Toronto Island Tri – a clydesdale’s tale

Name of Race – Toronto Island Triathlon
Website for the Race – www.multisportcanada.com
Date of Race – Saturday, August 18th, 2007
Location of Race – Toronto, Ontario
Type of Race – Triathlon
Distance or duration of Race – Swim – 750m; Bike – 30K, Run – 7.5K
Description of Race – Racing on the island on a pancake flat course?  I’m a clyde, what more would I enjoy than that?

The Race I’d been itching to get back on the race course after what I considered a disastrous race at Bala.  Although my run at Bala was the problem, I’ve been doing a lot of work on the bike, trying to get stronger and faster there.  I’m figuring the run will be a death march come Florida in November so where I’m going to make up the most time is on the bike since it’s flat and I can get cruising when I want to.  This race would be a good test.

Pre-race Woke up early even though it was such a close race.  I figured that since you needed to board a ferry to get tot he race, that anything after the earliest times would be packed full of people so I wanted to miss the crowds.  I showed up downtown at 6:30am, planning to get the ferry at 7am.  Parking was a real gouge to the wallet ($20-25) but it got me close tot he ferry.  Found the HSBC tent for my ferry ticket, headed to the ferry and was on the island by 7:15am.  This is where a lot of the confusion and first year mistakes occurred.  I’ll talk about those later.

Due to the wind over night, the swim was cancelled…water temp had dropped from 72F to 56F so unsafe and a smart decision.  This may have created some chaos for the race itself and the wave starts, but it seemed perfectly fine to me.  It just meant that I had to run twice and running is my worst discipline by far.  Oh well, what can you do.  So a nice tri distance for me turned into a 5/30/5 duathlon.

Run #1 The horn went off and so did everybody else.  And I mean everyone in my wave flew out of the starting gates.  I relaxed very quickly into what I considered an ideal pace for me and knew that I’d be passing quite a few people on the bike and maybe even a few on the second run.  The first run was a bit uneventful except for a few spots…one being the narrow two-way run course where I knew I was holding a few people up and had to apologize.  What are you going to do…I’m 210lbs and slow.  Narrow road means you’ll need to wait.  Not a bad run seeing as my running this year has been somewhat off.  Flat is good!  Run #1 time – 23:52 (4:46/k), 9/25 Clydes and 227/396 OA

T1 I’m not a duathlon transition guy so this would be interesting.  Ended up being a quick transition for me considering, the only bad part was the mental game of coming in to an empty rack which is normally full after my swim.  Time to catch some people on the bike!  T1 time – 0:48

Bike This is usually where I fend off people instead of passing en masse.  Seeing as I was almost last off the rack and I knew that I was having some decent bike splits lately, AND it was a flat course, I thought I might be alright.  Right away I started picking people off.  I came up to one big pack and was worried that this is what my day would hold, but I was quickly by them and it was never an issue again.  The odd tourist by the end of the ride that you needed to scream at but all in all a good course.  By the third lap, I was pretty much done with racing the course and was happy to be getting off the bike.  I’m pretty sure I made up a bunch of placings on the bike and was happy with that.  Bike time – 52:08 (34.5 km/h), 5/25 Clyde and 108/396 OA.  Fastest bike split ever – amazing what a flat course will do for you!

T2 Not as full as I thought it would be on the rack which meant I’d passed a few people.  T2 time – 0:51

Run #2 I was looking forward to seeing how I would do on a flat course after pushing myself on the bike.  The last run has been an issue this year due to my weight issues so a decent 5K would be welcome.  Same course so I knew what to expect and how to pace myself.  Only surprise was the aid station volunteer who gave me a cup of Heed when I asked for a cup of water (twice I said “water!”) – I hate Heed and almost had the stuff all over me.  Uneventful run, felt comfortable and relaxed.  Run time – 25:09 (5:02/km), 7/25 Clyde and 214/396 OA.

Overall I was happy with my performance.  The run is still a struggle and it was tough to not get the swim in since that usually gives me a huge edge over people at this distance (moreso on the Sprints though).  Overall time – 1:42:48, 2/7 Clyde<40 and 158/396 OA. Maintained my hold on first place overall in race series standings for the clydesdales under 40 and have put a bit of distance between myself and 2nd place.  One more race for me at Wasaga before my last tri of the season in Florida.  I may shift myself to an age grouper so that I can try (keyword here is TRY) to get a spot for Worlds…my times from this year would put me top 5 at the Wasaga Sprint and seeing as they give spots to top 6, it might be fun to at least try.

So a few points on the race organization itself….let me first say that I think HSBC is a great race series and John and his team are great at putting together fun and enjoyable races, but a few unlucky happenings and some missed pre-planning marred this one.   A couple key points I would bring up:

• Having transition set up in a way that no one could get in or out while the junior race was going on was not good planning.  Since it was a 20 person race, they could have easily used one rack that would allow people to get in and out of transition in order to setup.  Instead, they used the GAT rack which meant the entire transition was closed for quite some time…couple that with the crowds of people showing up en masse and the disappointment for some that they were not swimming, and you had some chaos.  It provided great crowd support for the juniors but made quite a few people unhappy.
• When 150 athletes show up at once for registration, it means you need more than 2 people at the registration table and more than one line for all the other wonderful stuff you get given to you (race packages, body marking, timing chips). 
• One line with two people for the ferry tickets doesn’t cut it.  Lots of people, too few volunteers, unhappy customer. 

This is pre-planning that should have been taken care of and you thought would have been covered off, but it was missed.  Ordered lines by last name, or bib number, and well signed would have been helpful.  I even had a volunteer tell me stand in one line, then come back and ask people in that same line if they were here for the race I was just told to stand in the line for, and then was pulled out to the front, where I was then told I was in the wrong spot.  A bit annoying.  Granted, if you are struggling for volunteers, it makes it harder to plan and take care of the masses of people.  It was a first time race and they did have those few hiccups, but overall it was good.  The worst part about it for me was the number of people that I heard say “Subaru is much better organized than this” – well, let’s ask them to try and put on an island race, shared between a tri and a du and then plan it all for one big du and not get anyone killed on the course.  If all goes well, I’d like to go back next year since I really enjoyed the race itself and would like to have the chance to do it with a swim.

Thanks for taking the time to read.