Vancouver Sprint Triathlon

Bad Blogger Alert! I’m back with a race report though. Now, I know what you’re thinking: race report? But Brian, you’re not even training! Yeah … about that …

A friend of ours has convinced me to race the Self-Transcendence Olympic distance in Victoria at the end of July. Foolishly, I thought that sounded like a really good idea. After all, it’s a fun event with a good spread of food afterward (leave it to me to be convinced by food). Then the opportunity came up to do a “dry-run” with the Vancouver Sprint last weekend, so I decided to give it a go.

My prep was interesting. I’ve been riding the new road bike all spring, so hadn’t been on the tri-bike at all. The weekend before the race, I thought it would make good sense to try the Guru and try running off the bike for the first time all year. I drove down to the course start and did the bike course pretty hard and ran most of the run course, suffering immensely. It would appear that “speed work” might have benefited me this season, but what the heck – I can wing it, right?

With Amy away on a girls’ weekend (I think the title she gave it was marginally less delicate), it was the first race I’ve done where I was on my own. Race morning dawned too early as always, and I headed down. One of the nice things about the Vancouver race is that the Half Iron wave goes off way before the sprint wave, so even though I had to be there early just to get parking, I had tons of time to settle in and do a good warmup. As it turns out, I also had time to change a flat for the guy parked across from me in transition when he was panicking 10 minutes before his swim start in the ½ IM. I told him to just put his wetsuit on and get ready – I’d take care of it for him. I wish I had caught his name to check how his day went, but happily, he at least made the start in time and had air in both tires when he got into T1.

The race was quite a bit larger than the first time I raced Vancouver in ’08. The nearly 150 men were in the first wave. While that number isn't huge, it's cramped into a pretty small area and with just 150 meters to the first turn, the start was very hectic. The ocean current didn’t help either as several people missed the target and had to backtrack a little to get around the first turn. I got tangled up with a few others coming around the buoy and was even caught in the rope anchoring it to the bottom leading to a brief moment of panic. Released from this though, we were down-current for the next leg, which flew by. I made the turn for home and swam hard in some open space to finish it off. Swim: 07:58 for 500 meters (1:36 / 100 m)

T1 was pretty smooth. I didn’t get stuck in my wetsuit or do anything too stupid despite not having practiced at all this year. It wasn’t incredibly fast (ranked 45^th), but it was efficient enough. T1: 2:10

The bike course is one we ride all the time. Most of it happens to be the Leading Edge time trial course, so I’m even used to pushing hard on it. I managed to take in a little bit of food near the beginning before climbing up Spanish Banks and then just fought to stay close to the red line for as much of the ride as I could. I had a few people to work off of and leap-frogged with a few others in the sprint as we blew by the racers going at a far more sensible pace in the ½ IM. Most importantly, I felt that I had to lay myself out there on the bike course because I didn’t expect much from my run, and in that effort, I was successful. Ride: 44:55 for 26 km (35.4 km/hr)

T2 was fantastic. I had gone past Dominic from Leading Edge on the road in to transition, but then he passed me back as I was trying to get out of my shoes while still on the bike (apparently, he has practiced that part this year – he made it look far too easy). Once off the bike though, I got through transition really quickly. Just threw my bike on the rack, slipped into the shoes, and played with my visor while I was already running out. My transition time was tied for the fourth best in the field. T2: 0:32

Starting the run was painful. It is obvious to me now that practicing transitions on a weekly basis with LE in years past was a really good idea. I spent the first 2 km of the run sluggish and suffering as I watched half a dozen guys (and one woman) run by me. Once I hit the 2 km mark though, I started to feel a little better. Still didn’t have a lot left in the legs, but was able to fight through and keep turning them over. I managed to run a solid negative split and hold off most of the charge of people coming from behind. Run: 22:35 for 5 km (4:31 / km)

Final result was 1:18:09 against my goal time of 1:20:00. I placed 29^th out of 233 overall and 11^th out of 60 in my age group. Best of all, I only got chicked by two women, and since they were Suzanne and Stephanie, I knew it was inevitable. I’m pretty proud to have held off the rest of the women's field!

I learned from this race that I really should try to get out to a few run practices and push myself into more suffering each week if I want to be prepared for the race at the end of this month. It’s probably too late now, but I’ll get out to a couple anyway. More than anything though, the race was a huge reminder of what I’ve missed out on this year by going back to school. There was a huge turnout by Leading Edge both racing and cheering and it felt amazing to be a part of it. I can’t wait to get through October this year and be able to come back to that group of people that have been such a huge part of our lives for the last six years.