Race Recap: Edmonton WTS

One week ago I raced at the Edmonton WTS in the standard distance. Here is a not so brief recap of the weekend:

Friday (the day before)

I was able to sleep in until 7am (super glad my body has gotten so use to waking up at 5am it can no longer sleep much later) and was out on the road with mama bear aka my number one fan by 9am. The drive from Calgary to Edmonton is ridiculously boring and took forever. We arrived at the race site - Hawrelak Park - around noon. I picked up my package and took my Cervelo TT for a quick spin to make sure everything was working properly before dropping it off in transition. Next, I went for a 10min jog around the park before meeting up with coach Kyle for a quick swim in the lake. I decided to wear my wetsuit just in case it was a wetsuit legal swim (at this point the water was 21.9 degrees, just under the cut off). I spent a good chunk of time trying to improve my somewhat dismal swim start. In the past, my swim usually entails a horrendous start where my 5’3” body is attacked/trampled by the larger boys. I then spend the next 400 ish meters passing them so I can get to clear water. In this race the boys and girls had different start times so I was pretty optimistic that I could get out in front early without the fear of being punched in the face. Some of my teammates and athletes were competing in the U26 draft legal race that afternoon so I stuck around to watch them. Everyone did amazing. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful - checked into the hotel, ate tons of pasta and bread for dinner and lights out by 10pm.

Saturday (race day)

Race day started with a wake up call at 5:30am. We quickly packed up and loaded everything into the car before making a pit stop at Tim Hortons to grab a bagel. I had brought along a jar of peanut butter and a banana so I made myself a PB&B sandwich. One of the worst parts of racing is attempting to eat a good breakfast when your nervousness manifests itself through an upset stomach. Eating consisted of me taking a small bite, chewing for what seemed like forever, finally committing to swallowing and then sitting there praying it wouldn’t come back up. I managed to finish my sandwich as we arrived at the parkade to catch the bus over to the race site. Transition closed at 6:45 so I had to get there rather early despite having a start time of 8:30. I was a little worried about how my bike would be as it had rained during the night and was still slightly drizzling in the morning. I tried to dry her off best I could (got some weird looks from the other athletes) and went for a quick walk through of each enter/exit point. As I was confirming with one of the officials which set of pylons/direction I was to run through I was told by another that there would be so many officials yelling at us where to go that taking a wrong turn would be impossible (lies!!). I spent the next hour watching the athletes competing in the sprint before starting my warm up.

The race didn’t allow for swim warm ups so I had to settle for a longer run warm up. At this point my stomach was still not happy - I couldn’t decide if I was nausous or hungry. I decided I was probably hungry (wrong choice) and should eat something. I started to nibble on a peanut butter ball (I’ll share the recipe in a future post - they are ridiculously delicious and nutritious) and immediately regretted my decision. So much regret. I immediately spit it out and managed not to throw up everywhere. I managed to take a couple sips of water before heading over to the check in for the standard women athletes.

A couple minutes before the start we were led out to the beach. The water temperature had increased so we were not allowed to wear wetsuits. I was indifferent to this decision but a little worried about how warm the water was - I hate swimming in warm water. The majority of the girls crowded around the middle/right of the beach. I decided to position myself closer to the left and just swim around them. The women’s standard heat was also combined with the standard relays. I noticed one of the relays had a male swimmer (who will now be referred to as the bearded speedo man) that I had swam against at the Canmore Grizzly Open Water Swim who was around my speed. I decided I would try to just stay on his feet for the swim. The gun went off and I managed to have a decent running start into the water (later on when I asked my mom how it looked her hesitation to answer would give it away that my swim starts still suck). I quickly got onto the bearded speedo man’s feet and we were first around the first buoy and stayed this way for the majority of the first lap. Two girls who were on my feet swam by us as we made our way to start the second lap. I tried to increase my speed to get onto their feet but my arms felt like they had no power. This was not good - I don’t kick when I swim so I have to depend entirely on my arm strength. It felt like I was spinning and going nowhere. I was forced to watch them swim by as I desperately tried to not get dropped by my bearded speedo man. Normally the swim is one of my favorite parts of the race and I’m sad when its over. Not today. I was so happy to see the exit chute and get out of that water. I finished the swim in third place and could see both of the girls in front of me. Annoyed at myself for having such a crappy swim I started to sprint to catch up to them - forgetting that the run to transition was around 500m. I managed to pass them but was so out of breath and disoriented I took a wrong turn and went through the finish chute instead of the chute parallel to it… oops. After hurdling my way over the pylons I entered transition, grabbed my bike and headed out to the mount line - where I once again went through the wrong set of pylons and I had to turn around and go through the proper set. I finally managed to exit transition and hop on my bike, first girl on the course.

