Ironman Muskoka 70.3 2012 Report

The end of my racing season is usually marked with the Muskoka 70.3 race in September. I've done this race ever since it was launched in 2008, with the exception of 2010 when an opportunity to race Ironman Canada came up - an opportunity I simply couldn't pass up!

The Muskoka 70.3 race is the race I put all my effort towards and usually structure my season so that I peak for this race. Living in north America, this is ideal since you can still get some good base work during the months of May and June before ramping things up for September.

Unfortunately last year I had a horrible race in Muskoka (click here for details) so I had an entire year to look over what went wrong and adjust my approach to this race. One thing most people will tell you about the Muskoka race is that it's a grueling course! Not only do you swim 2000m and bike 94km but the bike and run courses have some nasty elevation changes that will quickly pinpoint your weaknesses and where your training failed. I honestly believe this course deserves its own type of training compared to other 70.3 races that I've done.

That being said, my entire training season was based on being prepared for this race so that meant loads of hills and climbing work both on the bike and on foot. A good portion of the summer my long ride of the week was a 3 to 4 hour ride from Creemore, Ontario to Collingwood, winding in and around the Blue Mountains. Throughout this ride you could find anything from hour + climbs to short steep climbs (for example the climb up Scenic Caves Rd.).

So, going into the race, I felt prepared and was ready to put in a hard day's work. Since I only remember this race as being hard, mentally challenging and on some occasions totally demoralizing, I have to say that I did have some doubts about how I was going to perform and if I was going to meet my goal.

I had originally planned of swimming 30 minutes, biking 3 hours and running 1h45 with 5 minutes in Transition for a total race goal of 5:20. This would be a PB at this race and an aggressive goal I thought I could achieve.

SWIM:
At the swim start, I was ready to race, I lined myself dead in the middle of the starting line that spanned a good 50m or so. Did my usual technique of going all out for a few hundred meters and settle ahead of the main pack. After sighting a bit saw the lead pack ahead of me followed by my pack which had myself and 2 other guys. For a while we were swimming beside each other. By this time, I assumed I was evenly matched with these guys as they made it this far with me so I decided to drop into their wake and let them do the work. We rounded the first corner, I felt great, still in their wake and still sighted to see where the lead pack was and they were not too far ahead. I thought to myself I could stay with these guys all day and feel super comfortable for the bike leg or I could hurt a little, bridge the gap to the main pack and then try to settle. I ran this conversation in my head for a good 5 minutes or so before I decided to break away, crank up the effort and make an attempt to catch the pack ahead of me. I'm kicking hard, powering through the catch, breathing heavy and occasionally sighting and sure enough, I wasn't getting any closer to the pack, after about 100m or so, I give up trying to catch them and settle back into my pace. Sure enough, the 2 guys I was working with catch up to me, one of them apparently tried to lose me but I stayed in his wake until about 100m left in the swim, where I could tell he took his effort down a bit, probably to get his lungs back for the bike leg.

Recording the splits on my Garmin 310XT

Finished the swim in 32:06, 6th in my AG.

BIKE:
Coming out of the water was tough enough but the Muskoka 70.3 makes it even tougher by having a T1 of about 400m long and uphill!! Funny enough, the days highest heart rate recorded for me was during this stretch! I knew I wanted to get 3h on the bike and since it’s a 94km bike loop, that meant holding a 31.5km/h avg so I decided to put “avg speed” on my Garmin and use that as a loose guide. This was really a godsend as it helped me push or ease off at certain spots. The first 30k were nice and steady with a very high cadence – in hopes of working the lungs instead of the legs. I didn’t push much on the hills and just kept it comfortable. Based on the course and how I’ve trained on it before, I knew that by km 60, my avg speed would be the fastest of the day so from km 30 to 60, I pushed to get that average speed to about 32, knowing that it would drop from 60 to 94k. At km 60, I got up to 31.8 which had me a bit worried but I still felt great and on top of it all and nutrition was perfect. Sure enough it slowly trickled down from km60 onwards, hammered harder and harder seeing the avg speed trickle down to 31.5 and down to 31.3  by one of the last major climbs leading to T2. With about 5k to go and the course being net downhill from that point to T2, I hammered to bring it back up to 31.5. with a bike split of 2:59!

