"This is Iron Mountain, not Iron Maiden."
-Yet another awesome Heather quote when she was talking me out of racing in my skull bandana head band. (I went with our tri-club's visor.)
THE SET UP
I won a free entry into this race as a door prize at the North Shore Sprint triathlon. I finished second in my category at the North Shore race, while I was attempting to defend the title I won the previous year. I really wanted to avenge that and have a good bounce back race. I talked my coach into letting me race another sprint in the middle of Ironman training, and off I went! I looked up some of the times from last year, and figured I had an outside shot of an overall win. So that was my A goal, to win. My B goal was top 3 overall, and my C goal was to win my M30-39 age group category.
THE SWIM
After first doing a bit of a bike warmup, and then a run warmup where people kept cheering me on thinking I was racing in the (still in progress) Olympic Distance race, I put on my wetsuit and hopped in the lake. Dang, the water's warm... and I had 40 minutes until the race started to struggle with an internal debate: It's cool and cloudy out, and it could rain at any moment. Should I wear the wetsuit and stay warm in the swim, have a faster swim, and a slower transition... OR should I take it off, man up and have a speedy transition? I took it off and shivered my way back into the lake.
They made us all get out of the lake for a beach "run in" start. The first couple times I did this type of start, it didn't go so well, and I got trampled. Now I'm a much more experienced and confident triathlon swimmer. I found some feet within seconds, and worked to get as far out in front as possible. I was hammering so hard, and yet the markers weren't getting any closer. It was then that I actually had a brief panic attack. I'm swimming through lake weeds, with no wetsuit (EWW!!) and now I'm starting to get pummeled by everyone around me... and they're all wearing wetsuits! I thought back to my first Half IM race where a similar panic moment had happened, and I had stopped swimming. This time I just put my head down and kept motoring. Within about a minute of finding my stroke, I had calmed down and was back on track. I hit the beach running, got my bike and split! 750m in 13:49, T1 mat to mat was 0:55.
THE BIKE
So the mount line was about 200m from transition, over a rough gravel road. I scouted it out beforehand and opted to put my bike shoes on in transition so I could run over the gravel faster. I ran 50m past the mount line so I wouldn't have to mount on gravel and got onto the road. My legs felt tired so I didn't push early on. I figured I was in about 25th place after the swim, and 15th place after the T1 thanks to not having to strip a wetsuit, so I just tried to pick people off. I passed a few people on the first of the 3 lap course, then I eventually came up on one guy who was too busy with what I was doing, and not busy enough putting the pedal to the medal. I passed him on the second lap, but he answered right back and charged ahead on an uphill. So I just let him set the pace for half a lap while I relaxed. The next time I passed him, at the start of the 3rd lap, he dropped off the back. Waaaaay off the back. I cruised into T2 in about 10th spot overall according to a spectator. My bike split was 41:47, but my Garmin was only on from mount line to timing mat so I got data I can actually use! Garmin says 23.5km @ 34.7km/hr. I'm happy with that, officially, I had 8th fastest bike split overall.
THE RUN
The whole time I was on the bike I was thinking about how I should run this thing. Running is my thing, but I swam pretty hard, and I rode probably a little harder than I should have. In the end I decided to just hammer as hard as I could for as long as I could handle. I knew the 2 lap run course was only 4.6km and advertised as "flattest in all of BC"... I could debate that though! A few too many guys got away from me in T2 so I had targets right off the hop. I passed 2 of them on the first "non-existant" uphill. The course then did a mini out and back and I could see I was gaining on a couple more guys. I passed them and came around the corner to see a guy in a team Canada junior elite kit, messing around with his shoe. He sees me and starts running, but I catch him pretty quick.
Now normally, due to my 'less than stellar swimming', when I pass someone in triathlon, they generally stay passed. My strategy is usually "spot everyone a healthy lead on the swim, and then catch as many of them as I can on the bike and run.". This kid, however, was from the Junior Elite circuit. AND HE COULD RUN! He sucked in right behind me and started matching my pace. So I picked it up. Crap, I can't drop him.
I come in to the end of the first lap and I ask Heather what place I'm in. "10th, but 11th is right behind you!". Really? I hadn't noticed. This kid was NOT going away. It then dawned on me that I needed to get in his head. I yelled over my shoulder, "You hear that, bud? We're 10th and 11th. Let's pick it up and grab some podiums!". His out of breath reply was, "I can't, I can barely hold this pace."
Well, we were running about 3:40/km.
It was all I needed to hear, and I picked it up. Surely he would drop off now! But he didn't drop off. Not at all. We went zooming by another place spot together, and now he was getting into my head. Was I playing into his trap? Was he going to outkick me at the end?! I had about 1 km to go, and letting up was not an option. I was afraid that if I dropped the pace, he would start his kick early, and I had been running out of my mind as it was. As we entered the camp ground that led towards the finish line, the kid finally makes his move. The only problem was I'd been anticipating it for over a km now and answered instantly. I let out a yell and hammered like I've never hammered before. He tried to pass on the outside, but I cut inside and took a hard right towards the finish line. He yelled "KIIIIICK!" as he gave it one last try. Nope, I got him by literally half a step.
4.6km in 17:27 (3:48/km average pace)
I had the 3rd fastest run overall, and won the Males 30-39 category by 5min30. I got my first racing trophy too, which is just the icing on the cake. The kid had the 2nd fastest swim overall, so that just goes to show you something about triathlon. I do owe something to that kid though...
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