First of all, sorry about my lack of posting lately. I was busy with the Tour de France, I just spent way too much time in front of the TV in the last three weeks.
I headed to Magog on Saturday since we had a ride planned with the club in the afternoon. Meet everybody there around 16h00 or so, we went to pick our race number, shirt etc and then headed out to get ready for the ride. The plan was to ride the second half ot the Olympique course, which was bad for me since my Sprint was on the first half of the Olympique course, but I figured that riding is riding anyway :)
I tried as hard as I possibly could to control myself on that ride to not ask too much on my legs since I wanted them to still be fresh for the race on Sunday, I didn't follow my plan well on that part, at some point I pushed a bit with the Elite crew to show them that I can follow them on the bike ... kinda ;) After that we went for diner, had some pasta with a bottle of wine with my wife and a friend.
I can't really say why, but I had a hard time sleeping. I guess my stomach didn't like the pasta that much. I finally got some sleep, at least my race was starting at 10h25 so I was not in a rush as much as those doing the oly.
I woke up around 5h30, made some coffee and got ready. Stopped on my way to the race site to grab a bagel and some more coffee. When I arrived there I racked my bike in transition and prepared my spot when I heard that they made the decision to finally allow the wetsuit, I was a lot happier at that point ;)
After that my transition spot was all ready I went to the swim exit and cheered on my friends who were doing the oly. After that all of them were out of the water I went for a 2.5km run to warm up a bit before the start.
The swim was one 750 meter loop, we were starting in the water. We couldn't hear the official calling how much time before the start so at some point I just heard the whistle and I started swimming. I started on the right side since we had to follow a line of buoy and they were on the left I knew that it wouldn't be too bad on the right, and it was a really good idea.
I tried to remember everything that the coach told me during the swim and make my stroke as effective as possible. I finished with a swim time longer than the last two triathlons, but I placed MOP overall, which is better than the other tri so I guess that the swim course was a bit longer and that my stroke was better ;)
Transition one went pretty good overall, still having problem with my suit that get stuck on my heels though. The starting line was crowded though, I had to run way past it to get some room to jump on the bike.
The bike course was way harder than I thought it would be. At first I struggled with the idea of putting a 12-27 cassette instead of my 11-23 but finally decided to keep the 11-23. Worst idea EVER!
The first 3km were mostly flat with some little hill, then we had THE hill. I was climbing at maybe 11km/h (6.8 mph) while climbing standing on the bike and pushing every little drop of energy that I had. I saw two person who had to walk the hill on my way up. I got passed by 2 or 3 person while climbing and I swore that I would pass them back pretty soon.
Once that big mofo was behind me the bike course was a bit easier, even if I left my legs on the hills I tried to get back to speed and gain as many speed back as I could. I passed back everyone that passed me while climbing and passed a lot of others. Since I finished the swim in 89th place and the 34 and less wave started 5 minutes in front of me I had a lot of people to pass.
Went to the turn around and restarted pushing as hard as I could. Finally reached that hill and I hammered as hard as I could on the descent, probably reach 85 km/h (53mph) on the way down. As I was approaching the transition zone I removed my shoes and got ready to jump off the bike, there was that girl who decided to stop in the middle of the road to unclip, I went by her so fast while yelling WATCH OUT, I hope I didn't scare her too much.
Transition 2 went really well, only small problem is that I have a hard time to rack my bike with the aero bottle on. I've got to find a solution to fix that. Then I put my shoes on and started running out of the transition zone.
For the first time I decided not to run with my Garmin, I didn't know what to expect for that run and I was hoping that they would have put a marker at each km so I could have an idea of my pacing. Sadly there was no marker, so I had to guess my pace on how I was feeling.
I went not too hard but hard enough at the beginning and found two guy about my speed. I followed them for a long while but they finally dropped me at maybe 1.5km from the end. I tried to get back to them but I was unable to push.
At maybe 500 meter from the line I saw a friend who was doing the Oly, chatted with him for a couple of seconds and then I sprinted to the finish line. He tried to follow me but he was too tired to stay at my pace so I finished in front of him ;)
Swim - 16:08 / 750 meters
2:08 / 100 meters
T1 - 2:25
Bike - 34:42 / 20km (12.2 miles)
34.6 km/h (21.5 MPH)
T2 - 1:21
Run - 22:53 / 5km (3 miles)
4:35 / km (7:00 / mile)
Total - 1:16:49
28/195 OA and 8/20 AG
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