My Cervelo P2 performed exceptionally well on race day!

Finished the bike in 2:59:05, 28th in my AG

RUN:
Onto the run... But first a little back track... For a good 30k during the bike leg, I had to pee like a race horse, I tried to loosen up on some descents and some flat stretches without any luck! Sounds ironic but when on my bike, the "flood gates" simply don't open. This is something I tried to practice leading up to Ironman Canada but I simply failed. I don't know if it's the way I'm built or what but I simply can't pee on the bike. If there is anyone out there with some tips, PLEASE HELP!! So obviously the first thing I do out of T2 is hit the port-o-potty's!! I must have been in there for a solid 2 minutes before I was ready to go... So between this and the attempts to pee on the bike, I can comfortably take off an additional 3 minutes off my finish time!!

Climbing on the first km of the run course

I decided not to look at my watch until about 5k so that I could settle into the run without being affected by pace or time. You never know what your pace is like based on the effort but I felt great, I felt fast and the leg turnover was awesome.  But I felt like that holding a 5:30/km pace so I really didn’t know what I was doing. Finally looked at my watch and was running an actual pace of 4:20 at the time with an average pace of 4:40 as I passed the 5k marker. Right away I thought back to the countless amount of times my coach Sara Gross had mentioned about forgetting to try to bank time early in the run - it simply doesn't work. So I eased off a bit and brought my heart rate back to a reasonable level. Got to the 10k point and saw 47min or so and I was totally re-energized. I had a goal of 50min 10k’s for the 1:45 goal time so having 3 minutes in the bank felt great. Especially when km10 to km15 are net downhill. The next 5k were also awesome, took it all nice and fast, by this point, I didn’t care about the HR and decided to start to hurt in the lungs a bit so I started to push. I had a guy running behind me who was probably running about 5 seconds per k faster than me as he was behind me for the longest time, slowly caught up and then slowly started to pull away by this point so when he was about 10 feet ahead of me, I decided to stay with him. Sure enough every once in a while I’d look at my actual pace and he was clocking a 4:30 so I stayed with him for about 5k and then eventually he pulled away as it really started to hurt, I started to feel my form breaking down and km15 to 20  has some nasty little steep sections that brought me right down to 7min/km. I remember losing 2 seconds / km on my average pace in a stretch that was about 100m long and this was without walking! With about 4k to go, I had an average pace of 4:48/km pace, realized that my 1:45 goal time was well in sight. So sure enough I crank up the engine a bit, had a good pace going for a while and then cramping (both stomach and muscle) started to pinch me all over the place and so I eased off. The last 2k were really just a parade soaking it all in, recovering a bit until just before entering the transition zone. I saw 2 other racers who looked my age so, literally, I go all out, get close, see "38" written on his calf (I'm in the M35-39 age group), whiz past him, get close to the other guy, he’s 36, wizz past him and then carry the pace right to the finish line. So gained up 2 spots in the AG in the last 10 seconds of the race!

Excuse me... Coming through.

Finished the run in 1:41:38, 19th in AG

Add it all up and my final time was 5:17:30. I have to say that out of all the races I've done, this was the most perfectly executed race that I have under my belt. The training leading up to the race was great, I had set a reasonable but aggressive expections for myself and fought physically and mentally during the race. It's partly why I made sure to report it here in detail so that I can go back to this blog and job back my memory for future years!

Sporting Life 10k

I've been running "run-only" races for quite some time now. I usually need a goal to stay fit so when I finished highschool and stopped playing "team sports" I thought running was a great option as I didn't need to rely on others to get out and exercise. You get to a point where you've done enough 10k, half and full marathons and you realize you want to keep doing them but with faster finishing times.

