Triathlon de Quebec - Race report

I woke up early and had breakfast with a cup of coffee, after that I headed to the race site to help finish the setup for the competition. Since it was my club's triathlon I was volunteering yesterday, this morning and this afternoon.

As far as warm up goes I went for a ride, but there was a lot of water in the street and I changed my mind, rode maybe 2km just to make sure everything was working as intended. After that I went for a quick 1km run, my legs felt fresh. I guess that almost no running for the last 6 days really helped.



As usual my swim is what killed my race, I was faster with the wetsuit but still lost a lot of times there versus everyone else. At first I tried to get into a nice groove and give what I had in me. After 250 meters or so someone passed me and I jumped behind him and drafted from there until the end of the swim. One or two times I almost lost him but I knew that if I wanted to have an ok swim I had to stay with him so I pushed a little bit harder.


I dropped my cap and goggle while running into the transition zone, I had to come back to get them which cost me some precious times. Then I ran as fast as I could to my transition spot. Looked around and saw those two guys sitting on the ground. I removed my wetsuit, grabbed my stuff and went, they were still sitting on the ground ;)

I knew I was in the back after my swim and that I had to mash the pedals as much as I could to get some time back. At the start it took me probably 3-4 km before my legs felt good, I always have a hard time to warm up on race and it cost me times at the beginning of the bike section. After that I pushed as hard as I possibly could. One girl from the club fell on the ride, looks like she is ok finally!

No one pass me on the bike, which probably means that I should swim faster I guess :p

As far as transition two goes I went in, got my shoes, went off!

I hadn't run much in the last 5-6 days besides my brick practice on Wednesday night. I had some pain in my legs and wanted to give them a break before going hard on the last marathon training part and I decided to do it the week before this triathlon to give them some kind of tapper.



So going into the run I had in mind to run it hard, as hard as my body would let me run it. When I got out of the transition zone there was some people from the club there with me and I know that they do run some nice split usually, but I didn't want to stay around and chat so I just start running hard from the start. I passed them and never saw them again. Actually no one ever passed me on the run again. I am really happy with my time today, 4:11/km is really good and probably my best split in a triathlon.

Every time I saw someone on the path in front of me I just ran hard to get back to him/her and then I was looking for another person to pass. On the last stretch I did a sprint and pass a guy, this was a good decision since he was in my age group. If I didn't do that sprint I would have lost one place in my AG and OA ;)



Since this race was organised by my triathlon club I had volunteer to help before and after. That made the entire experience way different. Sadly the triathlon and the marathon were both on the same day today and a lot of people had to choose one or the other.

I hope it will get fix for next year.