Best swim of my life. (last year was 1:31:56)
Seeded myself right in the thick of things pretty close to the buoys, as opposed to the far left last year.
I was always in a big crowd, except for one part on the return where I went about 100m off course!!!
At one point, I looked up and all I could see was pink swim caps...in my age group, there are more fast women, than men in the water...I was so pleased.
Drafting was exceptional but I kept passing people. One woman punched me in the head and knocked of one side of my goggles. She yelled sorry!
It took me about 1 minute to get the goggle back to a comfortable position and to get over the panic of thinking I had lost my contact lens.
My swim on the homestretch, like at Stoney Plain. Was fast. I powered through it and swam until my fingers touched sand.
I got up. Took off cap and goggles, and top of wet suit. Found FW in crowd. Smiled waved and ran through the chute.
I don't know water temperature, but it was on the warm side. I overheated a bit and was occasionally pleased by swimming through some cool water pockets.

Try to get even faster. Work a little more on my sighting. This was the best swim of my life.
Good strong kick - but I let some people lead me astray by having them "push" or "nudge" me off course as I avoided their flailing arms and frog stroke legs!

Ran into tent after getting my bag. Couldn't find a place to sit at first, but soon found one. Put on helmet and sunglasses. Dried off feet carefully and put on socks, cycling shoes. Had a volunteer help by putting my wetsuit away. put race belt on and ran to the bathroom where I had another good long pee. Grabbed my bike. Got sunscreen on. Mounted at the line and took off up mainstreet. Rode strong!

Picture perfect transition.

Remember that one day before I left my bike at the transition, I discovered the derailler hanger was bent and I could not change gears smoothly. I got this fixed and had no trouble whatsoever!
for most of the course I had no problem and rode the perfect race, although I struggled, as usual on the hills. Passed lots of people. Started relatively slowly and built up from there. One water bottle at every aid station was poured over my head.
Nutrition included two 2hour perpetuum bottles, and a half of one at special needs. the Equivalent of 3 bananas, two hammer bars, about 4 bottles of water and about 12 enduralyte pills.
The bananas did the trick! No cramping!
Richter was long...total of five climbs. It was hotter than 31c (31 on the run) and smokey. Then when I got to Yellow Lake, the wind picked up. Head wind! I was struggling to break 30k downhill! and had to really push to go faster than 20 on the flats of the city...it felt like it would never end!
Hit 79km/hour down one of the Richter descents.
Overall strong bike ride. Dirty Girl didn't let me down.
Lots of flats and people passing out on the road. Combination of water over my head, pills and bananas and watching/feeling my power/energy levels got me a pb on this ride. Last year I did 6:59 in near perfect conditions.
Avoided crashing this year.
I also started the ride with some gum...I like that.

After the push beyond yellow lake, I had very little left in my legs. I wanted to spin the final 20k into town, but it just never happened.
FW was waiting for me near the top of Yellow Lake. What a surprise. It really cheered me up and got me over the hill. Too bad about what came
after!
One pee in a portable toilet.

Work on hills and work on hot rides...hmmmmm in Regina?

Pretty straight forward and very quick. Last year I think this took about 10 minutes.
They took my bike. I found my stuff. Ran into tent. Struggled a bit to get not out of bag, shoes on. Helmet off. Hat on. Gel, eLoad, inhaler in pockets. flipped around race belt and ran. Got slathered with sunscreen outside of tent.
I think I had a pee between bike and run.


Nothing picture perfect.

From the moment I was out of transition, I knew this was going to be hard. I ran up main street and right away was focussed on heat management. Put two sponges under trytop shoulders and one under hat.
repeated this a number of times. Unfortunately, shoes got wet. My big toenail is toast and I got a blister on the ball of the same right foot.
Nutrition was hammer gel flask x 2. water, ice, pepsi 1/3 into the race some orange and some pretzels. Had a half bag of salt and vinegar chips at special needs.
I had trouble slaking my thirst at times. But I was careful to not drink too much, lest I overload my belly.
My run strategy was to walk the hills and the stations. But very quickly I was walking a lot more.
Very demoralized. I had nothing in my legs after the bike ride. My cardio was fine, despite the smoke.
My run form was great, when I ran.
I decided to try to push it a little on the return. I ran considerably more on the return...but not the hills and there seemed to be more uphills on the return!
Still managed a negative split. First half was 2:56:19, second was 2:49:43!
Morale was always good. I was on a high of pbs for both swim and bike, although I was a little tiffed that I had no run in me.
walked bits into town and then on the final 1k by the finish line, I picked it up like a madman and sprinted. That was fun. I left very little on the race course this time. Could have pushed just a little harder, but I pushed hard enough.

Found the inner fortitude to make it in less than 14hours!
Run more hills
Run more than 28k next time I train
Run more in the heat.
Run more and longer after bike rides.
Run more period.

FW caught me in finish chute. Kissed and hugged me, took me through the pictures and and sat me down in the park. I should have gone into the water but it was not accessible. Had some cookies. Water and two slices of pizza. tried to stretch, but gave up. Just hung out for a while and chatted. Then we walked, with bike and all equipment the 15 minutes back to motel. This was my active recovery?
Had a Guinness in the Motel.


The heat, the smoke, the hills!!! and the lack of training. Running specifically was my key limiter. If I had the run experience in me, I could have run through the difficult end of the ride. Apparently, though, many people had tough runs.


4000 volunteers. Had to get that in somewhere.
I'm writing this the night after the race. It was one of my worst experiences - during the run and one of my best experiences, during the run.
I felt a little like I did during the tail end of my first ever century in my early 20s or my 30 day hiking trip though the Appalachians before that.
I felt like I had bitten off more than I could chew. Like I should stick to short distances only.
But I also felt great about my swim and my ride and my transitions and saw through them a bit of hope for improving myself further - when I start focusing on my run.

Because of the terrible weather in Regina all winter, spring and summer, I focused, perhaps a little too much on swimming and biking. The results certainly showed themselves.

I could have pushed a little harder on the run. The little voice made me walk, perhaps more than I should have.
But I never lost faith - although I questioned why I signed up again for next year!
This was a great proving ground for my potential. There is a lot of hard work ahead of me and I'm almost looking forward to it.