One of my favorite races has always been the 10k as I consider it one of the longest distances you can race at your highest intensity but still requires proper execution and pacing.

In 2006, I started doing the Sporting Life 10k race which is a net downhill race down Yonge St. in Toronto, Ontario. It's a fast course jam-packed with people (17,000 finishers in 2012!!) that brings some pretty speedy finishers (2012 winner finished in 32:00).

I've been trying to break the 40 minute mark for quite some time now but ever since I picked up triathlons, run only races were never a priority and were mostly included as part of my training plan rather than properly training for one and tapering/resting for them. I've felt close to the 40min threshold for a few years now (41:37 in 2009, 41:41 in 2010, missed 2011 due to run injury). In all honesty, it was probably in 2010 that I felt I was ready to break 40min but being an ironman training year, I simply didn't want to take away from my ironman goal to notch up a PB in this race.

This year was a totally different situation. I've had a great off season training in all disciplines and since I'm focusing on the 70.3 distance this year, tweeking my training a little bit to accomodate this race wasn't too far of a stray from the ideal training plan for a "B" race in June and an "A" race in September. So, coming off a big 4 week block of training, I had a "rest" week leading up to the 10k race which would set me up perfectly to have some rested legs and a rested mind to go for it.

My plan was to go out and maintain 3:55/km as long as I could, knowing that if it was going to hurt, it would hurt in the final few kilometers which could be manageable. The start of this race can be pretty intense, lining myself up in the first "corral" and looking behind you, you can't help but get the feeling that 17,000 are running in your direction.

17,000 people finished in 2012

 I wanted to go steady but strong in the first 3k to settle into my pace and also settle with the people around me with similar finishing times (surprisingly, there were a handful of people who started and finished right next to me!!). Come the 3k mark, I clocked a 3:57, 3:51 and a 3:55, still ahead of my goal and feeling great. The next 3k I wanted to build on the previous and increase the intensity a little more. Clocked 3:49, 4:00 and 3:54 putting me slightly behind but I remember thinking at the 6k mark that I "had this" since I was feeling fast, flowing and in control of that pace. The final 4k are the "flatter" ones but still slightly downhill so by this point, it was litterally a matter of trying to hold on to the pace and make sure not to deviate too much from the pace.

I had the "actual pace" metric on my Garmin GPS watch which wasn't consistently giving me a good reading (saw I was running a 9:30/km pace at one point!!) but looking enough times, I was seeing a decent range between 3:50-4:00/km. KM 7 I clocked a 4:00 and KM 8 another 4:01 and by this point, it got scary. Here I was 8k into the race, clearly at my max heart rate, starting to feel cramping setting in and realized the next 2k could make or break the goal.

I thought back to all the years I've tried to get this goal, all the public announcements I made on Twitter to keep me honest (thanks @LukeEhgoetz, @IronBenUK and @LarrytheFalcon) and simply dug deep and went for it... I didn't bother looking at my watch for the final 2k as it was irrelevant as I planned to go as hard I could.

The closer I got to the finish line, the faster I picked up the pace and the more the adrenaline kicked in. Heard the "beep beep" from the KM 9 split and saw a 3:56, which fueled me even more for the final kilometer, by this point, I could taste the iron in my breath, could feel my heart pounding through my eyeballs but realized it was only for another 4 minutes so I gave it some more. Rounding the final corner, you see the finish line clock with about 400m to go and I saw something around 38 minutes on it (I officially started around 40 seconds after the "gun time") so I pushed a bit more to see if I could come under 40 minutes for the gun time... by this point, breaking the 40min mark was a "thing of the past" and now I wanted to go for whatever I could get.

Crossed the finish line with the clock saying 40:03 but I stopped my watch on the timing mat at 39:13 which was a great feeling and ran that final kilometer in 3:47 - the fastest kilometer of my entire race!

Now that I had some time to think about it, I would attritube the success to being properly rested for this race. Sure I did some speedwork and some specific training for this race but coming into the race on fresh legs and a low training week really made a difference.

