Laser Eye Surgery

I.CAN.SEE. Enough said really. Yesterday I went for laser eye surgery, today I have perfect vision. Totally awesome. I have wanted to get this done since about grade 7 when I first heard that it was possible to get your eyesight back. Financially this obviously was not possible and my parents don’t help me out financially for anything, so I was on my own. I started wearing contacts in grade 11 but over the past year or two I have developed an allergy to them. I have tried different brands and switching to dailies, but nothing worked. I wanted to claw my eyes out whenever I put the contacts in, and I was going to end up with so much scar tissue on my eyelids that I would only be able to wear glasses for the rest of my life. In the life of triathlon this was not going to be possible. My eyesight was 20/400, so pretty bad, and there was no way I was going to be able to do the swim without being able to see, let alone find my bike after getting out of the water. So I forked out a lot of dough and went and got the surgery. I have absolutely no regrets, this was worth every penny. The surgery went great, although I was pretty scared during the procedure, what with instruments in my eyes and lasers and you hear the person beside the surgeon timing the procedure, it sounded pretty ominous. “43 seconds….okay 10 more seconds” I’m thinking in my head “What happens if it takes him more than 10 seconds?” Anyways, all was fine and I would recommend this procedure to anyone. I slept/dozed most of the afternoon because my eyes were sore, but I was totally fine when I woke up this morning.

In other triathlon news, I am officially part of Barrie Shepley’s C3 High Performance Team! I am super excited about this and feel that I should be able to achieve some really amazing things under his coaching. Tentatively we have talked about me doing some draft-legal racing as well as some local Southern Ontario races. The objective of the U23 draft-legal racing is for “me to get my ass kicked” as Barrie put it. It’ll be great though, definitely a huge motivator and it will be great to meet more people my age who have the same level of commitment to the sport that I do.

Unfortunately the stress fracture still has me out of action. I tried to run last week but it did not go well, as in my leg has clearly not yet healed. I will continue to pedal away on the bike and some day I will be back to pounding the pavement. 

Concluding the XC Season

Saturday saw the conclusion of cross country season with the Canadian Cross Country Championships held in London, Ontario. Two weeks earlier the Warriors competed at the Ontario Championships in rainy, cold weather on an extremely muddy course. We had some fantastic performances and the women managed to come into 7^th place as a team- to my knowledge, better than we have done in the past five years at least. I’m am extremely proud of them and it breaks my heart that I couldn’t be out there racing with them, however I know I made the best decision not to race. It was hard to put my short term desires aside and look at the bigger picture, and I know that several people would have liked me to race. But despite wanting to race, I do not have any regrets about not racing. Hopefully I will be back on the running scene in the near future, uninjured and ready to train.

The Canadian Cross Country Championships (CIS) are always spectacular to watch. The best runners in the country all toe the line together and give it their best shot. Caught up in the energy and vibe of the day, I decided that I should test out the leg (it’s been 7 weeks so not an entirely unreasonable thing to do). I did the 15 minute warm up with the team and ran around to cheer my teammates on during the race. This added up to probably around 25 minutes. NOT GOOD. My leg is still sore 3 days later. I was hoping for better results than this but as there is nothing I can do I will move on and continue to spend my time in the pool and on the bike.

The men’s race was extremely exciting with the winner, Kelly Weibe, crushing the course record and winning by 40 seconds!!!

On the triathlon scene, I am currently in communication with Barrie Shepley. I applied to the Triathlon Canada Tri-This program but currently am a) not good enough and b) not looking like a great candidate given my injury history. However, I do have the motivation and desire to become better, and have proven that I have potential, so Barrie Shepley is considering me for his C3 High Performance team. This would be amazing and I will do everything I can to make it onto this team. I attended a swim assessment on Sunday evening with the team, and Andrew Cole (Olympic swim coach) videotaped our swimming (with a swanky ipad) and gave us things to work on (I have a lot to work on- so much that he didn’t even bother to tell me everything). It’s fantastic to finally have some direction as to what I can do to become better and hopefully in due course I will see these improvements translated into faster swim times!

