody's results and was surprised at how slow the overall times were (except for Paul Tichelaar, our local Olympian, who by the way finished the race in 3:58 and change). I guess the moral of the story is to not be so hard on myself. Oliver was a lead-up to Ironman, because Ironman is my "A" race. A bad race gives me a chance to tweak what may have went wrong so Ironman will be a good experience.

Check out my results here.

The Big Day is Approaching

I got up early this morning and went for a 45 minute ride on part of the Ironman course. It's nice seeing a lot of other riders training for the same race and they are so friendly. Penticton is triathlon central and I'm very comfortable being around all the other triathletes here.

Following my bike ride I went for a 20 minute run. Now that my exercise for the day is out of the way I can concentrate on organizing my gear piles for tomorrow's race. Hmmm, maybe I should take a shower and then start getting ready for the rest of the day. We have to check our bikes into transition later. The forecast for tomorrow is rain, but we are in Canada, after all. It could change. Unlike Edmonton, when it rains here, it is warm at this time of year. In a little more than two and half months from now, I'll be here again, but it'll be for Ironman instead of a half Ironman. I'll be fitter and more race-ready. It is a well known fact that it is better to go into a long race like this undertrained than injured. Well, I'm undertrained AND injured. It'll be fun to see how that goes.

We went to our favourite latte shop, Blenz, for a latte. The weather was beautiful today so we sat outside. Next stop, the Bike Barn, Penticton's local bike shop. The Bike Barn is the dedicated technical support for tomorrow's race, as well as for Ironman Canada. If anybody gets a flat or needs technical assistance for any reason, hopefully they will be nearby, or the athlete could be waiting a long time for assistance. That's why it's important to be self-sufficient and be able to change your own flats.

Time to check my bike in. There must be a half a million dollars worth of bikes here. I have a great spot at the end of the rack so I can put my gear at the end of the row and not worry if my next door neighbour is going to run over my transition area. My bike fits under the rack too so I don't have to take the extra .574 seconds it takes to unrack my bike and turn it around and head towards the exit. All I have to do is unrack my bike and move it forward under the rack.

Now, that's out of the way. Let's go down to the lake and watch all the swimmers. Here's a picture of the lake. You might be able to see the line of swimmers practicing near the left side of the picture.

Oh, oh, the pre-race meeting is in 15 minutes. We better get going. The pre-race meeting will tell us what time our swim starts tomorrow, as well as other pertinent information we need to know. My swim starts at 7:50am and I have until 9:00 to finish the swim - two km - piece of cake. There are three waves of swimmers because the beach isn't big enough to accommodate all the athletes at once. There's about 1,200 competitors.

Time to go back and eat supper and get ready for tomorrow. I've set my alarm for 4 am.

Stay tuned for my results tomorrow. It's off to bed for this little girl.

Friday's Adventures

Up and at em - well at least I am. Susan sleeps much longer than I do. Think of all the extra stuff I get done. I had a great sleep. Maybe it was the comfortable bed, or maybe it was the wine, but who cares.

The weather sucks. It's raining and overcast. The good news though is that it's going to clear up tomorrow, which is a good thing because I have a 45 minute bike ride followed by a 20 minute run, just to keep the blood moving in preparation for race day.

After breakfast, first thing's first. A stop at a local coffee shop for a latte. I had a latte macchiato with maple. Maan, was it good. Next was Peach City Athletics. Susan had to pick up some swim goggles that she ordered. I bought some sunglasses. Next stop, Winners to see if that have any home stuff I might like. The only thing I bought was a yoga mat. Well, I guess that could be called home stuff.

Now, a cool 30 minute drive off to race package pick-up in Oliver. A big race like this has an expo with vendors from all sorts of athletic companies: Oakley, Zoot triathlon clothing, gels, running shoes and any other triathlon gear you can think of. Of course I made the big mistake of going to the Oakley table and trying on some sunglasses. $235 later and I am the proud owner of a pair of yellow flak jacket sunglasses with blue iridium lenses. They look sooo cool - I'm a lean, mean, yellow racing machine. The only descriptive words in that sentence you use to classify me are yellow and racing. I'm definitely not lean, but my helmet and bike both have yellow on them, and now I have yellow sunglasses to add to my kit. Competitors, watch out; I mean business.

Down to the lake to check out the temperature of the water. Tuc-el-nuit Lake is beautiful. It isn't very big and it has a lot of beautiful homes on the edge of the lake, with weeping willow trees lining the beach.

We ran into some fellow Edmonton Triathlon Club members. It's nice to see people from home when I'm travelling.

Time to head back to the motel for supper. Mmm, I'm hungry.

The Road Trip to Penticton

Well, we arrived safely in Penticton, but not until after we had an lengthy unscheduled stop - the story of my life. We were stranded in Summerland. My car doors locked by themselves while we were switching drivers. I know, I know, you're probably thinking "Oh, yeah sure! Your car locked itself. How gullible do you think I am that I would believe that?" Well, yes, it acually did lock itself. Susan was driving, and since I know how to get around Penticton, I said I would drive, so we stopped in Summerland to switch. She left the car running; who knows why. I got out of the car and we both decided to stretch after the long drive, so I shut off the ignition and closed the door. Suddenly I heard 'bleep bleep'. That's a familiar sound, but I thought I was hearing things because I didn't press the "lock" button. The next thing I knew was that the car doors locked themselves. SHIT! Must be a security feature, but what kind of security feature would lock the keys inside the car. Theoretically, a thief could break in and voila, the keys are there for the taking. This had never happened before. Something went awry. Strange, but whatever. We were stranded in front of a house and I asked to use the phone to call a tow truck. Good thing it was warm weather because it was about an hour before the tow truck arrived. The driver was in and out in 3.27 seconds. The alarm went off so I shut it off. Maan, it would be nice to have one of those slim jim thingies in case this happens again. Then came the bill, so I paid the man $40 and we were on our way.

Now, let's try to get to the motel before we have any more mishaps. Finally, we're here. Going to Save-On Foods was on our "to do" list, so we unloaded the car and were on our way to buy some groceries and then the liquor store. Time for a late supper, some wine and bed.

See you tomorrow.