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.