Barrelman

Sunday I was back to Barrelman to defend my title, although some other pros and top age groupers showed up to make sure I had to work for it.

As this was the first of 4 half-distance races that I have in 7 weeks I had never planned for much of a taper into it, Friday and Saturday just to freshen up a bit. This went perfectly until I woke up Friday feeling really tired, and as the day progressed it became apparent I had some sort of stomach flu, and spent Friday night beside the toilet. Saturday I was not feeling much better so scrapped the usual pre-race day training in favour of resting, in order to try and get some energy back for Sunday. I awoke race morning not 100%, but feeling okay and drove down to the race site. Definitely nice to be able to sleep in my own bed the night before a race.

Taking my bike out for warm-up the brakes were rubbing AGAIN (an on-going frustration this year), but the guy at the Velofix van was able to do some quick adjustments to get things back in working order. No time left for a little run, so I was headed down for a quick swim warm-up before the start of the race. My stomach didn’t like the horizontal position of swimming so I left some breakfast in the canal (sorry guys) before the race.

The pros were off at 8:59 in the Welland Canal- an awesome place to have the swim as there are no waves and sighting down the straight line is very easy. The men took off quickly but I slowly reeled them in over the first 500m and was eventually swimming with a small group, not much drama which was nice. Given that we were in the section of the canal set up for rowing there were small buoys every 12.5m in the inside of the swim course. I discovered on my way back that all these buoys are attached by a string, so it was pretty much like swimming in a pool. No need to sight, just follow the string.

follow the line

Onto the bike I felt like crap for the first 35km or so. Somehow I convinced myself at 30km that I was basically done (1/3 done, that’s like almost done right?) and just kept riding steadily. At about 45-50km two men and I came together as a group (I can’t remember who caught who). This was extremely frustrating as they clearly had no respect for proper drafting rules. In 5 pro races I have done so far this year, pros have NEVER been allowed to slipstream (ride up in the draft zone and then make a pass), yet one of the seasoned pros tried to tell me he didn’t know this. Wtf? Seriously?

Don't give me that shit, you know the rules

In addition, whenever I looked behind me they were both well within the 10m zone. Then on the occasion that they wanted to pass me they would ride up, cut right in front and then slow down. Given that we were riding into a headwind for the last 50km of the ride, the only way for me to drop back 10m was to sit up and completely stop pedalling. Obviously this seriously disrupts my rhythm, so I did my best to stay ahead of them, and let them cheat by riding in the draft zone. (can you tell I’m pissed yet?).

For those of you who like numbers, I do have some data from my ride. My watch does lose signal with the power meter on a fairly frequent basis, but is strapped around my seat post to minimize this (so I don’t have any data while riding, not that I want it). Having uploaded the file to Strava, it looks like I averaged just over 40km/hr for the first 20km or so down Feeder Rd (with a tailwind), and 36.xkm/hr for the last 50km of the ride (with a headwind), with an overall average speed of 37.3km/hr. Average power was somewhere around 205W +/- 5W (given that the signal kept dropping, I don’t have perfectly accurate data).  I believe this is the highest average power I’ve ever had for 90km.

Onto the run there were a few men around, but given that my running has been shitty all year, I was once again not setting a blazing pace and they pulled ahead. My left leg that has been giving me problems for 3 weeks now was sore right from the get-go. This is such a great run course though as it is very scenic and kept interesting, passing through the burning springs section and by the casino and then directly by the Falls. With about 5km left to go my quads cramped up really (REALLY) badly, so if it looked and sounded like I was in pain, I was. I can still barely walk today. 

Not as jubilant as last year. very sore.

My massage therapist Kristen Pawlick will have her work cut out for her.

Next up is Silverman 70.3 in two weeks. Not sure what I’ve got myself into with this race as there is 1,300m of climbing on the bike (200m more than the Muskoka course), and we do not start and end in the same place (what goes up does NOT come down). Then the run looks like it is 3 loops up and down a friggin mountain. Basically I am going to die.

Thanks for following along! If I survive in Las Vegas, I will have another race report then. J

Georgina Triathlon (Duathlon)

This was the last stop on the regular Multisport Canada circuit (but Barrelman is this coming weekend!!) and a new race venue for them. From the beginning of the season I knew I would be coming here as I have ridden on the roads up there and they are fantastic, and it is not too far from my parent’s place in Newmarket.

The weekend brought some unexpectedly cold temperatures and on Saturday evening I predicted that the race would be switched to a duathlon on Sunday morning. I awoke to rain and howling winds, which was only more noticeable by the lake at the race site. Indeed, the race was switched to a sprint duathlon- 5km run, 20km bike, 2.5km run. I think this made some people very unhappy, but was undoubtedly the right (and only) call to make by John Salt and the MSC team- safety first!

I had not run for 10 days leading into the race as one of my legs was hurting quite a lot. I was 100% convinced I had a stress fracture, but just received the results from a bone scan which indicates I have other problems but my bones are fine. I was very frustrated that I can’t seem to get in any good run mileage or intensity without something going wrong, so poured that frustration into my bike and swim training, which meant entering the race feeling quite tired.

Given that it was so cold out I did not warm up on my bike, and didn’t want to run any more than I had to, so my ‘warm-up’ consisted of swinging my arms around a bit and hopping up and down on the leg that doesn’t hurt. Triathletes started 3 minutes after the duathletes, and as typically happens, the gun went off and people sprinted out onto the run course. Not my style of racing, so I thought ‘haha, I’ll catch ya later’ and set out at a more reasonable pace. Indeed, not too far in I started picking people off and it was fun to start catching the duathletes too. By the end of the 5k I was starting to feel warmed up.

I took a super long time in transition, chatted to the spectators while I got my bike shoes on etc. What’s the rush right?

Out onto the bike course I thought my legs would feel really crappy having had to run first (which is not something I practice), but I felt pretty good! (I guess I didn’t run hard enough). With the wind being so strong it was essential to get down in aero to be blown about the least amount possible. I had a fantastic time out there and am starting to think I should find races where it is super windy. Looking at my garmin file after it looks like I averaged 38.6km/hr for the time I was actually riding my bike (so excluding the time running around in my bike shoes)- seems pretty fast to me!

The 2.5km run at the end seemed very short and then it was time to get inside and warm up!

A very cold and wet day out there but Multisport Canada did a great job in ensuring that everyone who wanted to race could get a race in.

I will see you at Barrelman in a weeks’ time- I have put in my request for windy weather, we’ll see what happens!

Thanks to all my supporters- Kristen Pawlick from Wishbone Athletics, C3, Nineteen, Louis Garneau, Blade Carbon Wheels, Skechers, and Multisport Canada.