Bikes and Tough Decisions

I will start with the tough decisions part. As my previous post let you know, I ended up with a stress fracture in my tibia after the first cross country race of the season. I intended to run the Ontario Championships (OUAs) anyways (the damage is already done right?) but this weekend that changed. The Championships, being held at the Kingbridge Conference Centre in Nobleton, Ontario are next weekend, October 27^th. Initially my motivation for running was, apart from that fact that I love to race, to get my team to have a shot at being sent to the Canadian Championships (CIS) two weeks later in London, Ontario. Yesterday I was informed that the university will send them regardless of the team placing at OUAs. I had been testing my leg out this week and it was holding up pretty well, but I could tell that it wasn’t healed. This left me with a decision to make. My coach would let me run, but I was risking doing a lot more damage to the stress fracture and putting me out of action for a lengthy period of time. After much deliberation I came to decide that I would not run. This is one of the hardest decisions I have had to make because I really wanted to do the race. However, in the long term it is better to not race and let my leg heal, so that I can come back and kick some serious butt later (read- triathlon season next year). Unfortunately the best decisions are not always the easiest to make. However, I know that my team will do great next weekend and I will cheer them on enthusiastically. =)

Now the fun part!!!! Yesterday I took the train to Burlington and walked to Neworld Cycle (http://neworldcycle.com/main.htm). Having qualified for the World Triathlon Championships next year I knew I wanted to get a better bike than my current road bike (even though I love it). I had been searching on Kijiji for some time but it was not yielding any results so had begun looking into bike stores as most are having their Fall Blowout Sales right now.  My brother, Keith Marchant (who is a fantastic triathlete and happens to live in Burlington), came to the rescue once again and found a great deal on Cervelo P3s at Neworlds. This being my first free weekend of the fall I headed down, certified cheque in hand, ready to buy my bike. I had done plenty of research into bikes and had determined that the P3 was going to be the best value for my money. The guys from Neworld, Jeff and Victor, were great and got me fitted up on a snazzy looking Cervelo P3, with pedals and bike shoes (no more cycling in my running shoes!!). I brought my bike back home via the train and it is currently sitting in my (locked) room. I hooked it up to the trainer today and absolutely love it! The aero position is going to take some getting used to, but I have lots of time for that. =)

Stressly Fractured- again

A few weeks ago I was thinking “wth…..shin splints again?” Obviously I kept running since shin splints aren’t a huge problem- annoying but no reason to stop running. I ran a 4km time trial for cross country, blowing away my time from a month before by over 30 seconds (albeit the temperature in August was a balmy 35 degrees or something, compared to a pleasantly cool 16 in September). The following weekend I ran a “10km” as part of a relay team at the Lakeside Triathlon in a decent time of 38:02 (the course was short by about 140m). The next weekend was the first official meet of the cross country season at Western on the Thames Valley Golf Course. The race was oaky- I started out much too fast and my legs (particularly the right one) were in agony by about 3km in. Being able to run with my teammate Kristen Flanagan was key to me finishing the race in a not too shabby time of 19:03. I was certainly hoping for a faster time than that but it didn’t happen- NBD. (yes I was pretty upset post-race but I’m over it). My legs were in excruciating pain when I woke up Sunday, but, chalking it up to post-race soreness, I went for my 95 minute long run. Monday morning brought no changes to the pain situation so I started to get worried. But, just to make sure it wasn’t post-race soreness, I went to practice Monday night. Clearly not a good idea as I could barely walk Tuesday morning. Bummer. At this point it felt exactly like the stress fracture I had last year, so after copious amounts of tears I went and made an appointment with the sports doc. She agreed with me- probably a stress fracture. I had the bone scan last week (they needed a full body scan for this- someone needs to rethink their healthcare practices….) and the results today confirm what I thought (almost). I didn’t re-fracture last year’s stress fracture but simply have a new one right above where I had one last year. Timeline for recovery is 3 months or more (considering last time it took considerably longer than that I’m not hopeful for 3 months). So it’s back to the pool more often than I’d like and making my ass numb on the bike. What joyful fun…. And cheers to the end of my cross country season….