Now it's time to focus on the "real" races of the season. Next up is the Mont Tremblant 70.3 in Montreal.

A Swim Meet? Really?

You always hear of triathletes doing run-only and bike-only races throughout their season to get a true measure for their time or speed for a given distance. When I was training with my buddy R.J. in the pool, he mentioned I should sign up for the upcomming Masters Provincial Championships. At first, the thought of participating in a swim meet seemed pretty foreign but after realizing it would be a great way to see my "true" swim speed without having to reserve anything for a bike ride and a run, I thought it would be a great idea. R.J. also mentioned this would be a good opportunity get a "benchmark" time and set some specific training goals off the results. I decided to sign up for the 1500m free, since that's the closest event that matches my "goal" race - being the 70.3 distance.

I didn't change my training too much to accomodate for the swim meet. I still kept my usual 2-3 swim sessions per week and by that point, had 1 "threshold" swim per week with the rest being aerobic and technique work. Closer to the race, however, I did slip into a speedo (which ironically I bought as a joke for my wedding in Dominican Republic in 2003) and practiced a few starts off the blocks and a series of 25m and 50m sprints off the blocks just to get a feel for it. I'm naturally a horrible diver so this was something I wanted to get a hang off. A few belly flops and visits to the bottom of the pool later, I somewhat figured out a decent angle of entry.

The swim meet in itself was pretty awesome. We arrived at the pool at around 5pm only to realize that the 1500m wasn't slotted until 9pm. Most of the people there seemed pretty frustrated due to the number of heats but for me, it was great... I had plenty of time to settle into the environment, ask my buddy a tonne of questions as to what was going to happen and what the normal "etiquette" was for warming up and everything else leading up to the event. The best part was seeing all those amazing swimmers and picking off their technique and how it differed from mine.

The Race:
Goggles on, cap on and ready to dive in, I was really excited and surprisingly giddy. With no previous "benchmark" for the race, no expectations except to give it my all, I was surprisingly calm but with that pulsating heart rate you get before the start of a race. My plan of attack was to break down the race into thirds, focusing on 500m at a time... an "easy" 500m to start with, build the next 500m to the red line and then hold on for dear mercy for the last 500m. I've been longing to race a 70.3 with a 1:30/100m swim split but never actually did it! I had a 1:35/100m split at the Muskoka 70.3 last year and a 1:37/100m at Ironman Canada in 2010 so I thought this would be a very good goal to set for myself.

Contrary to what my buddy's swim coach mentioned, I did a triathlon style "sighting" up at the clock to see what my pace was like every 500m. Based on my expected finishing time of 22:30, I needed to do a 7:30 first 500m, 15min by 1000m and finish by 22:30. First 500m, look up and see 7:38, which actually felt great because I felt fresh, didn't feel like I was working too hard and felt I had plenty of energy stored in me. So I start the next 500m and slowly start picking up the pace lap by lap, wanting to feel somewhat close to that "burn" in your lungs by about 400m or so... "Sighted" the clock again coming to the 1000m mark and see 15:08 on the clock (or 7:30 BANG ON for this 500m stint). This felt absolutely great. Even in training, 500m is an easy distance for me to swallow so I felt energized that I was on track to get my goal. The last 20 laps (25m pool) went by super fast, as I was counting them down, I felt myself going harder and harder and with about 10 laps left, I told myself 250m ALL OUT... I picked up the kicks, really focused on technique and a really strong pull in the water, again going harder and harder with each remaining lap... With about 3 laps to go, I start feeling a cramp on my right side which actually got worse to the point where fully reaching up ahead to catch hurt like a SOB!! I didn't back off though, it was painful but it was manageable and just like in training, I'd gotten there on perfect pace so I didn't want the last few laps to kill my race, 25m to go, turn on the propellor to bring it home, tap the wall and the time keeper bends over and yells "DUDE, ONE MORE LAP!!" I didn't even have a chance to react, I instinctively started the last lap and that last 50m pace was probably faster than my original "last lap" - driven by sheer adrenaline and by fear that I might have messed up due to poor counting. So tap the wall again, slowly find the clock and I see 22:32 on it... Do a Michael Phelps style "YEAH" when I see the time and then pretty much curl myself into the fetal position to get my lungs back.

