Orillia Race Report

I love this race. Allways have done well here.

It is a Sprint Distance race and allways atracts a large crowd. There were some excellent racers there trying to get a spot at the worlds. Since I already had mine, no stress.

They wouldn't let anyone bump up to the elite wave so I was resigned to the second wave. This is allways a bit stressfull because I know that I will be passing a ton of people.

Got there a little later than I hoped. We had to pack for a week of camping, so little things took longer. Got there with enough time to get a little warm-up in.

The swim here is great because the water is so clear. There is lots of interesting stuff on the bottom to keep me interested.

Swim: I was second out of the water in my wave (the first place guy drafted off of me the whole time, and passed me crossing the mat!) I didn't have to much trouble passing the lapers, but I think they did cost me 15 or 20 seconds. I had noone to draft off of either so that cost me a bit of time as well.

10:52

T1: No drama (thats for you ART!)

Bike: I was quickly on and passed the other guy in my AG. I pushed pretty hard on the bike until the last 7 or km then I took it a bit easier. I should have probably kept the gas on, but I don't think it would have made a big difference in the end. It just made the run a bit more interesting. The bike course in Orillia is fun and fast. Great rolling hills. I thought I would be faster than I was on the bike but that is OK.

Bike: 57:??

T2: First off of the bike in my AG. Nice to have the family there chearing you on, however it is stressful to see other people coming in just as you are leaving.

Run: I knew I had chasers close to me. So I pushed right out of the transition. Not too hard, but enough to hopefully hold the position. I was feeling great. One guy blew by me just before the turnaround. Another superfast runner. So I was in second and cruising a bit. After the turnaround I noticed a couple of guys in my AG about 500m behind me and looking strong. That woke me up. I started to push determined not to lose second. I was able to hold the distance between these guys for the rest of the race. I finished very strong and that was good for the confidence.

Run: 27:00. One more second and I would have had a 26:00 7km!

Great race. Gained some more points back in the overall. This still might be an option for me afterall.

Post Post RAce Report:

Well, this is a live and learn experience. AFter the race we were staying at the inlaws. I was feeling great. not tired at all. My wife said she was going to go for a run and I said I would join her. We had a nice easy 8km. No big deal.

On Monday, I decided to do my long run before we went camping. Turns out this was the straw. I had a good run and did 21km. Felt good.

Next day I noticed some swelling in my knees. Went for a short bike. The swelling got worse. So I decided to take it easy while camping. Only some small hikes.

Well I went to the Clinic today, and now I have to take 4 days off and these anti-inflamatories.

These old knees can't take that sort of abuse apparently. I guess my run will remain my weakest event this year. I hope to be back up and training by Thursday.

So that is that. A bit more than a race report, but oh well.

Cobourg Olympic Distance Triathlon

Completed the Olympic distance race on Saturday. This was a 2008 World AG championship qualifier. Great venue (minus the lack of parking, and my parking ticket!). Beautiful little park on the nice sandy beach. Downtown Cobourg is kinda interesting. I have never been there before.

So this was the first HSBC race that I have ever done. Initial impressions were OK. There is a little lack of refinement in the organization compared to the slick subaru team, but there was a really friendly atmosphere.

Got there real early because I was hearing very different guesses as to how long it would take to drive. Racked close to the bike out/in and got set up.

Swim: 1500m

This was a neat experience. I am usually near the front of the swim, but looking up approaching the last bouy and only seeing 3 sets of arms infront of me was neat. We opened a huge gap on a lot of the field which I was not expecting. Swam a solid 23:30 out of the water 24:00 into transition. Nothing spectacular but nice and solid. Felt great. The stroke was ticking over nicely. I love longer swims. You can find a nice groove, and make some good time gains.

T1: no drama.

