Brilliant weather all week made for some good old high volume and (some) high intensity training possible in the days leading up to this race. Four consecutive 4-workouts/day days totalling about 5hrs of training each day,made for some solid last minute training before I start tapering for my main race in Montreal in 2 weeks.  Fortunately, a rest day on Thursday, and a light race-prep day on Friday made me feel good enough to register for the Tri early on Saturday morning.

Weather again was perfect, and I was excited about closing out the Subaru series well.  For many of my prior races, I had minimal warm up, particularly in the swim, and always ended up costing me in time. … started WU with 60min til start, 10k bike, rushed the run WU to only 1k with some short mobility exercises, then headed over to do the swim WU… everybody was down that they delayed the start 15min… but not me… that was the best thing that ever happened to me.  I got in a solid 20min with 2min to spare to stretch. 
SWIM- the big mistake I did was line up right in the middle(with James Loaring)… I’m not overly aggressive, nor do I accelerate quickly, so the first 200m I took a beating… learning experience… but then I got open water and started to roll… I probably made up 20-25spots in the rest of the swim, and came out close to the top 10, if not in the top 10.  Still 1:27 down to a guy like James Loaring though… need to fix that for sure if I want to race draft legal ever, but feeling smooth and ready to hammer the bike.
 
BIKE- held a decent pace, but it was a more competitive field for sure.  Probably wasn’t as strong as in Orillia on the bike, but still a good overall effort.  However, I did get passed by at least 4-5guys just after the 15k turnaround.  At that point all I wanted to do was minimize the time lost and keep them in my sights(pretty much what I always do).
RUN- started out hard… could see 2guys, ran past then at 1k, then could see 2 more guys, passed them… Ran together with Carlos Robles, then dropped Carlos just before the 3k mark.  After, I could see the leader James, a 40-44guy and Karsten Madsen in front already going in the opposite direction.  So I started reeling in Karsten who was in 3rd place at passed him at 4k.   At this point the top 2 were so far ahead I just couldn’t see anyone.  The 5th k was a bit of a downhill so I let the legs loose and picked up the pace a little bit, but unfortunately I didn’t pick up the pace in the last 2k which was critical. My splits I believe were 3:31, 7:05, 10:41, 14:11, 17:36, 21:14, 24:45.  I saw 2nd place for the last k, and came within 15sec of him… would have been nice to push a bit harder.  What surprised me, was that my breathing was all over the place and others could hear me labouring… yet I dropped all of them on the run… normally I run with breathing and everything in control… just one of those days I guess.

All in all, a decent day… 3rd overall, 15sec back of second, but 2min back of first place James Loaring(great race for that young aspiring triathlete!).  My next and final race of the TRI season will be the Montreal Olympic Triathlon(my favorite race, which I am still trying to find a ride to) in 2 weeks on Sept 13.  A friend of mine has generously lent me his zipp race wheels(including a disc) to use at the Montreal race… and I can hardly contain myself.  I’ve never used one, but heard so much about how fast they are.  With a full taper, a calm swim in the Olympic rowing basin where sighting will not be an issue, and a flat and fast bike and run course I look forward to closing out the season with a BANG!

Thanks for Reading.

PB