Thanks to my dear sweet hubby, who got out of bed at 5:00 am to drive me to Morden - I arrived with plenty of time to spare this morning. I must admit, it was kind of nice. That and having my very own gear sherpa was cool too!
Today's race was the one that I have been gearing up for since early May and I am proud to report that I successfully completed my race! This race consisted of a 950m swim, 30 km bike and a 10.5 km run. I decided for this race that I was going to seriously up my nutrition on the race course. I ended up having a gel about 15 minutes before the swim, one in T1, one on the bike and on the run. This may have been a bit of over kill, but I didn't want to risk bonking and it seemed to work well for me. At long last, I finally have photographic evidence of me in a wetsuit!
The swim itself went pretty well - I am by no means a fast swimmer and I am still fairly new to the whole open water thing but I did manage to swim front crawl for part of the race and I only went on my back once (due to a side stitch). My swim actually went a lot better than I thought it would. This was my longest open water swim ever - so I didn't know what to expect.
After the swim, I headed to T1 to get ready for the bike. Had my gel, some fluid, got the socks, shoes, gloves and helmet on and I was off! The bike course was an out and back down a highway. The out portion seemed like never ending rolling hills that only went up, with a headwind...luckily, the back portion was much more down hill and provided a bit of a tail wind - I had a bit of fun on the down hills. Back to transition to get ready for the run.
A quick stop, as I was not changing shoes (toe cages for the bike), grab a hat, ditch the gloves and off I go again. I have to say one thing about Tris, you are tired by the time that you get to the run - your legs are used to cycling and your head starts playing with you. I had never realized how hilly Morden is (it's only about an hour or so away from Winnipeg). The run course went from the race site, through a park area with an interesting gates setup for a really steep down hill portion (kind of like switch back gates, to stop people from riding their bikes down - more on those later) through a golf course (asphalt path) in to the residential areas of Morden. It was a very pretty course, but I wasn't paying much attention - I just wanted to see the turn around point. I had a bit of a problem getting in to a rhythm for the run during the first few kms, my legs just felt kind of dead. I had a gel at about 3 km and that seemed to help things. I managed to mostly run between aid stations (very well stocked aid stations). During the course of the run, I found out that ice is my new best friend (stuck it under my hat), as it was getting pretty hot out. I managed to make it back towards the finish line, but first I had to go up the now uphill with switch back gates - running up the hill was not an option, I could barely walk up it, that is how steep it was!
Finally, with the end in sight I had to try to fight off a rival (didn't realize that she was behind me until it was too late) DH manage to get a picture of me just before I crossed the finish line: I received my medal and I was done!
Official stats: 12/13 (age group) Total time: 3:05:35 Swim: 30:09 Bike: 1:19:11 Run: 1:16:16 I have to say that this was a great race. For $40.00, I got a technical t-shirt, race number belt, a well organized race, very well stocked aid stations (Gatorade, water, ice, GU gels, some had pretzels), a free BBQ bison burger, chips and pop at the end of the race, in addition to the usual post race food. I am definitely coming back next year!
eme
