So perhaps this was a race that just wasn’t meant to be. It
was a disappointing result with a couple positives to take away from the experience.
We headed to Calgary on Friday morning did the athlete check-in Friday
afternoon and then checked into the Super 8 in Cochrane.
Saturday morning I headed out to Ghost Lake and did a short
swim(cold but not freezing), followed by a short ride and finally a light run.
My right ankle has been bothering me ever since the move to Cold Lake so I was
anxious to see how it would do with a few excels. It felt ok but was still a
little stiff.
I headed back to the Super 8 and spent the rest of the day
with Claudia and the kids at the Calgary Zoo.
Sunday morning was an early start and it was at this time
that I started wondering how the day was going to unfold. My stomach was quite
upset, I felt like puking, but still managed to get half a breakfast sandwich
and a coffee downrange from Timmies. After we headed to the race start at the
Cottage Club I was starting to feel ok. I did the usual routine, drop my fuel
off at the bike, check my tires, etc. and then spent a few minutes hanging with
friends, Ian, Joanne, and Greg who had come down from St Albert (all members of
the St Albert Road Runners and Triathlon club.) Side Note: This was Ian's first race back after suffering a collapsed lung following a bike crash at Summerside in late June.
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| Ian and I talking before the race. |
At shortly after 0700hrs I headed down to the water and then
waited until 0720hrs to jump in for the start. I started to the left as I knew
the first turn was going to be a bit of chaos. Thankfully I made it to the
first turn buoy without must contact and quickly round the buoy and started
into a groove. I caught a set of feet here and there but was more concerned
with a strong rhythm then getting a good draft. The swim was quite uneventful
and I was happy to see the swim exit and a time of ~35:00 minutes on my watch. That
would be my best swim yet…perhaps my swimming is actually improving (positive
number 1).
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| Heading out on the bike! |
Transition was relatively quick and then I started off on
the bike. Rear wheel was rubbing a bit so I quickly jumped off loosened and
retightened the rear wheel and that seemed to do the trick. I tried to settle
into a rhythm and start pushing on the bike but despite my HR rising to normal
levels my power was low. I just figured I was cold and would push as hard as I
could for the time being. The first forty minutes went by fairly quickly and
just went I was starting to push the pace I heard the dreaded sound…poof. I knew
right away that my tire had done flat. I thought no worries a quick pit stop to
change the tube and I’ll be back racing. Wrong!!! I got off changed the tube,
tried to inflate, and then realized there was a big gash in the sidewall of the
tire. At this point I knew I had no choice but to wait for race support and
hopefully get a new tire.
Tech support arrived about thirty minutes later. Spence and
Paul from Speed Theory were a great help. They first tried just fixing the
sidewall, no luck, and then gave me a new tire.
The support these guys provided was superb…thanks! At this point I
figured the race was probably over as I had lost 45 minutes on the bike. I
thought I would just push the remainder of the bike and at least get a good
workout in. I thought I would analyse my time going into T2 an if I still had a
shot at going sub 5hrs then I would continue racing. It didn’t take long for me
to realize sub 5hrs just wasn’t going to happen. The remainder of the bike
course was uneventful with the exception of a bee flying into my aero helmet!
I rolled into T2 knowing that I would be saving me legs for
another day. I had a 2:26 bike split (if you remove the time I spent on the
side of the road) my fastest yet in Calgary by about 6 minutes (positive number
2). I knew my ankle was still sore and pounding 21kms out on pavement was
probably not the wisest move considering I have leg 4 of the Death Race to run
next weekend. So I called the race. My
goal for the race was to push the bike and hopefully get a chance to race in
Las Vegas. Seeing as I had accomplished the first and the second was now out of
reach I thought the smart move was to call it a day, avoid the impact on the ankle, and save my energy for next
weekend.
Mentally I was drained. I was frustrated that
things just didn’t go as planned, but hey, that is part of racing. It's sometimes a roller coaster a great performance in CdA and then a mechanical at Calgary. I was
thankful to see friends from St Albert and the opportunity to spend the weekend
in Calgary with the wife and kidos!
As always I am thankful for the support from Brian & Jill at Grasky Endurance, Jonathan and Karen at Compressport Canada, and Brian at Brainsport.
