Guelph Lake I - Olympic Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Sooooo, as mentioned I was really nervous as the gun went off. Lots of things were racing around in my head. I was worried about the waves behind us with all of the competitive men's age groups. The bouys looked far. Despite having done longer races and knowing logically I could do it I was panicking even before getting out there.

The gun went off and I was at the back. I waded in. Looked around, took a breath and did a couple of strokes. Stopped. Seriously thought about turning around since my mind was screaming not to do this crazy thing. I was so torn I wanted to cry. But then, i had a HTFU talk with myself and decided at least to try to get to the first bouy. I made it but my breathing was still laboured. I was at the back and there were a few red caps (my wave) around me. I was concerned about staying wide so i wouldn't get swum over. I was breathing every other strokes and finally i was getting into a groove.

It felt so long to pass the four bouys up the one side - and i guess it was - around the turn i started to see the blue caps of the second wave but i hadn't heard the horn. I also was on the hip of a girl at this end and i thought it might be good to stay there for drafting but we were bumping and i did get a light whack in the face so i moved off a bit.

I had some trouble sighting on the way back but was calm enough - i decided not to worry about speed and think about my form and lenghtening my stroke with my coaches' voices in my head. Finally back at the beach I was annoyed with myself but mostly I was just happy I got through it.

Probably just a couple of more OW practice swims but I am guessing this will just be the kind of nerves that happen before the first race of the year.

It's a long run uphill into transition and ran the whole way. I felt wobbly still from being all shaky on the swim. Sat down to get the wetsuit off and moved along.

The bike. I wanted to push a little here and see what I could do. I tend to stay in easier gears to spin more and 'save my legs' but I wanted to push the speed and just see how that would translate for the run.

The road really is in rough shape for the first 10k ish and then is fine. Drank perform in my aerobottle but had to be careful in said first 10k so i didn't poke an eye out or anything. I kept it in big gear and climbed all the hills - a good and rolling course. My main goal was to maintain 30kph through the 30k mark and i did achieve that. Seemed windy out and on the bad stretch on the way back I did lose some steam.

I knew I was pretty far back after the swim so i really didn't see many girls from my AG - but this is nothing new. I am not actually very competitive at this - I achieved what I set out to do and felt good about my effort. I felt great about the speed I maintained, staying aero for much of the ride and keeping strong on the rolling hills.

This was executed pretty much as I envisioned. Very happy with this.

I still have never put zip laces on my shoes and my transition then takes longer than it should. I saw my husband leaving transition just ahead and thought about trying to catch up but i was worried about burning myself out.

This was probably one of my worst tri runs in terms of feeling good off the bike - but as I mentioned I wanted to push it on the bike and see how it felt. Right away my HR went up into the 180's and the air seemed still (which was opposite to the bike)

So, i went with 180 as the HR to maintain and used that to keep my pace in check because most effort was feeling difficult. Not to mention that the course was no pinic - no giant hills but constant small rollers, cambered roads and then gravel trails. I paced with a few people along the way and did a little chatting. I was annoyed around 7k when a girl in my AG blew by me - where did she come from?? But I didn't have it in me to catch her.

At the same time I knew I was coming into one of the last aid stations and some younger boys (8-12-ish) were volunteering and offering to 'splash' people with cups of water - they seemed like it was the highlight of the day for them so i encouraged them to splash me. I got about 8 cups of cold water on me which felt great but I was sopping wet! hahaha! But my HR went down right away.

The course seemed to go on and an on and the hills seemed the same - a girl who i had paced with for a while and passed, passed me back and i just let her go ... i didn't have more and my tummy was not happy with the last hill.

I am super happy with the pace (since I have been training more slow paces for IM and managing HR at a lower BPM) though the AG results again, were not so good - who are these girls! 17/22

Not too much. If anything I would have run it slower to treat it more as a training day but this is perfectly in line with my fitness and previous races.

Nothing too much. Met up with D, caught up with some folks from swim group. Got food and changed out of my sopping clothes.


Obviously, my anxiety over the swim. The next race will be better and I'll be back to a weekly OWS.

Training at slower paces - my main goal here is IMMT - not olympic distance. I am actually very pleased with how I did even though it's not competitive at all.


This is a great early season race. Completely recommend it.