Vancouver Triathlon Recap

One year ago I was ready to quit triathlon. My foot had been in constant pain for almost a year and no one had been successful in figuring out how to fix it. My mind and body were completely burned out and I was so tired of training so hard and sacrificing so much with zero reward. If someone would have asked myself one year ago where I saw myself now it would not be where I am currently. Current me is the result of my amazing club (Coach Lisa and Kyle, my teammates, my teammates families), my super supportive family, my understanding employers at the golf course, my friends, and of course my current doctors and chiropractor who were able to fix my broken body. I am so thankful and grateful for everyone in my life who believed in the crazy kid who thought she could be a competitive triathlete. Warning: this race report is probably going to be slightly emotional (I have a lot of feelings).

I was in BC for 5 days and plan on recapping the entire trip but I want to dedicate this post to just the race:

Monday morning started with my alarm going off at 5am. I made myself breakfast - a bagel with peanut butter and banana plus one peanut butter ball. As usual, I was super nauseous and not hungry at all and eating was a huge ordeal. After a 20 minute struggle, I was able to finish it. I grabbed my gear and headed down to the race site which was about 1km away from my hotel. I got body marked, set up my transition and did a run warm up with teammates Sophia and Sara. We weren’t allowed in the water once the various heats started so I snuck in for a quick warm up during the national anthem. I watched the first part of my teammate’s races (everyone was doing draft legal) while I waited to start. A couple minutes before the start I made my way to the beach to try to find a good spot at the front. I lined up beside my old Krono’s teammate Amanda. I was pretty nervous - it was a running beach start and despite spending a ton of time working on them at home I had seen little improvement. I reminded myself not to dive too early and go forward, not up and over (old pool swimming habits are hard to get rid of). The swim consisted of two 750m laps with a run around a pylon on the beach in between. There were 4 buoys in the water that made a lopsided rectangle.

The gun went off and I sprinted towards the water out in front and then immediately dove way too soon. My stomach hit the bottom and I watched as everyone ran around me to dive in. Not the start I was looking for, but I’m used to having crappy starts and passing everyone. I spent the first bit of the race trying to go around everyone and by the time I got to the second buoy I had managed to pass what I thought was most of the girls. It was really hard to tell where everyone was (boys and girls were both wearing the same color of cap) so I had no idea if their were any girls in front to chase. I made my way around the second buoy and was unable to spot the third buoy. I wasted a couple seconds looking for it, managed to see a swimmer a couple meters to the right of me and stuck with them hoping they were having better luck sighting. As soon as I was able to spot the third buoy I accelerated away and was almost immediately greeted with flailing bodies everywhere - the men had gotten a 5min head start. I had been hoping it would take longer half of the first lap to catch up to them. I tried my best to keep a straight line and not get stuck behind anyone as I made my way around everyone. I made my way around the third buoy and thanks to the sun was literally blinded. I had no clue where the fourth buoy and beach were. I could only see about 10m ahead and decided to just spot whoever was closest to me, catch them, pass them and find another person to spot. As I got closer to the beach, the water become shallow enough for the taller people to start walking… unfortunately it was still too deep for me to stop swimming. I pretty much swam all the way to the pylon that you had to run around on the beach and ran back in to start my next lap - maneuvering my way around all the guys who were walking back in. I thought to myself as I ran back in that this was going to be redemption for my failed first dive. I ran farther in and dove - straight into a massive rock. For a brief second I legit thought I had broken my left hand, Dazed, I quickly got up, did a stroke of butterfly and dove back in. The rest of the lap went by pretty smoothly - I continued to pass people. My stroke felt smooth, easy and fast. I ended up with a split of 21:04 for the 1500m swim - I’m super happy with this time. This ended up being the fastest split out of the women.

I exited the water and made my way up the beach into transition. I was able to take my wetsuit off pretty quickly, grabbed my bike and headed to the mount line. My mounts definitely need some work for next season but this one wasn’t atrocious. The bike consisted of four laps that were just under 10km each. The course went around Stanley Park on the road and was relatively flat except for one climb and one descent. My goal was to take the first lap hard, knowing it was going to suck and then find my rhythm for the remaining three. I had no idea if I was the first girl out of the water or how far the other girls were back. I decided not to worry too much about placement and just focus on myself. I decided to just go for it and bike super aggressively, hoping I would have enough left for the run (horrible strategy). The first lap hurt but I gutted it out - at this point there weren’t a lot of athletes on the course yet. At one point I had a squirrel attempt to play chicken with me and I almost ended up running over his tail (sorry Freddy, yes I named him). Each lap got more crowded so I mostly stuck to the left side of the road. I pretended that whenever there was a person in front of me it was a typical ride in Calgary where I had been dropped by my teammate Eric (it happened a lot) and I had to catch back up. I made it into a bit of a game with the goal of passing as many people as I could before each turn - the things triathletes do to make an hour of hard cycling pass by. I attacked the hill pretty aggressively on each lap and tried to get as much speed as possible on the downhill section. I knew I was probably putting out too much power but I was feeling good. I had brought my dad along for the trip - the last triathlon race he watched me do was Lake Chaparral back in 2014 (I had a broken foot and lost control of my bladder twice, not one of my finer moments). For the entire race I was unable to see/hear him - after I was told he didn’t want to distract me haha.

