HOTR Race Recap

Race report time!

Heart of the Rockies 2018

Pre Race Shenanagins

So our motel room was on the ground level with our car parked in front of the room. When we went to load the car up we saw that a bear was chilling by the passenger door. He was ridiculously cute but I was slightly worried he wouldn’t move and I would be trapped in my room. Thankfully he wandered away after 5minutes and I was able to get to the race on time.

Swim

I was told the day before that they might change the start to a running beach start – which I am terrible at. I was pretty stoked when once again we were basically allowed to wade out as far as we wanted into the water. I seeded myself beside Eric, Emma and Soph, hoping to get a bit of a draft before they turned at the first buoy for the sprint distance. It was a relatively smooth start – I felt strong and wasn’t mauled by any over eager athletes. I hung on to my teammate’s feet for the first couple hundred meters and then veered off towards the Olympic distance buoy. I was pretty much alone the entire swim – no one was visible near me and I assumed I was either in the lead or way behind a faster swimmer. I kept my stroke strong with a high turnover, feeling solid. The water was a little warmer than I like it but I was having a pretty good time. I got to the first buoy (triangular course with one buoy in the middle of the lake), ready to cruise back towards the beach. I was feeling pretty confident with my sighting skills until I caught up to the sprint athletes. My one, single buoy on the beach was now being obscured by a dozen orange caps in literally all directions. Dear race directors/organizers, in the future please don’t have all the athletes wear a cap that is the exact shade of orange of the buoys. I did a couple strokes of breaststroke to regain my bearings and figure out which blob of orange to sight off of. The rest of the swim went by without a hitch and I made my way out of the water into T1.

Side note: This swim was a huge personal success for me. My swimming has been a bit of a disaster this season. I had a plateau during the end of winter and towards the beginning of summer started to get slower. It got to the point where I was dreading going to every swim practice and was forcing myself to just finish the sets. The lowest point was post Wasa when I ended up missing a couple workouts due to zero motivation – I would get into my car with my swimsuit on and sit in my driveway for up to 30minutes attempting to will myself to start driving. The past couple weeks I started to work with Coach Kyle on the mental aspect of this sport and I’ve started to see huge improvements. I’ve had no crazy gains in the pool but I’ve gotten back to enjoying swimming.

Bike

I managed to get onto my bike much smoother than normal (I’ve been spending a lot of time on the road in front of my house hopping on and off my bike – I think the neighbors are concerned). I quickly got my shoes on, ready to tackle the first hill. Apparently swimming 1500m and then sprinting through transition takes a toll on you because that first hill was a heartbreaker. I was the first athlete onto the bike course but teammate Koulie quickly overtook me halfway up the hill.

My goal going into this race was to win. I was second last year and wanted that gold. As hard of a racecourse HOTR is, it makes up for it in its beauty. Biking among the trees with the mountains in the background is pretty amazing. I was having so much fun being on my bike I got to thinking – why do I care so much about my results in comparison to someone else? Shouldn’t I just be focusing on myself, making sure I’m pushing myself to my limits and letting the cards fall where they may? Apparently I become quite philosophical when I’m oxygen deprived. As soon as I had this epiphany I felt a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders. Instead of riding terrified of who was behind me and when they would pass me I purely focused on how I was feeling and if I was putting in my best effort. I road up the hills strongly with a higher cadence in an attempt to not destroy my legs and tried to get the most out of the downhills. The road was in pretty rough shape so I spent most of the race hugging the middle line, attempting to avoid the rougher sections. At around 10km into the race I somehow managed to get the song “My Humps” stuck in my head – and it lasted the rest of the ride. When was the last time I heard this song? Probably middle school. Why did my brain decide to play it over and over again in my head for almost an hour? I wish I knew. Am I embarrassed that I still know all the words? You betcha.

I approached the turn around for the Olympic distance and noticed the top 3 guys were basically all together – I thought to myself well that’s exciting. As I made my 180 turn I realized that I had two girls right behind me as well. Crap. I guess it was going to be an exciting race for both genders. I slightly picked up my pace but kept it in the back of my mind not sabotage myself and blow up my legs on the hills when I still had 10km of hills to run (forgetting that no amount of holding back or saving yourself will make a difference on that beast of a run). At about 32km I was passed by one of the girls on a steep downhill. I tried to keep her in sight but she was slowly creeping ahead. I got back to transition relatively smoothly (minus a few cars that slightly cut me off on one of the turns).

Run

I started off the run about 200m back from first. I was feeling pretty strong and made my way up the first hill. My mom was waiting for me at the turn off and snapped some pretty flattering pictures.

I ran down the super steep/loose section and I wanted to cry – running downhill hurts. I pretty much skidded down onto the road and got myself together. I increased my cadence and thought to myself easy speed. People kept telling me to sprint to catch up to the lead girl – which was actually kind of annoying. I knew if I sprinted 1km into the race I would 100% blow up and die. I kept to my game plan – which was to run strong but smart for the first 5km and then pick it up. The first 3km are full of rolling hills and I managed to get through them feeling relatively good. This instantly changed when I hit the switchbacks. I feel like to protect myself my subconscious decided to forget just how brutal this section is. It is basically a ridiculously steep hill that is a kilometer long. My legs were toast and I was starting to shuffle – I told myself as long as you keep running and moving forward you are golden. I got to the top, passing several guys who were walking. I turned right onto the road and headed towards the turn around, spotting the lead girl about 400m ahead of me. I wanted to catch her so bad but I had gone from racing to pretty much just surviving. There was a guy slightly ahead of me who had overtaken me on the switchbacks and I made it my goal to not let him run out of my sight. At around 6km I saw Soph and Sara’s moms on the course cheering for me and I somehow managed to pick up my cadence. At 7km I saw Soph, Sara and Sara’s dad on the side cheering me on. I was physically dying but mentally feeling rejuvenated. I finally got to the last hill – which happens to have a cemetery at the top, quite ironic. At the 8km mark Janine was there, cheering me to finish strong. My teammates are the best. I knew I was too far back to catch up to first but there was no way I was just going to slow down my pace and cruise to the finish. I wanted to finish with nothing left. I ran hard down the hill and somehow managed to carry that speed onto the flat section before the finish line. I crossed the line content with my effort. Placing second kind of sucks but it’s exciting going back to training with extra motivation. I don’t think I’ve reached my max potential at this distance and I can’t wait to put in more hard hours to attempt to reach it.

Post Race Rant

When the race director called me up for my second place finish I was asked if I have kids…. Why is this not the first time I’ve been asked this?? Half the time I get asked by random people if I have children and the other half I get asked about whether or not I’m excited to start my first year of university (assuming I just graduated high school). I don’t really enjoy either questions but I really don’t like it when they are put together. Apparently I give off a teen mom vibe? Yikes.

Anyways – my next and final race of the season will be at the end of July in Edmonton. I will be racing in the Olympic distance Saturday and then moving to Camrose on Monday to start my Masters. August will be spent studying anatomy and getting ready for cross-country season. It’s going to be a huge change but I’m excited to see where it takes me.