Success!!

What a fantastic weekend in Stony Plain with some great friends, great results and time away with Amber. I think a lot of people who don't do triathlon really have a hard time understanding why Amber and I do this sport and honestly while I'm out there racing hard and really suffering badly I wonder that myself. However, I know the pain is always temporary and no one can take away the feeling of accomplishment you have after leaving every ounce of yourself out on the race course. I know Amber feels the same way, when your in the moment and going through all the physical turmoil you ask yourself if it's really worth it but it takes real mental toughness to not listen to those voices and to just keep pushing. A person that can do that is someone who is going to be successful, no matter what the day brings.

This week I tried to limit my workouts to very short and slow swims-bikes-and runs and I managed to keep my desire to push hard in training in check. Amber says that my success this year is all do to training a lot smarter, listening to my body when it needs a day off and focusing diligently on recovery, I have to agree. I don't worry anymore about not getting in my three swims, three bikes and three runs every week I know that if I have a week where I'm swimming a lot then I just won't have the energy to run and vise versa. So the plan this summer is to train smarter not harder and focus on a great peak of IMC in 8 weeks.

The build up to the race was a little nerve wracking because I put my race goal times out there and honestly if the day had been different anything could have happened. But it was an absolutely fantastic day for racing warm enough in the water not to freeze your face, hands and feet but cool enough not to over heat on the bike and run- and NO WIND! Wow I haven't had more that a few days on the bike in GP where the wind wasn't howling and there was no wind on the way out and a slight tailwind on the way back. People were saying that the wind picked up later in the bike but it was still a tailwind so it was an extremely fast bike for most racers. I started out in the water feeling a little beat up, it was my first open water swim in a long time and I forgot how brutal it can get in there. All I needed was a good elbow in the goggle and I was back into race mode. The first lap was tough, the turns at the buoys were brutal with people crawling all over you but it's all a part of the race experience I guess. The second lap things started to stretch out a bit and I was able to catch a few feet to draft for a while but it never lasts too long with people pushing you from every direction and swimming off course. Still I had a great swim for me, 30:58, a minute slower than I was hoping but I gave it everything I had and couldn't have swam faster. Also it's a 2k swim as opposed to the standard 1.9k most 1/2 IM's have.

I had a bit of difficulty in transition with my helmet strap (a Chris McCormack moment) but I kept it together and started riding fairly smooth right from the start. After the initial climb out of the lake I noticed I was passing A LOT of people in the first 10- 20kms I was pushing pretty hard but I wasn't expecting to be passing that many people. I finally caught up to a group of 4 other guys that were all riding about the same pace as I was. I would pass them and then they would pass me, mainly on the climbs- something I obviously need to work on before IMC. I was going a lot faster than I was expecting but bike training has been going so well that I just decided to go with it and if I blew up later I would figure it out then. I was surprised when I hit 80k because that's traditionally where I would fall apart on the bike but I was able to hold on right to the finish this year and completed the bike in 2:18.56 (including transitions) a minute faster than I was predicting and setting me up for a PR if I could have a good run. I was 12th place at the turn around and passed another 4 guys on the way back so was sitting in about 8th going into the run.

Bike Profile

I kept telling myself during the swim and bike that I just need to do my best and let the swimmers have their day and then let the bikers have their day and save something for the run, my speciality. By the time I got to the run I immediately thought I had screwed up everything, I went too hard on the bike and I didn't have any pep in my legs. It was a struggle to just keep my legs turning over especially in the first couple kms but everyone else was having an even tougher day because I passed two or three guys right off the start. I was trying to hold my regular run race pace but I felt like someone had been pounding on my quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves for 3 hours and now I had to try and run a half marathon. I my head I was so disappointed in myself for not being able to run as fast as I knew I could run but everyone who was cheering me on kept telling me how great I looked, I sure didn't feel great. I was just thinking of survival and had to walk a few seconds at some of the aid stations but I could see guys bearing down on me at the turn arounds and I just kept telling myself that you need to keep moving, just keep running even if it's slow.

The fourth place guy was so far in front of me at the start of the run I had absolutely no desire or will to try and catch him, I was just trying to stay within myself and keep the legs moving. Eventually I did catch him though and I must have been running just a couple seconds per kilometer faster because he didn't stay with me. Honestly if it had come down to a sprint finish I don't know if I had anything more to give but I did what I could to keep the negative voices away and to just keep moving. I had a much better run than I thought- 1:21.29 and it was the 2nd fastest on the day! That broke my longest standing PR (in 2008 I did a 4:16 on this course) and I was ecstatic to find out I placed 4th! I knew it was going to be a great battle between Kyle Marcotte, Paul Tichelaar, and Jeff Symonds but I didn't expect to be behind those three elite guys. 4th place and a 4:11.23 and $600 bucks to boot! That paid for our weekend in Stony and more importantly elevated my confidence going into Ironman training. I can't wait for Ironman this year I'm finally excited to be back in the game and racing well again.