Bike: 40km

This course was promoted as being really hilly. It lived up to its billing, but not as bad as I thought. Only a couple of steep hills, the rest were fairly gradual. It was mostly up on the way out and down on the way back which was nice. Resulted in slow bike splits though. My cassette somehow worked loose a little which made some noise, but didn't really seem to affect performance. I felt pretty good on the bike. It seemed really short as the shortest rides I am doing now are 54km. So it is a quick distance. BIke split 1:11:00, I'm not sure on the average. Probably around 34 something. Felt real strong coming into T2

T2: where is my hat? Apparently in my transition bag. Oh well. Ran without it. Pretty quick transition

Run: The more I do it, the more I realize that I am not the biggest fan of running. I don't think I am made for it. That being said I had an average day out there. It was a flat two loop course. I came off of the bike with a small group. There was only one person near us, the rest were out of site. The eventual winner was in my AG. I was out of T2 before him. He ran a 32 minute 10 km!!!!! Holy Crap! Apparently he can go sub 30 easily just out for a run. I can't compete with that.

My run was much more slow. After watching him pass me at that speed I realized I wouldn't see him again. I focused on holding second. After the first turn around just after 2km I had a 3:30 gap back to the 3rd place person in my AG. At the 5km turn around it was almost 4min. I turned off the jets at that point. I wasn't feeling great. I could have gutted out a bit more, but there was no gains to it. The closest competitor to me was 3min. behind. Got into a nice tempo, and held it to the end. It was getting hot, and I was glad I didn't have to push too hard at this point. Run was 41:30? Not bad, not good. I will be consistently going under 40min. next year if it kills me!

Total was 2:18 OK time. More importantly I got a spot for the 2008 worlds in Vancouver which was my entire goal for this race. Very happy. Now I don't have to drive all of the way to Owen Sound.

Next week is Orillia. No expectations there. Just a fun race with some familiy coming out to watch. Then vacation.

Iron Elvis (My 30th B-day)

So I turned 30. This event was not so much of a spectal as the surprise party(and day of) that my wife threw the day after my B-day. Being oblivious to the world around me, I apparently had no clue as to this happening. There were many blatant clues that I seemed to have passed over. Oh well, I guess that is what makes it a suprise party.

I was not going to make pulling this party off that easy on my wife though. Her plan, as it happens, was to play up on my Ironman asperations, as well as the fact that we were visiting a friend in Collingwood during the Elvis Festival (for those that have never been, I tell you it is an experience!)

We wanted to go Mountain Biking while we were there. So we had scheduled a noon ride. She, for some reason was adamant about the timing? Apparently, she had planned to have our friends meet us in the parking lot at 3 stage and suprise me as we finished our ride. She was going to deck me out in all of this parafanalia (see pics below) and have me do a mini triathlon. Ride back to our friends house (with a large and noisy convoy) Jump in the pool and do laps, and then run around the block to the finish line ( all dressed up).

Well, I quickly threw a wrench (or handlebar) into those plans. Not 5 min. into the ride I stalled on a hill, unable to clip out, fell on some rocks. Now this is not an entirely uncommon occurence. However, I somehow managed to hit my inner thigh with my bar-end with considerable force. Lets just say there was a real loud profanity! Now I thought it was just a good charley horse and would be able to continue to ride. That is until I pulled up my bike shorts to find a looney sized hole in my thigh. I could see muscle and fat. Not good.

So our plans altered at that point. I figured a trip to the hospital was a good choice. So we got there relatively quickly, and it wasn't too long before I was in a room getting seen. Apparently staples are the best option for this type of wound, so now I have 5 of them in my thigh. What was funny was that I could see a security camera from the hospital entrance and Jenn was making a bunch of calls on my cell. I figured at the time that it was just talking to people about my injury. Turns out she was frantically trying to change plans.

The doctor was an MTB'er as well. We were comparing scars. I won!


So I was limping out of the hospital, and we were driving home, and I saw my parents pulling out of a Dairy Queen. I was like, "what the hell are they doing here" I still didn't figure out that there was a surprise party happening. So we got back to our friends place. My parents said that they decided to come up to the Elivis festival on a whim. Duh!

I was sitting in the living room dulling the pain :> and all of a sudden all of these people wandered in. The little light bulb went on! Dim, but it was on.

So they proceeded to get me dressed up. See pictures (pay special attention to the pink thong and sidburns). Then did a very miny (and pathetic) version of the triathlon, since I was moving rather slowly and could barely dip my feet into the pool.

I think I won the triathlon anyways. There was noone else running!

We later headed down to the Elvis festival. She had set up some silly tasks for me to perform, that is wear I met an Elivis. Good times.

So that was my 30th. I have a good scar to prove it too! Atleast the sideburns washed off.