Before the race I had told Coach Kyle that I needed him to be mean (think hockey coach) during the race. As I was starting my third lap I heard him yelling at me, attempting to sound mean - it was actually kind of hilarious and I started to grin pretty hard. I ended up passing a ton of girls but was unsure whether or not they were in the Olympic or Sprint race. I had a couple boys pass me but no girls. I ended up with a split of 1:09:56 for the 38km (including both transitions) - tying for fastest split out of the girls (this is huge - normally my bike split is closer to the bottom of the leaderboard). I was super happy with this time and glad all of the time spent on the saddle this past year is starting to show. I finished the last lap, dismounted and made my way through transition. The bike to run transition was super long and had a bunch of turns. I managed to find spot, grabbed my shoes and bib belt and set off.

The run consisted of two 5km laps (my watch recorded a total of 10.5km). We had to run a half circle around the Lagoon, over a bridge (tough hill) out to the North sea wall and then back to go around the other half of the Lagoon. The path around the Lagoon on the way back was gravel :( I hate gravel so much. Coach Lisa had told me to give it 5 minutes to feel good and get to race pace. I decided not to look at my watch during the run and just go on feel. Five minutes in and my legs were still not responding. I was hurting. I trudged along, knowing that it was going to be a sufferfest. I still had no idea what place I was in - I wasn’t sure if I was going to need to run someone down or make sure no one caught me. I focused on the people in front of me and tried to just pick them off one by one. I made my way up the first hill and legs felt like crap. Thankfully at this point I ran into Sara’s dad running the opposite direction. Rene gave me a shout out and my mood was instantly lifted (if only temporarily). I got to the North Shore and made my way back. There were a bunch of girls behind me but I couldn’t tell what distance they were racing. I decided to just make sure no girls passed me. Right before I got to the turn that would take me onto the gravel trail that went around the lagoon I came across Coach Kyle. He was screaming at me to pick up my cadence - I was so tired/grumpy and really not in the mood to be yelled at (but I needed it). I buckled down and made my way through the gravel. I finished the first lap, hoping the second lap would feel better. It didn’t. My legs were just not cooperating. I thought back to all of the Wednesday night run workouts with my amazing teammates and running with all of my interval pace bunnies - Emma, Mary, Katie, Charlotte, Sophia, Sara, Julianne. I actually started to get pretty emotional thinking about it and had to tell myself to pull it together and not cry.

I made my way back to the North Shore and turned around - one of the girls had gained some ground on me so I tried to pick it up. I got back to the intersection before the gravel trail and once was again greeted by Coach Kyle - he was a literal lifesaver for the remainder of the run. All along the gravel trail I could hear him screaming at me. I had no idea where he was but I could definitely hear him. Every time I caught someone ahead of me he yelled at me to go for the next person (I needed this encouragement so badly). The other athletes kept looking around confused trying to figure out where the sound was coming from haha. I finished the gravel trail and made my way to the finish chute, giving it everything I had left. I had no clue what place I was in but I had managed to hold off any girls from passing me. My run split was a bit of a joke - 47:19. My watch recorded 10.5km which breaks down to a 45:03 10km - still garbage. The effort was there though so I’m not too disappointed. Everyone’s run splits seemed on the slower side - not sure if it was the hills, heat or slipping on the gravel that caused this.

Total time: 1:19:16 - my first time breaking the 1:20 mark :)

Coach Kyle had thought that I ended up second overall. I was a little disappointed - I really wanted my first overall win but I couldn’t have given any more of myself. About an hour later one of my teammates texted me that I had actually won overall - there are no words for how excited I was. This season has been more than I could have ever hoped for and I can’t wait to start training for next season. I’ve set some pretty big goals for myself (more on that later). Stay tuned for a recap of my entire weekend - it will basically be a massive food review. Vancouver treated me well.