FCH Life and Triathlon: Missing in Action – Part 1 (Nationals Race Report and Kelowna)

I know, I know… I have disappeared for quite a while. I am not going to make any excuses. I was busy and stressed getting things done before coming to Australia and when I finally got here there were also things that had to be done ASAP. Now finally I have an assembled bike, food, a routine, know where the pools are, how to get to them, know the public transit system, where the bike shops are, where to ride for 2 hrs, etc…

So… lets go back to Nationals

Nationals this year were crazzzy! Last year none of the big names showed up, they were at the Olympics, or exhausted from racing and trying to make the team, or backups, or just not up for it.... This year Simon W, Paul T, Kyle J, Brent M amongst others were in there ready to rock!

Because package pickup was on Friday at 4pm, we decided to leave in the morning when I came back from an easy swim from 6 to 7am. At 9:30 we were on the road to Kelowna, and on the way (Langley) we stopped to I could get a new pair of Adidas shoes before my race gift certificate expired at the end of the month… I am not sure what the model is, and I did not bring them here, so I will comment on that in 2 months =)

We got to Kelowna at 3pm with 1 hr until the Elite mandatory package pickup and briefing. Lucky for us (the family), our apartment was 2 blocks away from transition and therefore race briefings were only 3 minutes away (this is by far the closest I have slept to transition on a day before the race… it was awesome!) The race briefing was like any other briefing, only that 2 seats away Simon was seating with Groves and someone else I cant remember. I was sitting with Martina, Kamal and Mike Adams all doing the elite race.

Saturday was relatively relaxing. The whole family was up very early as my mom and dad were doing their first triathlon! It was very moving to see both of them back in action doing some real sport and going all out! (Not that you cant go all out in a yoga class, but…) Both of them finished the race with amazing performances, dad winning his age group and mom passing lots of people on the run and going strong! Congratulations! By they way, dad got so motivated after the race that registered for the Vancouver Sprint on Labour day (tomorrow), just great!

Sunday my race was at 1:30 pm so lots of time to get ready for it… I like and dislike having all this time before a race. Its nice to wake up a little later, get ready with time, have 2 breakfasts (wake up time and 3hrs before the race), but at the same time is also nice to get it over with. This year I have raced a lot and therefore its becoming more like a regular day than “5 times to the toilet in 2 hours race day”. I must admit that I was a little more nervous as it was one of my 2 key races in the year, but still did a good job to block out all insecurities and believe in myself.

Warm up was good and easy, went to transition, and set everything up. Transition is getting easier every time as I have less and less things every time. I used to have towel, water bottles, HRM, race belt, socks, gels and many more things when I started years ago. For this race I had my bike with shoes clipped on, helmet, and running shoes. That is it, no food, no socks, no belt, no towel, no nothing! After all formalities of the Elite race, we lined up on the beach and the race started…

Swim: First 300m I could only see bubbles and got bumped on the left and on the right (which kept me straight). After 300m I finally targeted some feet and followed for another 200m, until I decided to pass them. Once I passed I saw that there was a gap of 20m to the following pack (4 or 5 people) and unsuccessfully tried to catch them until the end of the first lap. The second lap I led my pack (3) most of the way until my zipper opened up and had to stop 1 or 2 seconds to zip it up. I was out of the water in 32^nd position or so, pretty bad... I don’t know what happened but I swam 1:25/100m, the slowest all season.

T1: Nice and easy

Bike: I was on my own for the first out of 6 laps. I caught a guy on the second lap and wanted to work together but he was happier sitting on my wheel, so I towed him a lap until we caught another guy. Good, now we are 3 to work together, right? Wrong! The other guy was on the same boat; we just caught him and did not feel like working. I towed them for laps 3 and 4. On the 5^th lap I dropped them on the hill (it was not as nasty as I thought… maybe I have been doing Cypress and Seymour way too much!) and worked very hard. On the last lap (6) I saw a group of 3 guys about 300m up on the hill, and I gave myself 8 minutes (the remainder of the lap) to catch them. I worked with an objective and literally caught them as we were taking off our shoes before the dismount line!

T2: Nice and easy. Shoe gave me a little trouble but after looking at a video I lost 2 seconds…

Run: First lap out of 4 was tough. Legs were very drained from pretty much a solo TT and did not want to let the 3 guys that I just caught get away. I managed to stay with them and second lap got easier. The 3 of us worked hard and passed a couple of people. Eventually I was able to drop them and on the last lap I was able to pass about 3 people. I was feeling strong, focused, smooth gait, and had lots of people cheering me on which kept me going hard. I had the fastest run split of the season, 35:25.

I was very happy with the results of the race, the swim was not the best, and I really need to work on that, but the bike was very good. Despite going pretty much alone the average was only 1.5kph slower than the fastest pack of 5 people. I would not have been dropped… The run as I said was the fastest of the season and first time under 36, I was smiling ear to ear (when I forgot about the swim…)

The family stayed in Kelowna until Wednesday, were we relaxed, swam in the lake, biked to Penticton (Eze and me), ate lots, and bragged about everyones accomplishments on the weekend, watched tv, and so on; Family holidays... Wednesday morning we headed back to Vancouver and I had a huge list of things to do before I left. More on that to come on Part 2…

Thanks for reading, and sorry for taking so long. Better now than never! Here are some photos