It was a few days until I was able to see the final results and I was happy to see that my official time was 22:29 which breaks down to a 1:29/100m split.

 

All in all, the swim meet was a great idea and a great experience. It's something I would recommend every triathlete do as part of their season plan not only for the reasons mentioned above but also as a great confidence builder. Every once in a while when I'm doing harder sets in the pool and see my time is slacking, I think back to this event and how I can go faster.

Next up, the Sporting Life 10k and my 6 year quest to get a sub 40 minute 10k!

Muskoka 70.3 Race Report - Part 2

I finally had some time to let this race sink in (see Part 1 here) and analyze this to the best of my ability and looking back at my training log starting October of 2009 (yes, 2009, not 2010) I put in a solid 24 months of intense training. The first year in order to prep myself for Ironman Canada 2010, a short 3 week break to recoup and was right back at it in October of 2010 with a goal race of Muskoka 70.3 2011. In my entire life, I have never trained this much, even during my days as a somewhat serious and committed basketball player.

Looking back, I recall many sessions in the pain cave or outside in -20C weather or blizzard storms where I grudgingly pushed through the session with the attitude that every session counted and every minute of every session I had to be in the zone. As you might imagine, this is quite a heavy burden to bear, especially for an amateur athlete. I sort of stacked up the competition from previous years and set myself a realistic goal for myself and had it written on the wall next to my bike trainer as a reminder of the work I had to do. This being somewhat of an agressive but achievable goal, it quickly set me straight when I felt like giving up or felt my effort waining.

Fast forward to August of 2011 and litterally minutes after the adrenaline wore off crossing the line at the Orillia Sprint Triathlon, I right away started to feel more fatigued than usual. I quickly dismissed this as I had just ran a pretty fast race with a solid week of training leading up to it but by the end of that day, I was in bed with a fever, chills and full body aches. Again, at the time, I didn't think much of it and dismissed it as my body needing a break after a solid race and reacted with the onset of a flu or cold. No big deal I thought, goal race is 3 weeks away, I'm never sick for more than a week so the timing would be perfect for a week to recover from the cold, a week of short high-intensity training and then a final taper week leading up to the race.

HOWEVER... 
I remained sick until race day!! If you read Part 1, it will all come together for you and this is why I wanted to make this a 2 part post. Because yes, there are times where timing is horrible and you're sick or not feeling up to it on race day but in my situation, this was more than a typical cold or flu. I think my body finally had enough, my flame fizzled and punched out.

The ironic thing is that I remember reading about burning out, some of the classic symptoms and what can lead to burning out but you never think it could happen to you and when you're in the moment, it's never as obvious as looking back at the series of events.

Nonetheless, as alluded to in my previous post, this past season wasn't at a loss in any way whatsoever. Physically, I definitely improved in fitness across all disciplines and mentally, I pushed my pain threshold and tolerance a lot higher and I'll be putting these cards in my back pocket for next season.

As for my progress thus far, I've thoroughly enjoyed taking 4 complete weeks off since my goal race in Muskoka and have informally done a few sessions weekly out of sheer enjoyment rather than feeling the need to stay fit. I plan on starting back up in January full steam ahead and set myself up to peak at the right time instead of 3 weeks before the goal race!

Muskoka 70.3 Race Report - Part 1

This won't be so much as a race report but rather a seasonal recap, 2-part report. It just so happens that my "performance" in Muskoka really helped to see my season as a whole and highlighted some of the gains I've made this year as well as some of the flaws I built into my season.

