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 Swim
Comments: This was a little slower than my first Half Iron, but I had only swum twice (once for 15 minutes and once for about 25 minutes) in the six weeks since Ironman. At the beginning I breathed a bit of water from the churning of the water from swimmers around me. I love swimming in a female waves because you get brushed and jostled, but not beaten to a pulp (unless you're in with the pros I imagine). I felt that my sighting was excellent, and except for one tiny jag, I swam on a straight line to all buoys (not an easy task on this course). I wasn't able to draft because there was no one close. Most swimmers I was aware of were far to the inside of me and seem to be swimming a bowing line inward and then wowing to the outside to correct. I asked my husband and a friend on the bridge how I looked, and they agreed that my line was really straight. I felt really fatigued about 3/4 of the way through and attribute this to lack of swim training. At one point near the end, I couldn't see the launch to finish, so I had to stop to sight. Also a bit a chop came up at this point, but I love waves, so I jumped right in and said a little mental "whee" every time I went over one. What would you do differently?: Swim more for a little more aerobic endurance in the water.  Transition 1
Comments: This needs work. The only problem is that because I burn so easily, I'm really paranoid about making sure I get the sunscreen on. Fortunately, the waterproof stuff I put on before my wetsuit does seem to provide reasonable protection, so I only got a little sunburnt around where my numbers were. What would you do differently?: Buy a tri top that has proper pockets in the back and doesn't have racerback straps where I can get really burnt. This eliminates putting on a special bike jersey.  Bike
Comments: Wow! This was a fun bike and a personal best!!!! I've never got below 3 hours on a 90K bike (even here at home) and this was a 94K bike!!! After CDA the hills didn't even make it on the radar for me. It was fast and fun, but I was tired several times through it. I came into this race pretty burnt out from this year, so I was really considering just giving in, but I crowded out those thoughts and tell myself to stick it out just to finish. Being able to pass a lot of people helped my self-esteem. What would you do differently?: Work on increasing my aerobic ability on the bike. I'm satisfied with my hill climbing ability, which is good because hill climb training on the prairies is problematic at best. Good thing we've got wind. Transition 2
Comments: Burnt, burnt, burnt out. I was telling myself not to train without breaks so long again. I felt like I was moving in slo-mo. My speed laces on my right shoe jammed, too. Really, I don't remember much about this transition. What would you do differently?: Not race burnt out or overtrained.  Run
Comments: Hmmm. I knew right from the start that this was going to be bad. My run training has been good this year. I really don't think that this was from going too hard on the bike, but rather because I was tired to begin with, and it was just catching up to me. I made a porta-pottie stop between the first and second kilometre, which helped, but I knew there was going to be a lot of walking involved in this one. Actually, when I look at my time and how hilly the course was, I'm not too disappointed. I was only 2 minutes slower than my first HIM at Desert and that run course was flat. What would you do differently?: See above for bike. Post race
Warm down: Pizza at the finish line and cold shower at my friend Tess's place and a long drive back home (not the best way to warm-down from a race). What limited your ability to perform faster: Burnt out, not training consistently after IM CDA and not enough sleep. Event comments: I loved the clean water swim and the unusual course was actually a lot of fun and a good challenge to my sighting and swimming skills. The bike course was beautiful, fast and fun. There was a lot of variety of terrain and our wind conditions also changed up a lot. Changing direction on course decreases the likelihood of agonizing headwinds. The run course is also really great. If I'd had a bit more zip in me, I would have appreciated the lovely park, the nice path, the different terrain, etc. I highly rate the course in this race. My only 2 complaints were: 1) Don't change the swim waves after you publish them once online. One of my friends from Saskatoon had to swim with a different wave because her's left without her. Perhaps she was supposed to be notified of the change at registration, but obviously she wasn't. 2) More aid stations and porta-potties were necessary. Last updated: 2009-08-03 12:00 AM
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Canada
29C / 84F
Overcast
Overall Rank = 479/1088
Age Group = F40-44
Age Group Rank = 17/54
I woke up easily at 4:30 a.m. despite not having a lot of sleep over the previous 3 days. I was in a good mood because the Sask Roughriders won their football game in Calgary the previous night and thought that this boded well for Saskatchewan athletes in the race.
I had 2 raisin mini-bagels with peanut butter and 4 mini-omelettes for breakfast and put a Luna bar in my warm-up jacket. Trevor drove me to McMahon Stadium to be numbered and drop my T1 bag. I yawned a lot on (what felt like) the long bus ride to race start.
My swim wave didn't start until 8:00, so I had lots of time to fill up my new profile bottle (bought one with the cap), wait in line for the porta-potties, and drop my bags. I saw my new coach at the porta-potties and he wished me good luck.
I stood with a number of people from the Regina Multisport Club at the race start to watch the various other waves begin.
I did no warm-up as per normal (bad, bad girl), but my new wetsuit still fits like a dream, and this made me happy. I chatted with Andrea at the boat launch while waiting for entry into the water, and Pam Reed (the amazing ultramarathoner) assured me that the water wasn't too cold for my Raynaud's. My hands weren't too bad, but my feet started to blanch before we got in the water, however, it truly wasn't too cold even waiting for start.