Back to lovely Muskoka for me, this time solo. The weather forecast was looking grim for the race scheduled for Sunday. Earlier on Saturday, the sprint race had been nearly entirely washed out, and after numerous course changes, finally ended up being a splash-n-dash. As I drove up towards Barrie, the rain intensified and an ominous pitch black cloud moved in. Just past Barrie in Oro country, the rain was so heavy and the water on the road so thick, I thought my car would get swept into the ditch. I had to pull over and call my campsite to let them know I'd be a late arrival.
Yes, I was going to camp in this weather! When we did Gravenhurst, ML and I had camped at Camp Hillbilly, a cute little family grounds just south of town that allowed us to get up at a reasonable 5:45am rather than ... not sleep at all! When the monsoon relented a bit, I continued on, and thankfully the rain was a drizzle at the camp. I was so proud of myself for very quickly erecting my nearly-never used tent super-fast, using the car lights for illumination. I made it with the whole construction just in time for the heavy rain to resume.
Somehow the rain stopped overnight - phew! It left behind a damp set of roads in the Bracebridge area, but the full race could go on. Now, I am notoriously bad with getting my tires inflated before races. The first time I had attempted to inflate them, I deflated them instead. I've let others do it for me ever since. Except that I'm incredibly shy about asking! The race was about to start, I was already in my wetsuit, when I see a guy panicking because he needs to change a tire. One of the officials actually started to help him. I waited for them to be done, and I pounced, knowing there would be a pump available. The announcer was asking people to leave the TA at this point, so the official actually inflated the tires for me! Thank goodness, I had 20psi in them, holy mama. What a nice guy, that official.
The Bracebridge swim takes place in the Muskoka River, which is so narrow that it's a time trial start, every 5 seconds. At my speed, I can't seriously take advantage of keeping track of passing people (more like people passing me), but I did enjoy the easy sighting - if you keep next to the shore, you basically can't fail.
This race was the second time, by the way, where I somehow managed to lock out El Satellite Dish by pressing some random buttons. I continued mashing various button combinations whilst in the quick-moving line towards my start interval, and finally found the right combo (Mode + Up) while the girl in front of me was already starting, yeesh! It's a terrible set of lock-out buttons, as I naturally hold the watch by them while pushing other buttons - that is bad design!
T1 was especially fun for me, because not only did I have to get rid of a wetsuit, I had to unpack and fasten a band-aid to the crease of my instep, after my improbable crash in upstate New York the week before left me with an open wound that refused to heal. I would have to do this again in T2.
What followed was the most white-knuckled ride I'd hitherto taken in my short cycling career. Damp roads. Steep hills. Shitty pavement. Fast cars. Fast riders. Lack of riding fitness. Jitters from my little crash. It's all a horrible blur, except for a couple of particularly evocative moments. The one long sick climb towards the lollipop turnaround, where I just gritted my teeth and slowly and endlessly climbed. Then on the lollipop, we turned off onto the worst road in northern Ontario, where I had to slow right down to avoid getting thrown, so I then consequently made a very slow right straight into a super-steep uphill. I could already see one girl walking her bike towards the top, and I thought, "That's not gonna be me!!!" I have no pride. I didn't downshift, I just dropped straight into the small ring, stood up, and fought my way to the top. As I passed the girl, she told me she'd actually tipped her bike. Of course, as soon as we were both on flat ground, she got back on and left me in her dust.
Maybe the last part of the ride on Santa's Village Road wasn't too bad, but I also just think I was glad to be ever-closer to the finish. I changed my foot-dressing again and took off on the run along the other side of the river. What's great about smashing up your heel in a bike crash? You really, really focus on mid-foot striking. The run course is basically all-flat, except for one little hiccup. I finally started to feel great here. My club-mate CL passed me and cheered me on. I could see our other friend MQ ahead as well, so all the TTC tri suits really boosted my mood. Once my untrained legs started to loosen up, I got faster and faster. I still got passed by someone in my AG, but I felt amazing. I finished off with an awesome sprint. I negative-split the 10k by nearly a minute.
So there was my first Olympic triathlon. Kind of a comedy of errors, but I'm happy I pushed through it and even enjoyed it at the end.
Swim: 33:40
T1: 3:29
Bike: 1:32:15
T2: 2:07
Run: 55:15
| S | T1 | B | T2 | R | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place in Discipline | 7 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 |
| Place in Real Time | 7 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 |
--Distance: 51.5km
--Duration: 3:06:45
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