I was more nervous than usual going into Woodstock this year. I had made some major changes to aspects of my training since January and I was looking to see if they had me moving in the right direction. The race also fell only one week before the Rose City Triathlon, so my training has been more long and slow than short and fast, so I was hoping I would have enough speed to perform in such a short race. Anyways, when it was all said and done I wound up placing 4th female with a ~2 minute course PR and overall was happy with how my race played out.
Swim – 12:11 (2014: 12:56)
It was forecasted to be quite windy Saturday morning, but luckily it turned out to be not as bad as forecasted. There was however still a decent current on the lake and I think that was a factor in the swim becoming a bit rougher than I would have liked. I started far left to account for the current pushing me right before the first turn, this resulted in me having a fairly clean start but before I knew it there were people swimming overtop of and into me, my theory is that the current was making it difficult for people (myself included) to hold a straight line. The good news was that things spread out after the first turn and I was able to pick it up for the second half of the swim. I ended up swimming 45 seconds faster than 2014, and was super proud to exit the water 5th female right behind LPC teammate Meghan Lamers.
Bike – 35:42 (2014: 37:18)
After exiting the park via a hill, the bike course begins up a hill…but at least this got most of the hills out of the way early on. After what I felt was a pretty decent swim I was super motivated to have a solid bike. I was moving pretty well and was able to move into 4th place about 6km in. After that the ride was fairly uneventful, I just focused on pushing hard and staying aero. A 1 minute and 30 second improvement over last year’s time in a 20km is quite exciting for me, and I can’t wait to see how my bike split will turn out over a longer distance in the Rose City Triathlon this coming weekend.
Run – 21:28 (2014: 21:11)
Started running and knew it was unlikely that I would be able to pass any of the three women in front of me, as they were all strong runners; however, I did know some fast runners were behind me and I didn’t know how close they were…so the goal for the run was to hold them off. Legs felt pretty good off the bike, but I felt a cramp under my ribs right as I ran out of transition and this persisted the entire run. I get so few cramps but this one spot has been giving me trouble lately…Jack Laundry offered some advice post race that I will try out before Welland…but if anyone has any experience preventing these types of cramps please share your techniques with me! Anyways, despite the cramp the run went quite well and I always enjoy the scenery of the Woodstock run course…at the turn around I saw that I was in a good place to hold onto 4th and that’s what I did. My run ended up being about 17 seconds slower than last year, but nothing to be too upset about, especially when I felt the rest of the race went quite well.
All in all a great season opener! I had so much fun seeing everyone again after a long 8 months and I left the race more excited than ever for what is to come for the rest of the 2015 season! 5 Sleeps left until the Rose City Half – a race I have big goals for, looking forward to seeing if they play out. Thanks Multisport Canada and Rudy Project for the continued support!
Lauren
Lauren Heinken 