Peace River Sprint

Well it's not quite Ironman Canada but it was nice to be there 'in spirit' and compete in the Peace River Triathlon while my friends were doing IMC. A big congrats to all those who finished the race in Penticton under some of the most brutal conditions I've ever heard of there. I've never heard of it hailing during the bike in Penticton, my buddy Robert said he's never gone so slow during the last hour of the bike and this was his 10th Ironman. Let's just say I'm glad I sat this one out.

It was tough to feel motivated to complete even a sprint distance race on Sunday when Amber and I woke up to 3'C and some very, very foggy conditions. It was so cold I was thinking of calling it off and then Amber reminded me it's only a sprint race and I could go out and suffer for an hour. There were a couple strong competitors out there, my buddy Richard who runs a tri group here in GP and who we had a good conversation with about the future of "Speed Revolution." Come January we are going to have things a little more formalized and really start developing the brand. Also a local kid, Stephan Naskedin who is an absolutely unbelievable swimmer and killed everyone else by at least 3 minutes in 750m.

I felt comfortable with my biking and running although I've been doing a lot of IM training which probably doesn't help much during a sprint. It's been my swimming I've been a little anxious about over the past few weeks. Every time I seem to get into a good training routine in the pool, I get sick! It's very frustrating but I'll have a good couple weeks in the water and then I'm forced to rest. Fortunately leading up to this race I was relatively healthy so I was hoping to at least swim 12 minutes. I guess I did alright because Amber said I was 3rd out of the water and finished in 11:59.

The bike was a lot of fun but difficult with all the technical turns and rough road conditions. There was a lot of slowing down and accelerating and if you're doing that for 32 minutes straight it will really knock the stuffing out of your legs. Combine that with the very cold conditions and you have the perfect way to cause a lot of muscle damage. Thank God I decided to wear gloves on the bike because it seemed to lock-in the heat in my upper body and I was able to stay a little warm, I'm definitely doing that for Banff. Passed the two guys in front of me early on the bike and I was able to hold off Richard for the rest of the ride.



When I started the run I looked down at my legs wondering what was wrong. I was taking short little choppy steps and I couldn't figure out what was happening. At the 1km mark my stride started to stretch out more and I realized that my legs and feet were just freezing cold from the bike. The rest of the run went well and I was able to catch a lot of people in the heat before mine. Everyone was very encouraging and I did my best to cheer on the other competitors but it was tough when you are pushing that hard. I finished in 1:02.17 and set a new PR for the sprint distance, first one I've done since U of A back in 2008.


I seem to be a little run down now (a couple days later) and I'm hoping I don't get sick again. I have one more tri before I call it a year and although I feel a little disappointed at how this year turned out, I'm really happy I was able to be there for Amber to help her reach her goal of finishing the Death Race. This fall and winter I'm going to train a lot smarter and scale back the intensity and I may even hire a coach. I've done fairly well just training myself but I'm starting to realize that its not just the training that is important anymore, it's the recovery. I'll go back to running after finishing Banff in a couple weeks leading up to the New York marathon, I'll take a really good rest and then come January I'll look at what I need to do to be successful this season. I think it's going to mean racing less which I hate to do but I'm not going to miss another Ironman because I've pushed myself too hard. IMC 2011 here I come.