The bike consisted of 4 10km loops that included a shorter, steep hill and a longer, more gradual hill. The first lap was rough. I was breathing way too hard as I encountered the first hill and slowly made my way up at what was probably 40rpm. Mentally, I was still super annoyed at how bad my swim was and my legs felt heavy. My bike is my weakest discipline so I always count on my swim to give me a bit of a cushion. I tried to settle into my goal power and make it as difficult for them to catch me but I was tired and cranky. I didn’t feel like biking hard and the thought of being on my bike for over an hour just made me crankier. After the second, gradual hill I was passed. I decided it was time to have a tough love conversation with myself and get back into the race. My legs still felt crappy but I forced myself to hit my power goals. Right before the first hill of the second lap I saw my teammate Isabelle on the sidelines. Completely forgetting that I was in a race and should probably stay as aero as possible I started to wave a little too aggressively. I also realized I had not had anything to drink from my water bottle - rookie move. My water bottle consisted of water, a packet of Q (orange flavour) and one salt tablet. Q is literally the only thing I consume while racing that doesn’t upset my stomach - energy gels make me dry heave. I knew I had to drink my entire bottle if I wanted to have anything left in the tank for the run. The rest of the second lap was a struggle but I stuck with my power and caught up on my nutrition. I finally started to feel good on the third lap. My legs felt strong and the rest of the bike went by without any hiccups. I was able to hold off the rest of the women and get into transition in second place. I remember thinking towards the end of the fourth lap that I was kind of sad it was over and wouldn’t have minded if it was a half ironman (when future me does finally complete an ironman I’ll look back at this moment and think about how naive/hilarious past me was).

Transition two went smoothly (except I put my bib number on inside out which annoyed several officials…oops). I started the run feeling strong. I was about 2min down from the lead women and was on a mission to catch her. I felt great as a started to pass the men that were still on the course (their start time was 30min earlier than ours). The run consisted of 2 5km out and backs. The first part of the run was on pavement followed by about a kilometre on a trail (would have much preferred having the entire run pavement) towards the turnaround. As I made my way to the turn around I was able to see I was about 500m behind the lead girl. After the turn around I checked to see how far back the other girls were from me - all seemed too far back to challenge me except for one who was was literally flying. I tried to increase my speed but had a bad feeling. Sure enough, about 4km into the race this girl flew by me. I knew there was no way I could match her speed. I continued on thinking I could maybe catch the other girl. I saw the lead girl as I made my way to finish the first lap - I had not made up any ground on her and didn’t have the legs to substantially increase my speed. I finished the first 5km in 21:10, faster than I’ve ever ran a 5km in a sprint race so I was hesitant to push myself as I still had another 5km to go. At the final turn around I could see that I had no one challenging me and my third place overall was pretty much secured. I saw my coach at this point and instead of telling me how far back I was, I told to just finish strong - you know you aren’t going to be able to catch up when. It was no longer a race for a position but now a race for time. One of my big goals for this season was to break 42min - I tried to motivate myself to run faster but I was having a hard time pushing myself. I finished strongly with a run time of 42:40 - so close to my goal. This was 2min faster than I have ever run 10km in a triathlon so you would think I would have still been happy. Nope - I was super annoyed at myself for not digging deeper. Next time. Overall, it was a solid race with room for improvement.

Next on the agenda? Lake Chaparral 3km Open Water Swim where I plan on finally breaking 45min ( my teammate who sabotaged my last open water swim isn’t racing in this one so I should be good :) hehehe)

#triathlon #racerecap