First of all, I have to mention that from the looks of it one might think the race was a bust. My first 70.3 race in 2008 was at this venue and I posted a 6:18 (36:13 / 3:20 / 2:14), the following year I returned and posted a 5:58 (33:34 / 3:10 / 2:08). In 2010 I did my first Ironman race so heading into this season, I had grand goals of smashing my PB on this course. After all Since 2009, I would say I have taken the sport seriously and maintained somewhat of a consistent training regime every since. So was it a bust? Finishing in 6:30 this year (31:34 / 3:06 / 2:46!) is by no means a PB but being out there (for that long!!) really helped me evaluate my season and the leadup to this race which was in fact my goal race.

So What Happened?
The week leading up to Muskoka was an intense week. Not in terms of training but in terms of trying to manage an illness. Most likely a flu or a cold charactarized by headaches, coughing, runny nose, congestion, back/muscle aches. I tackled it extremely hard with pretty much everything possible from tinctures, eucalyptus bathes/inhalation, home-made teas, old-time remedies and evnetually succumbing to over the counter drugs!

The closer I got to race day, the more anxious I got and nervous about not being fit enough for the race I'd been working on all year long! I think it wasn't until Friday when I completely ignored the symptoms of the cold (still did my best to treat it) and started to focus on the race itself. Physically I started feeling a little better which was a good sign but a nagging cough which felt like a hammer to the back of the throat/head reminded me I was still sick. The night before the race, I was texting with Coach Sara who recommended I take Neo Citron just so that I get a good night sleep and feel rested for race day. Good call on her part as I woke up Sunday morning having slept better than I had in weeks and another warm cup of Neo-Citron helped suppress the cough, headache, congestion and runny nose too.

So got all prepped, headed down to the race site, set up my transition area, waited around for my wave to hit the shores and up until this point, I was feeling pretty good. Adrenaline (which is a great pain-killer by the way...) was flowing and I had my usual nerves. But added on top of this, I had this fogginess from the suppressants (and the second Sucrets I was sucking on) which reminded me that I shouldn't really feel as good as I did.

8:18am rolls around, the gun goes off and I cranked the propellers as I always do. My swim start is always fast and hard and above a pace and intensity that I can hold for a reasonable amount of time. This burst usually last anywhere between 200m to 300m depending on the race. Since swimming is somewhat one of my strongest disciplines in the sport, this routine allows me to get ahead of the main pack and then settle into a comfortable pace without too many bodies around me. So after of a few minutes of a solid burst of effort, I start to feel the burn in my lungs and legs and that's a sign I need to back off and start to settle into a good rythm. However, even after easing up, the burn in the lungs wasn't going away... Backed off a bit more and still felt like I was going extremely hard. By this point, the pack I was trying to avoid was right around me again and I would even say, most were passing me. I felt considerably slower. I'm pretty good at gauging my pace in the water based on my arm rotation and I honestly felt like I was going slow! I was somewhat puzzled thinking that I felt great before the race but then realized that my wife (being a Naturopathic Doctor) mentioned your VO2Max drops considerably when your immune system is compromised or when you're sick... I sort of dismissed it when she mentioned it but then it hit me like those V8 commercials and realized then and there that it was going to be a very long day!! The rest of the swim was purely a management of effort with random bursts of "hey i'm feeling great" later to realize I was gasping for air and breathing every other stroke. Came out of the water slightly slower than I anticipated but still felt motivated that things could turn around on the bike and still post a great race.

Shuffled my way to T1 and onto the bike and for the next 3 hours and change, my effort was pretty much the same as the swim... I would go through a stretch where I would keep the intensity high, start to feel winded, ease up, feel great, go hard, feel winded etc... However, at about the 60k mark or about 2 hours into it, good ol' Neo-Citron had done its job and punched out for the day... This couldn't have happened at a worse time as the last hour on this bike course has some steep hills that will make you grind and mash your pedals. Each pedal stroke again felt like a hammer to the head, coughing that made me lose focus of my breathing and enough snot rockets to blast me to the moon! I was still fighting though... being slightly off my desired average speed for the day, I wasn't having that bad of a race and thought back to harder races I had done and even dug deeper and thought of harder events I dealt with in my life.

