Huronia rolled around at the perfect time, I was really starting to get the itch to race after taking 3 weeks off of racing to train in order to prepare for Age Group Nationals in Magog on July 20th. No better time to do a nice little sprint race in order to keep my racing skills sharp.
I was pretty excited to do a race I had never done before, as Multisport Canada’s Huronia race had always conflicted with other races I was doing in prior years. I had also heard the course featured some hills that I thought would prepare me for the hills to come in Magog and Edmonton.
With the start being at 10:45am, I had a not-too-early wake up and a relaxed journey to Penetanguishene, Ontario. I arrived at the race site around 9am and got to catch some of the later KOS races that were going on at the time. It was so great to see so many kids racing hard and having a good time.
Waiting for the start with my very tough boyfriend who swam without a wetsuit
Swim (12:45, 1:42/100m)
Well, if you had asked me how the swim was going during the swim I would have replied that it was going splendidly, I had a clean start, stayed on course, and managed to stay on some feet the entire swim. I thought I was up close to a couple of my speedy swimming teammates but when I got out of the water I was quite sad to find out they were in fact well ahead of me and I yet again had some serious ground to make up. My swim pace still leaves much to be desired and I am finding myself quite frustrated by my lack of progress in the swimming department. Hopefully there will be some improvements to come in the latter part of my season.
Cycle (37:15, 32.2 km/h)
The course started off almost immediately with a fairly sizeable hill, I can’t say I felt good on said hill, but I do believe I moved up it at a decent pace. Things went downhill when I got to the top, both literally and figuratively, as my bike wouldn’t shift to the big front chain ring. I use electronic shifting so I could hear the electronic sound usually associated with shifting (so I knew it wasn’t a battery issue), but the chain just didn’t want to move. This proved quite problematic; I could not get as much speed as I usually would down the hill and I was spinning uselessly on the proceeding flat section. Just when I had given up hope I would be able to push any sort of power for the rest of the ride, my chain decided to hop up to the big ring and finally I could begin to push. Well rested from my somewhat easy ride so far I really pushed the remainder of the cycle and managed to move myself up to 2nd place in the female race coming off the bike.
I was descending a fairly steep downhill coming into transition when I realized I forgot to take my feet out of my shoes (oh my….), through some risky maneuvering I somehow managed to get them off on this descent and dismount on time. An ‘oops’ moment, but no damage done or time lost.
Run (21:52, 4:23 min/km)
I felt strong off the front of the run and had a fairly uneventful journey to the turn around. Before the turn around I saw my speedy Multisport Canada Ambassador teammate Kristen Marchant run by and I knew I was racing for 2nd. After the turn around I had a big cushion on the 3rd place female and decided to back off for the remainder of the run and save myself for my ‘A’ race in Magog in two weeks. This proved to be my poorest decision of the day. This is something that should never be done in a race that has multiple waves, as you never know what speedy ladies are quickly approaching from behind. But at the time backing off seemed like a good idea. This ended up costing me my spot as 2nd place female by 1 second….1 second!! Definitely a little hard to take but entirely my fault and not a big deal in the end; I ended off with a total time of 1:13:29.
Although this race may not have been the best performance wise for me I had a wonderful time racing and am feeling ready to see what I can do in Magog just over a week from now. Hopefully all the learning experiences I have had in my races so far this season will prepare me to have the smoothest race possible when it really counts. Although as every triathlete knows, there is no such thing as a perfect race, and that is all part of the fun of this crazy sport.
Unfortunately I will be missing the next few stops of the Multisport Canada Series but will be returning on the civic holiday weekend to race the Long Course event at the K-town race. This will be an exciting event with it being the first year Multisport Canada is running it. Can’t wait to check it out, should be a good time.
Until next time.
Lauren
Lauren Heinken 