I knew that Wasa was near radium/invemere but I didn't realize was about 1.5 hours past those towns. It's a bit of a logistic nightmare since the race is in wasa, race package pick up is in Cranbrook, and our accomodations were in Kimberley.
We left at 10:30am after struggling to put Meghann's new bike rack on her car. We arrived at 4:00pm for package pick up. We attended the MANDATORY pre-race meeting which was kinda pointless....all the info was already included in the e-mails. The organizer even said "it's totally different seeing the map on the wall, versus the real thing. Tomorrow morning I'll go over transitions in a chalk talk".
We had a 3 bedroom condo in kimberley which was REALLY! nice and cheap too! A hot tub/corona party happened and I was in bed at 11:30. I slept probably a total of 10 minutes all night..it was horrible. I blame summer solstice coming up and the HUGE window on the door which had no blinds.
Alright...so actual race day.
I woke up at 5am since it's a 25 min drive to the race venue. I started out too fast in the swim and had to tread water after 300m. I always fight with doubt during the swim. I would think about the 70.3 and question myself if I could actually finish the swim. I was able to calm myself down by counting my strokes. I wanted to count to 100 before taking my next 'break'. Fortunately I caught my breath and was able to continue before needing to take another break.
I found that I COULD NOT swim straight! I'd sight, take 6 strokes, sight again, and I'd veer to the right. So i started to breath bilaterally and that fixed things a little.
The swim course ended up being short by about 200m...and I had a swim time of 27:51.
The bike course was flat and the headwind wasn't too strong. I settled into a nice pace for the first 20km and pushed a little harder on the last 20km. SO many Drafters/cheaters! and for some reason people liked to ride on the road even though there was a HUGE shoulder...so I'd yell 'pass left!' but they wouldn't move....so a few times i shoulder checked to make sure the referee wasn't there and I'd pass on the right....
I hit a bump on the bridge and was riding 1 handed (eating gel) at the time..so my aerodrink fell off the aero bars and i lost half my water. I could feel a quad cramp coming on in the last 10km so slowed up a little.
run was great! footpod wasn't working so all I had was heart rate. I held 160 and was probably moving like a turtle for the first 3km. but then my legs caught up and I started to fly! I ended up running 45 mins, but who knows maybe the course was short.
7th in my age group
125th in the mens
154th overall.
It was an interesting race because the men started 22 mins before the womens....Since the bike was out and back, and so was the run. I was able to see my placing in the men's..but could also see the lead woman gaining on me! I was able to hold her off and crossed the line 1 min before her (but really she beat me by 21 mins!)
Results here!
http://www.winningtime.ca/09/09wasa/olymale.txt
