Ottawa Riverkeeper Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I had not yet had a chance to swim in my wetsuit this year and it caught me. About 100 m in I couldn't get enough air and I had a bit of a panic. I flipped onto my back and did a bit of backstroke to catch my breath. I quickly flipped back to front crawl, but lost my breating again. At that point I realized we were in only 4m of water and you could stand up. A few seconds of standing got me back in control and off I went. I was fine after the fisrt buoy.

Practice in my wesuit before the first race of the year. I may have also tried to go out a bit too hard. Overall though I stayed with the pack and came in just a little back of the middle of the pack.

Time included in swim - I messed up pressing the buttons on my Garmin so I am not able to get the transition times. I think the transitition was faster than usual though.

Nothing

As a result of my slow swimming I am always passing people on the bike. This was difficult for the first 1.5 km of the race, but after that I started reeling them in. My new Cervelo is very fast indeed. Turning at the end of the couse (2 laps) was slow as a result of the light drizzle. My stomach was not 100% happy on the bike so I didn't drink as much of the HEED I had with me as I should have.

There was one couple I passed a few times that was blatently drafting off each other. After passing them the second time they were sucking on my wheel before I noticed and gave it some speed to drop them. That really burns me up.

Not have eggs for breakfast.

Fast transition, only I did fall over putting on one of my shoes.

I'm a slow runner and was passed quite a few times. Around km 3 I really started to loose steam, but within 500 m it felt as though the gel I had taken just after transition kicked in and my legs found some energy. I ran strong for the last kilometer and a half and sprinted in to the finish (some would call my sprints their marathon pace).

Grabbed some water, a banana, and a bagel and walked around waiting for the results. Getting the food and water was not easy because they had it inside the finishing chute - stupid as no-one is looking for it right after they cross the finish line. I guess it keeps consumption down.

Did some streching too and then packed up to go home.


In a race like this one where you are stuck with a pack of bikes for the first bit of the race it is essential to be out of the water with cyclists equal to your abilities. That means I need to swim faster. I'm working on that but there is still a long way to go.


The race location has its challenges, but there is really little that can be done. I think they got kicked out of the old location because the race was getting too big.