This was one of two A races for the season for me. Because of this I did a full taper. I hate tapering. You feel like a sloppy bag of poo not being able to train much.
Luckily I had some nice new (too me) race wheels to stare at! : > Nothing like new gear to keep you interested. The bike looks badass! all black carbon wheels, black frame.
Woke up 5am and met my ride to peterborough. This is the closest race to my house only a 40 min. drive.
We got there nice and early so there was no concerns with washrooms, racking etc... Got the bike and gear racked up and warmed up nicely.
The swim.
Peterborough is a very weedy swim. I don't particularly mind this as I swim in a weedy lake at home so I think this is a bit of an advantage for me.
2000m swim? More like 2100 +. I hauled ass and did a 29:55. I should have been mid 28:00 for the effort I put out. Still relative to the field I was very happy. 14th out of the water and 13th onto the bike.
Had a good draft most of the way.
T1. Nice and smooth. Decided to put on socks for this one.
90km bike. As I now see myself as a mature triathlete:> I planned on pacing myself well. My goal was to average around 35-36kmph. A heavy head wind on the way back eliminated this. I still managed 34.8, but not the pace i was hoping for.
However, the pacing of my effort was good and I was feeling pretty strong near the end of the 90km. There was a guy who drafted off of me for a while, and then jumped to the wheel of another athlete who passed us. He got a penalty, and that made me happy!
I was planning on drinking 6 bottles of water/gatorade on the bike due to the weather forcast. I ended up only drinking 5 as the temps didn't reach the highs we were expecting. Took 4 Gu's on the bike (I love Gu!) and everything was peachy keen!
Bike 2:35
T2. Very fast sub one minute.
Legs felt pretty good right out of transition. Turn over was high. I didn't like the grassy section they made us run through. It was really tough after the first loop when your legs are tired. I did not check out the run course beforehand, since it was new, that might have been a good idea.
There were a number of really steep punchy hills starting around 3km. I like the idea of the loop as it allows you to set much shorter goals. Just keep this pace to the turn around. . .etc... It was a challenging course and I think I liked the old one better.
The first loop was OK. I held a steady pace, and the body was coping. Started to feel a little rough after the first loop so I took a GU.
After about 3km into the second loop the legs really started to come around. Just like in Muskoka. It seems that I don't start running really strong until after 13km. Not a bad thing. I held back a bit until getting over the top of the last hill. I still had a ton left and really pushed hard for the last 4km.
This emptied the tank. I was really spent crossing the finish line, however I felt great about how I raced.
My initial goal was a 1:35 run. Hoping for 4:30ish kms.
Ended up Finishing in 1:40:00. I really don't think I had much more in me than that. Still very happy. Last year I ran a 1:55. so big improvements here.
Finished 4:48.33 Which is great. My goal was around 2:50.00 so definetely beat that. Right were I want to be in prep for IM this year. Beat last year by 23min. Big time PB.
This is great becuase it confirms the time goals I have for IM. Now I've got around 4 months to train for it.
In reality I am just glad to have this one out of the way. It has been a bit of a burden, and now I am free to focus strictly on training for IM. (maybe a bit of focus on qualifying for worlds next year.)
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