Triathlon Drummondville - Race report

I woke up not so early, had a hard time sleeping with the heat but we can't complain when the weather is that nice ;) The race site is at 1h30 from my place and my race was starting at 12h50 so we didn't have to worry too much. We left home around 8h00 since some of my friends from the club where doing the Oly and I wanted to be there to cheer them up a little bit.

Once we got there I grabed everything in the car and brought it all the way to the transition zone just to have them tell me that the transition zone wouldn't be accessible until one hour before my race. That meant I would have to carry everything with me or go back to the car. I finally just kept my stuff with me and cheered the people from the tri club. Finally I entered the transition zone and prepared my spot. After everything was ready for the race I went for a quick warm up on the run, I ran about 1.5 km (about a mile) just to get the legs moving. After that I grabbed the bike and rode 6.5km (4 miles), my legs felt tired from a really huge training week.

The weather temperature was 76, so no wetsuit once again today. I jumped in the water and swam a little bit just to get used to the water. That would be my first river swim and I was not too sure about the current, but it didn't seem that bad when I got in for my warm up swim.

Everyone got ready and we all lined up on the beach for our start and bang, there we go for another triathlon :) I tried to swim as good as I could, which was not that good, while trying to always have the buoys in sight so I wouldn't swim too much for nothing. Sadly after maybe 200 meters my goggle started to fog and I could barely see anything. At least I could see the big buoy but that was about it. I kept going, at some point I had the feeling that I was not moving that fast, which to be honest is normal for me in the water though, and I figured that it was probably because of the current. I had to find a reason other than thinking that my swim suck ;) I am wondering if it's the fact that the last two races were not wetsuit legal that my swim times were that much slower or the fact that the coach made me change my strokes completly. I guess that it will takes time to get use to the new stroke, and that eventually my swim will be faster that what they used to be :)

I finally got to the exit of the water, with once again not too many people around me. I really have to work harder on my swim because I hate being one of the last guy to get out of the water, even if this gives me more people to pass on the bike ;)

Transition 1 went ok, I was a bit thirsty and I drank a little bit from my aero bottle before I took off. But overall a good transition. I jumped on the bike and had a hard time to put my feet on my shoes though, I can't explain why but it took me a couple of seconds to get them for good which pissed me off a bit. As soon as I could finally put them on I started mashing the pedals as hard as I could.

The bike leg went really well, no one passed me and I passed a ton of people. I got out of the water in 102th position and I had the 14th fastest bike split out there. The course was two loop of ten kilometers each, mostly flat so I could ride as hard as possible without having to worry about the next hill ;)

Transition two went ok, if you don't take into the fact that I went to the wrong rack with my bick. I counted the rack from the end and I knew I was on the second one, but when coming in from the bike split I couldn't see the last one so I counted two and entered on the third one. Good job Robert ... This probably cost me like 30 seconds and 2-3 place on the OA.

The run portion was two loop of two kilometers and a half each. By the time that we started the run it was really hot. The fact that the start of my race was at 12h50pm was cool because I could sleep in, but it meant that we would run under a hot sun and humidity. The weather was probably over 95F I would say. When I looked in the car at 10AM it was 34C (93F)

For the second time I decided not to run with my Garmin. I am trying to race without it whenever I can, so I can push myself as much as possible without checking my HR or my speed. At the first turn around, 1.25km in, my time was ok but I knew I wouldn't break any record in that heat. So I just pushed as hard as I could without going out too much. It went relativly well, I got passed by maybe three persons and I was happy with that.

By the time I was at 750 meters or so from the finish line I started puhing really hard, I still had good legs at that time and I knew I could sprint good to finish the race, so I did. There was a lot of spectators which was cool because it meant more people cheering on us, which is always cool when you finish a race.

Swim 750 meters in 20:15 for 2:42 / 100 meters

Transition 1 in 1:31

Bike 20 km (12.43 miles) in 33:02 for 36.33 km/h (22.57 mph)

Transition 2 in 1:34

Run 5km (3 miles) in 23:21 for 4:40/km (7:30/mile)

Finished in 1:19:43

7/10 AG

46/120 OA