Guelph Lake I - Sprint Triathlon - Triathlon

I wanted a good start in the water. The swim is always my weakest area, but I planned on trying to find some feet to draft. The issue as I looked out at the lake was that I was in wave 5, and the wave right beforehand looked awfully slow. I knew it was going to be congested, but it looked worse than I had guessed. My training partner had made the smart decision to request he get seeded in the first wave, and avoided all the commotion.

Horn sounded and off we went. I swam hard for the first 100M or so, and tried to look for feet to attach to, but in hindsight it was too early and people went out harder than they could sustain, so I sort of jumped around from person to person looking for a bit of a free ride. Then we caught the wave ahead, and it turned into the worst mess of legs and arms I’ve come across. It seemed like everyone was pooled together, and not moving anywhere fast. I got caught in a mass of swim caps that weren’t my color and couldn’t escape. I actually stopped and had to tread water twice to try and find some clear water – but there was none to be found. An elbow to the face and my goggles wrapped around my head did not improve my mood.

By the time I got out of the water I felt like this was a really slow swim. My time wasn’t actually bad relative to my normal race times, but I was further back than I wanted to be starting the bike.


Seed myself in the first wave, if I'm too far back.

Ran through transition as quickly as possible, and because I suck at flying mounts I put my shoes on in transition, and off I went. Go to the bike mount line, and it was like a parking lot, but got myself off and going as fast as possible.

Not much

Got out of the park quickly and onto the roads, and right away got passed by a guy in my AG. I knew who he was, and also knew that if I let him go, I would never catch him on the run. So I put the hammer down, and for the first 5km my power was at 102% and my HR was 174 – um, I can’t sustain that. But the effort was working and I was keeping him within 100 meters. By the time we reached 5km I actually passed him – although this was short lived and he passed me back with a km or so. At the same time a guy in the 45-49 AG went past me. The two of them slowly drifted away from me, but I knew I needed to back off the effort level just a bit.

This is not a tough bike course, it starts off with the first 5km on a slight incline (and awful roads), then it’s slightly downhill, down a hill – up another hill, and then the turnaround, and go back the other way. But being in the 5th wave, and following the duathlon, I had nowhere to be except on the left side of the road. The course was packed, and I can only guess that I had to pass a few hundred people.

That said, I didn’t feel like I was slowed down with all the traffic. I’d call out “Left” and people moved over, and everyone did their best with such a crowded course.


Not much. Felt like I let off the power in a couple of spots, but that was about it.

Came into T2 with my feet out of my shoes and ready to run off the bike – unfortunately, the group of people dismounting in front of me were not moving at the same speed. Rather than a flying dismount, I had to brake once I got off my bike so I didn’t fly into someone in front of me, and dropped my chain in the process. My fault, I should have paid more attention and slowed down more. Got to my rack, decided to toss the sunglasses, grabbed my visor and Garmin, but struggled with the shoes.


Pay more attention at the line.

Got running as quickly as I could, and was aiming to run as close to a 4min/km pace as I could hold – but that plan went out the window quickly. My back was tight for the first couple of km and I couldn’t seem to get my legs going. I also knew the guy from my AG was running away from me. Saw my training partner running the other direction and he looked like he was running well, but I had no idea what our time gap was. At the turnaround the guy in my AG looked strong, and he had a comfortable margin on me. I knew he would be a contender for a podium spot, so now it came down to how many others were in front of us. The legs started to come around closer to the end and I was able to pass a couple of guys in my AG, but for the most part, the people I passed on the run, were all the wrong AG. Emptied the tank at the end of the run, but wasn’t catching anyone else at that point.


Not much. Just didn't feel like I could push as hard as I wanted to, but it was still a decent run.

Collapsed at the end, and then met up with my training partner and other friend who completed his duathlon. We got some food, and found the results, and I just managed a medal. Even better, beat my training partner by 8sec – every second counts.


The swim. Yes, it was congested, but the simple fact is that my swimming holds me back. The guy who won my AG beat me by 3min out of the water...


It was a good day, and for a short hard race, this is a good venue – minus the first/last 5km of the bike. If I race it in the future, I will choose to go off in the first wave and avoid some of the swim congestion.