2012 in Retrospect

This is going to be a long blog post, since I’m done my season and have decided to start a blog. My hope is that some day someone will want to read about my races, trials and tribulations, successes, and failures. The benefit of writing this now is that having completed the season I think I have more perspective on my first races and can give a better race report.

Race 1- Victoria’s Duathlon, Waterloo, May 21^st (4km run, 30km bike, 4km run)

This was my first race of 2012 and first duathlon of my life. Since I was coming back from a stress fracture in my right tibia, I had not been back on the running scene for long- a few weeks at most. The race was 4km run, 30km bike, and 4km run. I hadn’t yet run 8km in one day so I was nervous. I don’t have much to say about this race as everything went according to plan. (The plan was to run, bike, run- nothing to it) My legs were sore but that seems to be a never-ending state of being. I ran the first 4km in sub 16 minutes, coming into the bike portion in the lead of the females (of my wave). I had biked the course a few times as I attend the University of Waterloo and live quite close to the race site- this gave me an added advantage as I knew what to expect. On the other hand, I had only bought a road bike on the second weekend of May, so I am not a good cyclist. I put in a good effort on the bike but was nowhere close to maintaining my lead of the women. The second run went better than expected and I managed to pass several people. I had no expectations prior to the race so was pleased with a fourth overall finish on the women’s side and winning my age group.

Milton Triathlon- June 3^rd, Milton (Sprint Distance- 750m swim, 30km bike, 7.5km run)

This was the first triathlon of the year and I was pretty nervous for the swim start. I did one triathlon last year on a whim (no road bike, no wetsuit, no training) and did not start in the first wave so this was going to be a new experience. I had read that they could be pretty crazy, but that was an understatement. I started in the first wave and positioned myself in the middle of the pack- bad idea. I was borrowing a friends’ wetsuit which was slightly too big for me, so it wasn’t keeping me warm and felt like it was dragging me down (I had also never worn a wetsuit before). Swimming with males is crazy. They don’t care about hitting you, swimming over you, pushing you down into the water (no offense guys but you’re not very nice to swim with). I don’t start out fast in the swim as I prefer to keep an even pace, which is not the strategy of most. As a result I was getting pushed around and some guy kept pushing down on my back and it felt like he was going to drown me. I was panicking quite a bit within the first 200m and this made for a terrible race. The saying “you can’t win the race on the swim, but you can lose it” definitely applied.  I was breathing every second stroke, which any swimmer will tell you is not good, and could not for the life of me swim in a straight line. By the time I exited the water I was drained of energy and questioning why on earth I ever thought triathlons would be fun. I was able to focus on the race again once getting on my bike and managed to get up the massive hill on 6^th line without walking my bike- which I felt was a true accomplishment. =) I put in a solid effort on the bike but once getting to the run I definitely began to feel the full effects of my disastrous swim. I plugged along on the run and my legs loosened up on the second half (which was also a net downhill which helped) and finished the race it what I felt was a pretty good time. I was fourth woman overall and first in my age group (same result as the duathlon- consistency is key?).

Had I written this right after my race I would have told you I had a terrible swim but everything else went great- but having completed the season I feel I have learned a lot about racing and what I am capable of so can conclude that this was not a great performance. The comments I got in the following days from friends were “you can swim WAY faster than that” and “what happened on the run?” ah well….