The look on my face says it all

Off the bike, shoes on and ready to run a half-marathon. The first few kilometers were a nightmare. The pounding of each step were excrutiatingly painful... However, another rule of mine is to ignore the first 10-15 minutes of the run in order to let yourself settle into it and get your running legs under you... It didn't happen though... Somewhere between kilometer 5 or 6, I told myself it wasn't worth it, started going downhill beyond "race day" tiredness and decided to pull the plug and go for a 15k walk.

You'd think that pulling the plug on your A race would leave you demoralized, ashamed or even baffled as to how and why it could have all happened like that but in reality, throughout my long walkabout to the finish line my season became a lot clearer and the answers to how and why it all happened became very apparent.

Part 2 coming soon!

Milton Sprint Triathlon Report

I usually do a couple of run-only races before I bag my first triathlon race. I find that this helps me to shake the cobwebs and helps bring back that "racing" mentality - harnessing that fear into motivation and realize that those nerves are normal.

Unfortunately since March, I've been struggling with a knee/hip/ITBS issue that had my run (and a portion of my bike) training plan sidelined until I saw some improvements. Since October of 2010, Coach Sara and I have worked very hard and developed my run into something I've never believed could happen but unfortunately, that had to be halted in order to prevent this mild injury leading to something worse.

As a side-note, I've had an epiphany on how a chiropractor can help athletes. For some of you this might sound funny but I recently started to work with Dr. Sarah Racicot (follow her for awesome articles and a growing list of helpful multimedia: www.BarrieChiro.blogspot.com or on twitter: @barriechiro) and not only did she provide therapy on the issue itself but started to implement a treatment plan to improve my run. The best part is that she realized that as an athlete, my body isn't like that of an average Joe and treated me based on the volume I subject myself to - rather than how the typical chiropractic treatment plan should go.

Back to my report. I was going into this race very confident and feeling I would be competitive. I recommend that this attitude and outlook is great before a race only if you're willing to deal with reality post-race!! In my situation it was a real wake-up call and a realization that being off run-training for 12 weeks doesn't help at all. Especially in a sprint race where speed work quickly fades away if not maintained. I, somehow, felt that I would be able to beat my time of 32:30 (7.5km - 4.6 miles) from 2010. Instead, I managed a 33:56 which isn't so bad but honestly, about 4 minutes slower than I would have liked to see. Right off the bike, I felt slow - which is usually normal in trying to get your run legs - but as I checked off the distance, the legs were simply not there. The run course in Milton is also somewhat of a challenging course as you are actually on pavement for a 1/3 of the distance. The remaining is grass, gravel, mud and trails with some pretty steep sections. I'm not complaining though. If you love this sort of terrain, this race is perfect for it and definitely takes your mind of the burn as your winding in and out of tree-covered areas, trails and road.

The Bike:
In 2010 (and, as I heard from other people, in years past) the conditions were horrible! very cold, very windy and very rainy. This will make anyone a bit more conservative on the bike so when the forecast for the race was all sunny and warm, I expected to post a decent and improved bike time this year compared to last year. The start of the bike course is pretty tough, in fact, the first 10 or so km are rolling but essentially all uphill but within the first few kilometers you're faced with the "6th Line Hill" which is about 500m and steep. I've read various strategies on how to tackle this hill (ie- Sean Bechtel's approach to keeping it easy and saving it for the rest of the course) but having had a good base this year with a bunch of 2+ hour rides, I decided to keep the intensity high and try to get up the hill as fast as possible. Regardless, it was tougher than I remember and felt I was going slower than last year up the hill. I got an extra boost of motivation keeping in mind that I tackled Richter's Pass and the climb to Yellow Lake during Ironman Canada last year. Once the course leveled out, I settled into aero and kept the hammer on. It was a pretty lonely bike ride as I passed a handful of guys and battled with 1 or 2 guys throughout the bike. Heading south on the 5th line, you could right away tell there was a tailwind and running out of (hard) gears, I was easily holding 45ish km/h until heading east on the 15th sideroad. The icing on the cake was challenging the 6th line hill but this time going down. I say challenging because most hills don't have a sharp 90 degree turn at the end coming off speeds of 70km/h or more. Coming back to Kelso, I had forgotten about the bumpy gravel and length of the road back to transition and found myself out of my shoes a bit too soon. Overall, it was a decent bike. Posted a slight improvement over last year (54:23 in 2010, 53:03 this year).

