Training Log Archive: wilsmith

Swim at Pirate's Cove. Felt pretty tired, but was good to get out and loosen the muscles after yesterday's race.

Pleasant MTB with Katta, Heather, and Nick on the trails north of Marsh Lake Road. Quite muddy in sections, thanks to recent rain. Also, celebrated a pretty clean ride yesterday by doing a spectacular Superman endo into a small creek. One bloody gouge out of my shin, some sore wrists, and surprisingly little other damage. The others were impressed with the flight though. Oh well. If you're not crashing every now and then, it would be boring...

Event: XTERRA ONTARIO - Mine over Matter
 

Happy Birthday Race - great way to celebrate turning 41!

Sadly, it all started off not so well. Was actually feeling pretty good in warmup, so I foolishly decided that I should start right in the front and center of the swim wave. The idea was that I'd be pulled along by the other 130 or so folks starting with me. Turns out, not so much.

Instead of being pulled along, I got literally run over by about 3 different swimmers, all faster and more aggressive out of the start. My timing chip was nearly yanked off my ankle within the first 50 meters, and was hanging on by a thread the rest of the swim - an unwanted distraction. But it was really the mouthful of water that I choked on within the first 100m that set me back. Started to panic, caught in the washing machine of other wrestlers, and had to pop up to tread water and take a break to regroup. Hard to force myself to carry on and be calm, and the super-warm temperature of the quarry sure didn't seem to help. Felt like suffocating, and it took me until just about halfway through the swim before I could settle down into a more relaxed rhythm. By that time I knew I was off to a terrible start to the race, and was pretty disappointed.

Worked hard to try and carry some momentum up the beach and into transition, but I was an unhappy camper overall. My "normal race" swim expectation was 19 minutes, with a "super race" thought of being closer to 18. To see my watch at over 20 minutes coming out of the water was not fun, but it wasn't quite as bad as I had feared it might be. Spent some extra time in T1 removing my timing chip and reattaching it properly on my ankle. In addition, I wasn't planning on carrying any water on the bike, so I took the extra time to suck back 400-500mL of sport drink before heading out on the course. Probably cost me about 20-30 seconds extra to do all that.

C • Congrats! :) 2

Hammered it out on the bike, in about 95th place overall (70th of the swimmers, and around 25 duathletes also in front).

Actually had a good ride, and passed a ton of people. Thankfully, none had kickstands this year, which meant that I was starting from a much better position in the field than last year, when I was 6th-last out of the water...

Gave it a good bit of effort, no crashes, and overall felt like it was about the right intensity for the most part. I was stuck behind slower riders in a number of places and had to soft pedal until an appropriate spot for passing opened up, when I would sprint furiously to get by. But it was much better than last year, for sure.

Came back off the bike in about 20th place, having moved up to 5th in my age group.

On further analysis, I was a bit disappointed to note how far behind my time was on the bike - nearly 20% behind the pros. Based on my pre-riding of the course, I had been expecting to ride in the 46-48 minute range, depending on conditions. However, I then added into the equation the cost of moving up all those places. Not even counting the people I lapped, I moved up 75 positions. Assuming it involved a time loss of even just 3 seconds per pass (and while some were pretty quick, many others involved a much longer delay than that), that means I lost 3-4 minutes just in passing people. So, my time of just under 51 minutes was pretty reasonable considering how dismal my starting position was. I was passed by only one rider (Michael Mazza, an experienced triathlete who recorded the 6th fastest bike split overall, and passed even more folks that I did!), but I managed to exact my revenge on him during the run.

Overall, was about 12th fastest bike split, which is decent. Hoped to be a bit better, but such is life. About 90 seconds behind Mike, and 90 seconds ahead of Ian. Though they were much better placed after the swim (my own damned fault for being so slow in the water...). I'll take it.

And then, out onto the run. For me, the run experience was pretty "meh". Felt pretty reasonable in the beginning and passed my first guy about 150m into the run. But after that, other runners were few and far between. In comparison to Guelph Lake, where I was in constant contact with a large collection of other runners (or as I think of them, "targets"), here we were so spread out that I was struggling to force myself into much intensity. My average HR in the low 150's reflects my lack of effort and intensity in this race.

