Worst Triathlon Ever - Race Report

I have always wondered about the "bad race" when I read about it on some of the other triathlete blogs. Before Sunday I had never experienced a "bad race" in the sense of grossly underachieving what I had expected for myself. Now I have, and I am struggling mentally with what it means. I have already begun the thousand questions of why. I don't really mind having a bad race, but having a bad race two weeks before nationals and four weeks before Australia doesn't exactly put my mind at ease.

Pre-Race. I did everything that I usually do pre-race. Up early with a meal-replacement shake, banana, powerbar, and sports drink. Got to the race site nice and early, had a pretty good warmup, and was ready to go.

Swim: The swim started pretty frantically, with lots of fists flying. I got hit pretty hard in the right goggle, and I ended up losing vision on that side do to the extreme suction on my face! The funniest part about this is that it was probably my coach, as I noticed he was beside me about 100m later. After that I just concentrated on high turnover and never slowing down. I missed the draft of the first pack, but hung around in the line of other triathletes. I went off course a few times, but nothing too serious. I was feeling good, and although I didn't have as much energy as I would have liked, I felt like I as in for a good swim time.

When I got into T1 I quickly checked my watch and couldn't believe the time I saw. 27 minutes! What! I doubled checked my watch. Yep 27 minutes. Yep somehow I swam slower than last year, even though I am at least four times faster than last year. I told myself that the course must have been long, and to not worry about it. So I hopped on my bike and set off.

About 1 km into the bike Richard Knowlton passed me. #$%@. That means that I actually did have a ridiculously slow swim. Richard is an amazing triathlete, but we both have our different strengths, and this year the swim is mine. I was hoping to build up at least 3 minutes on him in the swim. That burst my bubble a little bit. He just zoomed ahead of me and I thought "ok you gotta go with him," but my legs thought otherwise. What the hell was wrong with me? Richard just kept getting farther and farther away. We have had basically the same bike splits in all of the tris this year so I didn't know what was going on. Trying to keep some sort of positivity in this race, I told myself that he was having an amazing bike, and I should be happy for him and just try and do my own race. I $%^&ed up the swim, but I shouldn't give up. The rest of the bike was pretty uneventful. I didn't have much to give. The rollers on Old West Saanich drained me before I even started. Last month the bike course was similar, but I felt 100 times more powerful. At the 20k mark Dan passed me. He must have had a lack lustre swim as well, as I expected him to be already ahead of me. He looked like a machine on the bike. I tried to follow him for 500m but gave up on that, knowing there was nothing in the my legs.

I did the bike in 1:09.07, about 4 minutes slower than I would have liked. I just caught Janet Neilson before T2. Realistically I should have caught her before. That was going to be the theme for the run.

Out of T1 in 1:37.26, about 0.07.26 slower than I expected. That's when it got pretty emotional. My mom was there cheering for me, and I put on a happy face as I ran by, knowing that if I didn't have a solid run, I would not beat my time from last year. Thousands of dollars and hours in training to not beat my time. I was pretty down. I tried to salvage the run into some sort of building training run. It reminded me of years past when I was a really bad swimmer and a good runner. I passed a lot of people on the run, which usually would make me happy. Today however, it was more like "how the $%#@ is this person still ahead of me????" Or "how the #$%@ was this person ever ahead of me?" I didn't care if there were relay teams or not.

At the start of the run there were clearly laid out km markers. After about 4 of those I didn't see any more. Maybe I was just in a fog. I should have just timed myself between the km markers that are at Elk Lake, but I wasn't thinking straight. I just kept putting one leg in front of the other, passing people one after the other. I just wanted this one done. As I headed for home and into the finishing shoot I could hear people cheering and I looked behind me and saw nothing. I crossed the finish line and saw Janet run through right after me. Great run Janet! I guess she put the burners on in the last little bit to catch me. Good thing the finish was where it was, because she would have.

I finished the run in 39:57, for a total time of 2:17:59. Exactly 1 minute faster than last year. 1 minute.

After the race I quickly packed my stuff up and left. I was slightly embarrassed to be wearing a Team Canada uniform. I am not trying to be pompous, as I respect everyone of all ages that wears that uniform, but at my age wearing that uniform says that you are serious and a contender. Well that wasn't me today.

The scariest thing about the swim was that I have no answer for it. The course may have been slow/long, but not that long. Maybe 5 seconds/ 100 long. I was 20 seconds per 100m slower. 20 seconds! That doesn't make sense. Did I go around a different buoy? I am still trying to figure that one out. And how could I have felt in any way that I was having a decent swim, when I was having the worst swim of my life? I didn't feel the usual crazy amount of energy at the start, but 20 Seconds!!!!!!!! It kept me up all night.

I am actually happy that my bike was so poor. It tells me that there was something wrong with me yesterday, which may explain a bit of the swim. It might have been the Time Trial I did on Tuesday, but with little biking since it shouldn't have been an issue. I do know that my legs burned more than usual on the hills. Also, whenever I tried to knock some dust off my legs with a 50m sprint, nothing happened. Usually I get a mini burst of energy, but not today.

The one decent thing that was not decent at all was the run. I am proud that I mentally didn't give up, and broke 40 mins in a triathlon for the first time. Yeah, I was expecting to smash the 40 minute mark, but for the circumstances, I will try and find a positive out of this. It could have been easy to just give up and jog it in, but I didn't. I put a solid effort in the run, but seeing that Janet had a faster run than me only solidifies the point that I wasn't able to compete today.

One thing I would like to say is that when I mention peoples names to compare to, I don't mean any harm at all. Janet had a fabulous race! To track down Lysanne was pretty amazing. Janet is the ultimate competitor, and seems to always show up for races. Richard had a great race too! To be so close to Travis Chater and Jairus Streight is amazing. I'm sure he would have liked a few more seconds off on the run, but I know he has not been running as much as he would like. Still, ballsy effort man! Great race for Coach Dan too! He bowed out before the run due to an injury, but would have finished really high in the race. If he wanted to run, he would have been top 15 for sure! Also a shout out to Sam Mazer, who also had a tough race. She gave me a few good knocks on the head in the swim for cutting her out of the draft, which I apologize for! You should have just climbed on top of me! It couldn't have made me any slower.

The new plan is to sit down with Coach Dan and discuss my planned taper around Nationals and Worlds. Although this race wasn't my goal race of the year, I didn't feel rested and bouncing off the walls ready to go on Sunday. I want to make sure I feel that for Nationals and Worlds. Yesterday I really never wanted to train again. Today I feel much better, and am ready to get back at it. The beauty of sports is that there are good times and bad, and the best athletes persevere.

Thanks to my peeps for all the best wishes, I really appreciate it.