After a strained ligament in my foot kept me away from my first proposed race of the season, Oceanside 70.3, and then an illness kept me away from the Calgary Mother’s Day Forzani’s 10 km. race, I was itching to get the season started, which I finally did last weekend at the WCOC Olympic distance race in Oliver, B.C.  Since I am still a teacher full-time until the end of June before I embark on training full time, however, I think this late start may not be a bad thing, and actually looking back, may be the best case scenario for the long term!  Regardless, the season is now on…and although I will miss aspects of teaching…only four weeks left of this juggling act before truly focusing on training/racing full-time as a professional.!!!  Yipeee!!!!

This was my first ever olympic distance race and I was very curious about the distance/pacing.  I like long, I like hot, I like hilly, but short and fast?  That’s a new one for me!  I also just got my new TREK bike from TIMEX and I’ve been spending a lot of time in the bike shop getting the fit perfected.   Thanks to my bike fitter, Blue (this guy is an ARTIST!) at Bow Cycle in Calgary, I do believe we’ve got it.  Regardless, lots of NEW thing for this race, so I was curious and excited to see how it might go.

The morning had a breeze that developed into a reasonable wind which stayed for the day.  This affected Lake Tuc-El-Nuit as it made things fairly choppy.  The swim was a point to point, where we exited the water at 750 m. and then went back for the final half.  The swim is still new to me in general, especially the open water, and this challenged me.  I swallowed far too much water due to the choppiness and at about 600 m. I had to roll over on my back to calm myself for a moment.  I was feeling some panic as I was filling up with water more with every stroke and found myself in a bad state.  However, I managed to heave this water up (lovely I know) and once I did, I felt so much better.  The last half of the swim did go better after that, but it’s hard to recover fully from something like that while in mid-swim.   I have worked hard on my swim over the winter, but this was still a little disappointing.  The conditions were tough, but I still got smoked by a few other women. After the swim I was already several minutes into a deficit.  I was expecting this though, so I just got through it and put my head into serious chase mode for the bike/run.  Besides, the fun is in the chase anyways!!!!

Running into transition I felt more like I was ‘poking’ at my wetsuit to get it off, rather than pulling it off with any force. The swim had affected me pretty good and I was desperately trying to recover for the bike.  However, once I did get on the bike I felt GREAT!  My position is awesome, my TREK bike is a great fit, the SRAM shifting is sharp and fast, and I felt like I was dicing through the wind.  I attacked pretty hard on the one climb coming out of transition as I knew that because this was a flatter course I would have to take all the hills I could get and use them to my advantage.  I did some training with Janis Lampimaki earlier this spring, and I know that her bike is strong.  I knew I would have to ride hard to beat her bike split.  As it turns out, I had a good day and managed the fastest bike split of the day for the women.  It was a smooth and strong effort – I was happy with it.

I then managed to put my bike in the wrong spot in T2 and my ‘angel friend’, Jenny Ayers, moved it for me as I scrambled to put my Newton Motion Trainers on, which, by the way, are the fastest darned shoes on the planet – bar none.  My super duper coach, Scott McMillan (Factor9), wanted me to wear socks for this as Boise 70.3 is only a couple of weeks away and he didn’t want to risk blisters.  Smart thinking.  So, I did the sock/shoe thing, and started the run.  As always, the run felt terrible for the first 1-2 km. but that’s the joy of triathlon.  Then it settled and I just focused on chasing the remaining women down, Janis and Martina (Wan.)  I caught Janis at about 6 km. and then set my sights on Martina, although I didn’t know it was her I was chasing at that point.  I just knew there was still one more woman ahead of me.  The finish line came too soon though and there wasn’t time to make up the difference.  I ended up running a 39 minute 10 km. which was good for the fastest female run split on this fairly hilly and windy course/day.   Martina had a strong race (and an amazing swim) to place first overall, and I came in 2 minutes behind for second.

Although this was far from the perfect race, it was my first triathlon of this distance and I am satisfied with the result. I’m happy with fastest bike/run splits….now to keep working on that swim AND those transitions which apparently need some work and practice! It was a great training day, awesome prep for the season, and I learned a ton. 

Thanks every one for cheering at the race, to my coach, Scott, who tirelessly helps me to prepare for my season goals, and thanks to Joe and Sarah (Outback Events) for putting on yet another tremendous race.

http://www.sylvanlaketri.com/Wine%20Capital%20Tri%20Web/images/Results/2009/2009%20Olympic%20Overall%20Results.pdf

www.janellemorrison.com