Guelph Lake One- Olympic Distance Triathlon, June 17^th

I was SUPER nervous for this race- the day before I assured everyone I would do terribly and that I wasn’t fit enough to do it. Secretly I was hoping and dreaming but not expecting for top 10 in the women’s side. The day dawned with stormy skies and a chill to the air. Waiting in transition we got some rain, but thankfully it blew over with about 10 minutes until the start of the race and didn’t ever amount to much during the race. Learning from my horrible experience in Milton I started the swim way to the outside. This was a GREAT choice and I really enjoyed the swim- I can’t say I swam in a straight line here either, but I exited the water tied with another woman for 2^nd and 3^rd women out of the water. The bike was fairly easy on the way out, a few rolling hills and the wind was behind me. Turning around and coming back was not as easy- right into the wind and I don’t have aerobars =( I made it although I was pretty tired coming back into transition, in third or fourth place for the women- I can’t remember. I was super happy with this as I didn’t expect anyone to pass me on the run so it looked like my hopes and dreams of top 10 were coming true. I set out at a good pace on the run, mostly just enjoying it. There are two out and backs on the run course and when I was on the first one I saw how much I was gaining on the other women so I really picked up the pace. At about 5km I passed the second place women, and at about 7km I passed first place- incredible!!! I was running alongside another competitor and we finished the race just seconds apart, which was great as we set a pretty good clip for the last couple of kilometers. (I actually thought I heard one of the women coming up behind me so I was giving it everything- turns out it was another guy and I had nothing to worry about). So I felt I had a great race and to top it off I won a Polar RCX5 GPS watch for winning the women’s race! It was awesome! =D

Toronto Triathlon Festival (TTF), Olympic Distance Triathlon, July 22^nd

I had six weeks leading up until this race after Guelph. This was the biggest race of the season for me as it was the qualifier for Worlds 2013. I planned out my training loosely so that I was building up for a few weeks and then tapering. As luck would have it the week right before TTF things just fell into place for me not doing very much. Usually I hate tapering as I get really antsy, but I didn’t this time. 4am on Sunday morning I rose to get ready for the race- I was coming from Hamilton as I was getting a ride with my brother. The race started at 7am. Our Olympians Simon Whitfield and Paula Findlay were there as this was the inaugural TTF. It was really awesome being able to see them in action- they started a few minutes to seven and did the sprint distance course so that we weren’t in their way.  I was in one of the later waves which meant things weren’t as crazy for the swim and having so many people in front of me made sighting easier. This was my best swim yet and I think I was the first person from my wave out of the water. The bike course is extremely flat so I was able to put in a good fast time and head into the run. The run wasn't particularly great for me as I was having trouble breathing- it felt like I was allergic to something in the air so that my lungs felt like they were about half the size they should be. I didn’t think about anything other than breathing in and out the entire run, but still had a good time as the route was also very flat- it was an out-and-back along the lakeshore. I was fairly certain that I was the first woman across the finish line for the olympic distance triathlon, but it was hard to tell as there were also duathletes crossing the finish line who had started 15 minutes before my wave. The results were finally posted which confirmed that I had won the women’s race!! This was an awesome experience. My brother also came second in the men’s race so I was super excited for him too! (and I feel it pertinent to mention that he forgot his bike shoes so had to bike in his running shoes!)

Bracebridge Triathlon- Olympic Distance, August 12^th

I wasn’t sure I was going to do this race but decided with a couple weeks to go that I would go for it. My training wasn’t really where I would have liked it for this race as I had planned my training around TTF so wasn’t sure what to be doing after (Rest? Keep at it? Tapering?) but things went well anyways. I got home from university on the Saturday to a pleasant surprise that my wetsuit had arrived in the mail the day before. As such, this was the first race where I had a properly fitting, full-body wetsuit. It made a HUGE difference! The weather co-operated for the race- which was great as the day before they had cancelled the bike portion of the sprint distance triathlon due to excessive rain. The swim portion of the race was in the river and I had a huge PB thanks to the wetsuit. It was a time trial start as well which meant no fighting with the masses to get a spot. I got kicked in the face once so had to stop and get my goggles back on- but no sweat.  The bike course was extremely challenging with hills and a couple of small sections of not very well paved road and I got off the bike with my legs being rather tired. It took a couple of kilometers for my legs to loosen up on the run and do their thing but my brother had told me prior to the race he expected I could come top 3 (there were some pros and elites at the race so I was doubting how well I would do) so I gave it everything on the run. I came away with a PB in the run also (although the course was short as usual). I came second overall out of the women and I feel this was my best race of the year. Although a slightly slower overall time than TTF, the course was much more challenging and I feel I put in a lot more effort- especially on the bike. This was my last triathlon of the season and I was pleased to end off on a good note.