The Swim:
The swim is the portion of the race that somehow, always goes well for me. It's at the beginning of the race, I'm fully energized and ready to go and my mentality has always been to pretend it's a swim-only race - meaning go as hard and as fast as you can handle... worry about the bike when you get to T1! Last year at this race I had some sighting issues and suffered one of the biggest blunders you read about for newbie triathletes - that is, never looking up and assuming I can swim a straight line! This year, I made sure that wouldn't happen and kept the shortest distance possible between each buoy! Heading back towards the start, sighting became a bit of an issue as the sun was bright, the splashing was intense and weaving in and out of the swimmers from the previous wave probably made that segment the slowest of the diamond-shaped course. Coming into the final stretch, I was amongst some red caps (my age-group) so I turned up the kicking and tried to stay with or pass some of the faster swimmers. Felt golden heading into T1! Posted a time of 11:29 (750m)  or about 1 minute faster than last year.

As I mentioned  earlier on, this race was all about shaking the cobwebs and seeing where I stood with respect to my off-season training, my minor injury and just how my overall improvement was from last year. Just like every race, there were lots of lessons learned and will use this race to set up the rest of the season towards the goal race of Muskoka 70.3 in the fall.

Post-race sporting my new Mercury Rising Triathlon Tri Tank with my buddy Peter!

Viva Las Vegas

I've been officially training for my next goal since the last week of September 2010. I basically took 4 weeks off after Ironman Canada (IMC). For a few weeks while I got back to training, I began to question why I was back at it so quickly and with the same drive and determination I put into starting my quest to finish an Ironman race. I knew 2011 would not be an Ironman year and in fact, after the emotional, physical and financial build-up for IMC, 2011 would be a very low-key year. Yet I still found myself hitting the pool at 6:15am, pounding away on the trainer and running for hours in sub-zero, blizzard weather.

Meanwhile, I kept asking myself why? I seem to be very goal-oriented in my approach to training yet I had nothing to engrave in stone to look forward to and achieve. I tossed around the idea of another Ironman, trying out some new 70.3 venues and even considered doing the Dextro Energy Triathlon in London but all didn't fit in with the priorities (non-triathlon) I had set for myself.

So... more 6:15am swims, mid-winter runs and mind-numbing trainer rides and still nothing to shoot for. As a side note, for those of you getting into the sport, I gotta say that having a buddy/partner to train with, set goals with and bounce ideas back and forth with really goes a long way. I've gotta thank my friend Peter for keeping me honest in training, being as goal-oriented in the sport as I am and willing to plan our season together to make it more interesting. Back to my point, after many lengthy emails back and forth with Peter, it seems a goal has come to fruition and I thought, what better way to hold myself accountable and to help motivate me than to make it public and written in stone across the world wide web!

Since I live about 1.5 hours away from Huntsville, Ontario - the town hosting the Muskoka 70.3 (where Craig Alexander, Mirinda Carfrae and Joanna Zeiger have won) I thought it would be the perfect race to make my goal / "A" race. This would give me plenty of time to properly train and plan for and as luck would have it, the timing would be such that if I qualified, it would set me up for a shot at the 2012 70.3 World Championships held in Las Vegas!

I've gotta add that this is a pretty aggressive goal that would mean I would have to shave nearly an hour off  my 70.3 time AND hope the roll down works my way but what's a goal if it's easy to reach? (I'll tell ya... it's not a goal, it's simply a "task" or a "to do"!!)