Wasa Lake Triathlon June 12, 2011 Race Report

Wasa Lake Triathlon June 12, 2011 Race Report

For the third year in a row, we packed up the family and headed for Wasa Lake, BC for the annual triathlon festival. This year we added another family member to the mix: our eldest daughter wanted to "race like mummy," so she signed up for the Tri Kids Challenge. I am so incredibly proud of my daughter! It makes my heart fill with laughter and pride and joy at seeing her so enthusiastic about triathlon. She swam 100m, biked 5km, and ran 1km in :31:37. Yes, she was pooped, but thrilled to have a medal of her own! Here are some pics:






On Sunday, it was my turn. My race plan was to make the bike hurt more than usual, so that my run would be very tough. Let's see how it all played out....

The swim start looked a bit intimidating, as it was one loop in the lake, for a total of 1500m. Seeing the big orange buoys so far from shore gave me a bit of a shiver! Once in the water, I decided to swim with the pack, and I found a couple of girls who swam about my pace, and who weren't interested in elbows and feet in the face. We swam along well for the the first 700m, but I lost the good feet at the first turn. Oh well. You'll notice how uneventful the first 700m were! That's because I was using long, relaxed strokes, easy breathing, no need to stop and look around, staying in the crowd but not being crowded. The return to shore was equally uneventful, a good, solid swim - and I improved my time over last year by almost a full minute!

The bike course was new this year. We headed out of Wasa Lake towards Fort Steele, up a series of rollers. Of course, I anticipated a bit of a hurt festival on the ride up, but was looking forward to the ride down. It didn't disappoint! Even with almost triple the elevation gain of the previous year, I rode the same time split, had an overall lower HR, practiced staying out of a draft zone, and had a good effort with nutrition while riding. Nice job!

The run course was the same as in previous years - loop around the lake and back again. My goal was to walk only thru aid stations if needed, but otherwise be consistent and persistent. Here's the comparison with last year:



The run is all pretty evened out year over year - except that I had a harder bike, and my overall HR was lower by about 5 BPM. It also FELT good.

Overall, my time didn't improve much over previous year (only better by a minute or so), but the effort was harder (due to the hills on the bike course), yet while my effort was increased, my biometrics such as HR were improved. And it felt STRONG. Which is exactly what I will need for my next two races.

Stay tuned for more racing action!

Race Report: Scotia Bank Calgary Half Marathon, May 29, 2011

After the debacle of weather and feet at the Calgary Police Half, I asked Richelle for permission to run the Calgary Half (I'd like to point out that I asked her permission prior to bridging the subject with my husband....). Her response was encouraging: "Absolutely."

I decided to run it as a training LDS, especially since the weekend prior I was at the CSR training camp in Penticton (awesome camp, great mileage, it's enough material to demand an entire blog post, check back here later in the week!). My goal was to run the course and reach the finish line happy with an honest effort. Because there wasn't a lot of pressure, I was very zen about the race all week during taper, and even at the pre-race package pick-up, Richelle commented that this was a very different type of approach for me, and that I seemed very calm.

Race day dawned sunny and wonderful. I met up with TTL people at the C-train station, we hung out together, laughed a bit, warmed up together, waited for the starting gun. And..... we're off!

I really liked the course, as it covered very familiar territory, I knew the distances between landmarks and could estimate how much longer to refueling or walk breaks or whatever. About 13 or 14km into the run, I checked my watch and thought, hey, I'm feeling pretty good here, let's see what happens if I turn up the intensity??? Okay, this feels good! At 17km I turned it up again! As it happens, I turned it up enough for a PB!! Yep, on a day that was supposed to be a solid training run, I PB'd by almost a full minute. Cool.

Now, I know that I run with a fast crowd (ha ha, pun intended), so it took a while to get excited about setting a PB, 'cause most people that I train with run the half-mary in the 1:45 to 1:55 range, so it's a bit embarrassing to admit to PB'ing with 2:11:28. However, now that a few days have passed, I'm actually very proud and excited to OWN that 2:11:28 PB, cause it was the result of a season of hard work, it came to me unexpected and unaware, and hell, a PB is a PB!

And now, back to IMC training.....