Lac Beauport Race Report

The Lac Beauport triathlon has been my first contact with the wonderful world of triathlon last year. Me and a friend decided to do the duathlon there to get ready for our big event last year. We did it and I got hooked, one year later I was going back there to complete my second triathlon of the year, and of my life.

I woke up early, 5am or so to pack my stuff since I had to work late yesterday night and I didn't get home before 10pm. After everything was packed I had breakfast, 2 toast and oatmeal with two coffee. I drove to the lake, 20 minutes or so drive, this place is really close to home and this is where I go to swim in open water. I got there early so I had a parking spot right next to the transition area. I found myself a nice transition spot, parked my bike there then I walked around a little bit and waited that the rain stop to set my transition area.

People started to arrive slowly, we finally were around 450 people doing the triathlon, the duathlon and the relays. It was really cool to have that many people even if the weather was not that perfect. We had almost all the possible weather before the race started, drizzle, rain, some sun.

For the last week or so I had been debating which bike I would ride for this triathlon. I finally decided to go with the TT bike instead of the roadie. The weight difference between both is not that much, maybe 1.5lb or so and I love to race in aero position.

Around 8 or so I decided to start warming up, I didn't want to get in a hurry like at my first triathlon. I jumped on the bike and ode a little bit, I wanted to make sure that everything was smooth before the start. I wanted to get the legs moving a little bit but not too much though, I knew that the big hill there would once again be my biggest problem of the day.

After that I went for a quick run, maybe 1.5 km or so. Over the last 6 weeks I had to cut most of my running training because of my ITBand injury and I was scared that it would show during the triathlon. I tried to warm the ITBand as much as I could before the race, stretching and slow running.

Then it was the time to put the wetsuit on. The guy next to me in transition told me that when he did that triathlon for the first time he had to remove his wetsuit in the middle of the lake because he was unable to swim. That same guy does half Ironman, really inspiring. Once I got the wetsuit on I headed to the lake and swam a couple of hundreds to warm up and get the water in the suit.

Then it was back to the beach and wait, we got a little speech from the race director, the triathlon Quebec official and then the waves started.

The swim was a run start from the beach, three waves. 39 & - men, 40 & + men and then women and team. We had two minutes in between each start. When my wave started I was kinda in front, not too sure how that happened and why though ... Anyway, since I was there I tried to give my best to make sure no one would pass over me.




At first when I looked at the course I was sure that it was shorter than 1000 meters, but I can assure you that after swimming it it was 1000 meters ;) I swam a little bit over 1000 meters for sure because I had some problems sighting for the first 350 meters or so. After that it was a bit better, I drafted as much as I possibly could during the swim to help me. I succeeded for maybe 50% of the swim, which is not too bad.

At around 350/400 meters in the swim I saw a woman next to me, this is where I realized that she was from the wave behind me. Damn two minutes in that short of the swim. And what if she was not the first one to pass me. Ok I am in trouble there I got to swim faster. I can think that I need to swim faster, but that doesn't help the fact that I am damn slow in the water anyway. My thinking didn't help much because I saw a couple of women pass me during the swim.

I did succeeded in my goal of not having anyone passing over me. But I had a lots of trouble to swim straight. I need to work on sighting more while in the water. I do look every 4/5 strokes but it's like I am sure I swim straight and I always have the buy in front of me, but at some point I realize that I am like 10 meters away from the group.

I don't like the fact that most of the triathlon here don't give you transition time. It makes my swim time longer and I seem even more slow ;)



I had problems getting out of my wetsuit, it got stuck on my heels and it took me some times. I decided to put my bike shoes and run with them because there was a gravel road from the transition area to the bike start and I didn't feel like running barefoot on that.

The course is three lap around the lake, every time I go there I can not believe how riding around a lake can be so hilly. I mean a lake should be flat no, so the road around it should be too ...

Anyway here's a picture of the profile.


Hills are not my strength, and today's race proved me right sadly. I had a hard time on the biggest hill, almost every time I got to that hill people would pass me and as soon as I would get up the hill I would pass most of them back.

The good part of going up a hill is that you eventually have to go down, here I am trying to take advantage of it.


The rain was more intense at that point of the race, go figure the only leg of the race I was hoping that the rain would stop was the bike and it was the strongest. There is one really sharp turn on that course and today it was not that fun to turn it. Pavement was all wet so we had to brake and get the speed down a lot to turn. This sure didn't help the avg on the bike since right after that turn we had a strong head wind. What else can you ask when you have to get back up to speed ;)

Here is a satellite view of the bike and run course.


I decided to keep my shoes on again since the road was not feet friendly ;) Racked my bike, removed the shoes and then put my running shoes on, I had a hard time since I was all wet from the rain. Transition probably took me around 2 minutes.

I took my race belt and start running, after maybe 2 minutes I checked my 305 to see my running speed just to realize that I AM DUMB ... forgot my 305 on the bike ... I had no idea of my speed so I just pushed as hard as I could but trying to keep enough energy to climb all those hills. The run went by pretty fast, at least in my mind.

At kilometer 6.5 or so my friend Steve was standing on the side of the road, he told me "Go get them, there a bunch of peeps to pass in front of you". I really wish that I could have do what he told me, but I was just trying to keep running as hard as I could to get to the finish line as fast as possible. Sorry Steve ;)

I was at less than 100 meter of the finish line, and damn happy to see it ;)


Here's the run course profile, it was one loop around the lake again but the other way around.


My ITBand injury for the last 6 weeks did cut my training by a lot so I didn't have as much speed as usual today. I was still pretty happy with my time though, I was aiming a sub 40 run, and I did it :) The good side is that the ITBand didn't hurt at all during the race.

As soon as I crossed the finish line I had to pack my stuff in a hurry since I was working at noon and it was 11am ;) S toped by my house for a quick shower and drove to work. I got there 5 minutes late and my boss asked me "So, what was your finish time?" Good boss :)

Swim 1000 meter and T1 - 22:58
Ride 23.3 km - 45:15
T2 and run 7.7 km - 39.36

Total time 1:47:48
AG 16/25 OA 106/203