I did enjoy the section on the singletrack up on the escarpment, and I passed a few folks quite easily up there without even really trying. Coming out of the woods and onto the final ~2.5k of gravel road, I knew I was in 3rd place in my age group, and was reeling in Mazza (who had passed me on the bike). So, I simply cruised along and passed him and was on my way to enjoying a nice leisurely finish when, to my horror, one of the guys whom I had blown by in the forested section was all of a sudden back up on my shoulder! And to make it worse, I knew he was in my age group!

At this point it's only 1.5k to go so I tried at first to up my pace to see if I could burn him off. Nothing doing - he stayed right on me. So with only about 150m to go I knew he was going to take me out in the finish chute. Sure enough, he went just before the final finish chute banners started. But, I wasn't quite dead yet. I was able to surge back into a small lead, as we approached the line, but he was walking back up on me. We ended up in a photo finish, with the exact same time to 0.1 seconds. They had me listed in 3rd in the results posted at the site, but him listed in 3rd online. No matter - we both were awarded bronze medals. And so, that was my first (and who knows - maybe my only?) podium finish at a triathlon national championships. It wasn't pretty, but we got it done in the end.

Overall, Quadzilla Racing had a very good day. With 6 of us competing, we picked up 4 medals (Mike, Katta, and Phebe each won silver in their age groups, to go along with my bronze), plus Ian was 4th in a very competitive M35-39 category that included Mike. Nick was the most unlucky, suffering a crash and a broken chain partway through the bike that took him out of the race altogether.

Ian and I were very glad to have picked up Maui slots elsewhere though - competition was tough here, and with only 1 slot up for grabs in M40-49 (compared to the bigger races with 3 for M40-44 plus 3 for M45-49), there was no way I was going to be winning this one. However, Katta had excellent luck. She was 2nd in F40-49, and when Heather Pady (the overall winner too) declined her slot, it rolled down to Katta! So, now it will be both of us racing in Maui... Exciting!

Plenty of work to do before then, including trying to make some major, major gains in the swim. The spinoff effects on the bike (better positioning, fewer people to pass, less time loss and energy expenditure to do the passing) and run (feeling much fresher coming off the bike) are well worth it.

Run was 16th overall. Managed to KAB (Kick Aussie Butt) in the bike and run, but he (Patrick) got me overall as my dismal swim at 20 minutes was much slower than his opening run of 10 minutes...

Easy preride of the MoM bike course. Should be fun tomorrow. Now to eat and sleep and eat.

Planned rest day. Of course, spending nearly all of it on my feet at work isn't entirely rest. But at least no high HR. It's shaping up that I will probably have too much rest (or too little training) this week, largely due to the Ottawa trip. But that's life. Who knows, maybe I'll feel extra fresh on Saturday. Or maybe just stale. Time will tell.

C • KAB 6

Run along the Canal again. Two 1000m surges at 3:44 pace each. Not feeling as easy as I'd like. Partly the legs are tired (maybe all the walking the past days?), and partly still a bit of chest tightness. Presumably allergies, humidity, and even reactive airways.

Anyway, rest day planned for tomorrow, and only a brief test ride planned for Friday. Hopefully the tanks will be topped up for Saturday's race.

Nice run along Rideau Canal. Super warm and humid - it'll only get worse, at least until we have thunderstorms... Three 1000m surges, 3:45 pace. Didn't feel like anything faster than that. Partly tired from yesterday (and maybe stiff from the drive - I'm getting old!), partly just heat and humidity.

Happy Canada Day!

Nice ride with Katta on the trails out Marsh Lake Road. Plenty of FDFs so we didn't go too far. Will be worth more exploration in the fall when the bugs are quieter...

The run part to make a brick. Cruised the first km as I met a new neighbor out running with his dog. After he turned off, I started to hammer the next 4km and ended up with quite a solid time. Happy with that, even if I've been sandbagging the training a little bit the past day or two.

After Portugal, I currently fully subscribe to the "in the final week, it's better to be 10% undertrained than even 1% overtrained" philosophy...