This is a bit delayed due to my summer school exam, but better late than never. Here is the scoop from my race at the Rose City Triathlon!
I can’t seem to pick a primary race distance to focus on for triathlon…I love them all. Each distance brings its own challenges, and competing in a wide range of events keeps me excited to race weekend after weekend. That being said, I always feel a little out of my league in the half iron distance events, especially this year with the late start to the outdoor riding season. I was fighting nerves all week leading up to the race, but when Sunday came around I made my way to the beautiful city of Welland, Ontario and was ready for a hard day of racing.
I had some bike drama the morning of the race, which did nothing to help my nerves. I am no bike mechanic and after trying to fix it at my car for a while I decided to walk to transition and see if I could find some help. I ended up seeing fellow triathlete Ryan Power on my way and he was able to get my wheel to stop rubbing very quickly. I was very grateful since it would have been a tiring ride with a back wheel that didn’t spin properly. After that my preparations went quite smoothly (although a bit rushed) and before I knew it I was taking off in the first wave of the 2km swim.
Swim (2km- 33:12, 1:40min/100m)
Multisport Canada had a pro/EAG wave for this race, which was a treat. It was really nice to start off in such a small wave, there was no chaos off the start and I was able to focus solely on swimming. I couldn’t keep up with too many of the speedy swimmers in my wave but a few of the fast yellow caps that started a minute behind us caught up and I managed to swim in a nice draft most of the simple, rectangular, swim course. It was neat to look up to spot and see lots of spectators watching from atop the bridge that crosses the Welland Canal. Overall the swim was pretty uneventful, I finished not too exhausted, saving myself for the long bike ride to come.
(Note: my swim time was actually faster than that listed on Sportstats, as I had to take a brief pit stop before exiting the water to “take care of business”)
This race features a fairly long run up to transition- which gave me lots of time to get my wetsuit off. In T1 I was unusually flustered, and couldn’t get my race belt on, after trying for a bit I gave up and decided to put it on in T2. T1 time totaled 1:11, much slower than usual for me, but at least it was less of an issue with it being such a long race.
Bike (90km- 2:38:35, 34.1km/h)
I am a huge fan of the bike course in Welland, although it tends to be a little bit windy, it is flat and very scenic. My favorite part is the curvy road by the shores of the Lake, at that point you are tired and near the end of a long ride, but the pretty scenery makes it still enjoyable. The first 40ish km of the ride we had a tail wind (I wondered why I was riding so fast for the first hour). The remainder of the ride was a bit harder but I managed to keep moving at a good pace. At the 85km mark I eased up a bit in order to prepare for the run.
T2 went smoothly, I took a little extra time to put grab my Garmin and put it on as I ran out of transition. I felt a few seconds lost here would be well worth the benefit of being able to manage my pace, especially with my relative lack of experience at this distance. I also took a gel with me out on the run but dropped it on the way out of transition; I could not bear the thought of moving backwards so I decided to forfeit the gel. I also put socks on in T2, which I never do, but the plan was for Welland to be the start to another big block of training and I didn’t want to have my running disturbed by dealing with blisters all week.
Run (1:39:58- 4:45 min/km)
I have never experienced a run that felt good in a race of this distance thus far, but this one did! I felt great off the bike and although my pace started to drop off towards the end of the run, I felt strong the entire way and experienced none of the cramping issues I did in Binbrook. The run was the one part of the race I felt I could truly push, as my lack of confidence going into the race led me to hold back on both the swim and the cycle. As I approached the finish lines I saw 4:59 and immediately started to sprint to make sure I broke 5 hours (my goal for the race); however, apparently I didn’t need to sprint as the mat we had crossed about 1km back had actually been the finish line. Kudos to John Salt and the Multisport Canada crew for finding this discrepancy and dealing with it so efficiently, this was a perfect example of the high level of organization the makes MSC races run so smoothly. My finishing time ended up being 4:55:16, which is a 12-minute PB over that 5:07:21 that I did in the 2012 Welland race.
Just a little motivated to break 5:00!
As for nutrition, I ended up having 1 gel and 5 gummy blocks as well as water on the cycle. I ended up taking in nothing except water during the run; I often find my stomach is too iffy at this point to risk eating anything. This is an area I know I need to improve and am going to make a point to try out some products during my longer training sessions so that I can have a better nutrition strategy in future races. I feel this, in addition to some longer brick sessions, will be key in helping me to continue to develop my ability at this distance. That being said, I am very proud of my race and had a lot of fun.
P.S. I would highly recommend the beanbag chairs in the Recharge with Milk Zone- definitely the best part of my post-race activities! 🙂
Now I am in the middle of a 3-week racing break before the next MSC triathlon series event in Huronia. I will be using this race as a tune up for Age Group Nationals on July 20th In Magog, Quebec where I will be racing the olympic distance. Thanks again to Recharge with Milk and Multisport Canada, gaining all this racing experience would not be possible without your support.
See you at Huronia!
Lauren
Lauren Heinken 