The swim started with the women wading in the water. The men under 40 started in a wave 10 minutes ahead of us, men 40+ would start 10 minutes after us and relays another 10 minutes after that. Water temp was warm. I heard that it is because the lake is very shallow.

I had a few friends so stood near them, but they were at the back and I wanted to be up a bit closer since I am a faster swimmer than them, so I tried to make my way to the front. When the horn went off I started swimming immediately.

I started out in the pack, but got kicked and hit a bit, not on purpose and I think I did some hitting too. Someone was right on my heel. I sort of drifted to the left (outside of pack) a bit and it was nice because there was some open water. I spent the rest of the swim to the left of the pack and it was very relaxing as I just had my own space.

Going out was pretty good. I was just to the left of the pack and doing my own thing. I rounded the bouy to turn and I did that well. I told myself to ease up a bit because even though I was feeling fine I did not want to feel tired after the swim and I have felt a bit disorientated and dizzy after getting out of the water from swim races. So I slowed down a bit on the return and someone I drifted really far left, so I was out by myself the whole time. Yikes. No big deal I thought since you just have to make sure you stay on the left of the bouys and you can get out on shore anywhere as long as you are to the left of the bouys. So I kept swimming in a straight line but tried to angle it back to the right a bit. It worked and it was actually kind of nice because I didn't have to sight forward I just kept the main pack in my sight everytime I took a breath to the right.

When I tried to get out at the shore, I got stuck behind the roped off swimming area. It was right in my way. So I had to swim about 25m around that, then head into shore. Not too good there. When I got out of the water I felt completely fine. In fact I felt like I hadn't done anything at all. It was the perfect pace.

I rated this swim average because I wasn't as fast as I had hoped. I wanted to be around 36 min, but I wasn't too far off and I really felt great afterwards. If I was just rating the water and conditions, I would have rated this swim as Good. Water was warm and there was little to no current or waves that I could feel.

I learned that there is a lot of clear water to the left (outside) of the pack, but I wish I would have been able to draft. I guess there are two strategies that could be taken:
1) Stay to the outside of the pack and do your own swim.
2) Get a draft.
I did 1) and it worked well, but I stayed too far outside on the return leg. 2) would be a good strategy but is more difficult to execute. I guess I'll have to see what happens on race day but I'm glad that I have both strategies in my arsenal.

Work on swimming straight. My sighting is fine, but I wish I could just swim straight in the first place.

Rank = 197/214 AG Rank = 16/25
I unzipped my wetsuit while running into the transistion area. I located my bike fairly quickly by finding my towel on the ground. With my luck the girl right next to me was in transistion at the same time so it was a bit squishy.

I wasn't planning on wearing a shirt over my bathing suit top or gloves, but I saw a bad bike crash on Thursday night and I thought that I should protect myself so I threw a tri jersey on and my cycling gloves.

I didn't feel at all tired after the swim and was able to get going without a problem. I was able to get up to speed quite well and my friends who were watching said I looked strong and a lot of other people either looked like they were going to fall off their bike, or they did fall off their bike, so I guess slowing down a bit in the swim worked for me.

The jersey went on very easily, but in hindsight I should have worn it under my wetsuit. I probably didn't need to put a banana in the back of my jersey as I didn't eat it, but I guess it's better to have too much food rather than not enough. Especially since I didn't lose this race in the transistion.

I sat down on my towl to pull my wetsuit off, but it came off really easily do to all of the Body Glide that I lathered myself up with. While sitting I put on my socks and my shoes.

Maybe I could also try practicing clipping in while on the bike, but I had no problem getting up to speed on my bike.

The first two loops of the course were fairly quiet as far as traffic went and there was not a lot of wind. However the wind really picked up for the third loop and traffic was heavier too. Cars were on the course but were considerate. Even though the headwind was strong, it wasn't as strong as the day that I practiced the course. I easied up a bit on the third loop in preparation for the run.

My turns were okay, but for the really sharp turn at the very beginning I crossed the centre line a bit, though I don't think anyone saw. My cornering was good. I was able to maintain a lot of speed around the corners. For the most part I was in the right gear, but when I shifted from the big ring to the centre ring it didn't quite shift right, so I pushed the leaver again and I dropped the chain. I shifted up and slowly pedals and the chain came back on.

I felt very strong on the bike as I passed alot of people. The people who passed me were men or relays and they had a disc wheel in the rear and some had TT helmets. They made me feel like I was barely moving, but I don't mind them passing me. I didn't expect to compete with them.

The few people that passed me, I went back and forth with and a group of about 15-20 of us came in around the same time or all within sight of each other.

Like I said I felt pretty good on the bike. After the swim, T1 and the cycle, I had 3:57:59. Exactly where I wanted to be. That was 89/214 place and 12/25 in my age group and the 7-15th places in my age group were all within 5 minutes of each other at this point. 7th was about 2.5min ahead of me and 15 was about 2.5 minutes behind. At this point I was having a fantastic race.

Ohh, the bad thing about the cycle was that we had to put a number on our bikes. This is the first time I've done this. My frame is very small, there's no way that a number would fit between the top tube and the down tube so I wasn't sure where to put it. I had a pack under my seat with tire levers and tubes, so I couldn't put the number behind the seat. My pump was attached to my top tube and is almost the length of my frame, so that was out as a place to attach the number. I ended up putting the number on my seat tube, but they only gave us two twist ties and I could have used three. My number started moving around right out of transistion and bugged me for the first loop. It moved around so much and I try to scrunch it up or flip it back, but couldn't get it to say and it either rubbed on my leg or my tire. Some women commented that I was going to get chaffed. After the first lap I ripped the number off. I would have taken the 4 minute penalty or whatever had an official said something. At that point I was so fed up with it. But I didn't have anyone comment and I noticed that some other people had removed the number from their bikes too.

I would try to eat more. I would also open the wrapper of my Clif Bar beforehand and test out the Clif Bar flavour as it was very dry. I wish I brought a Peanut Butter Clif Bar.

I should have strapped my aero bottle down with elastics or something. It was bumping around on the rough roads and was noisy. I should pay more attention to what I am going to eat on the ride and try packing it a bit better. Luckily I have no problem going in and out of my jersey pockets or bento box while on the bike, but overall not having a good strategy probably wasted previous seconds to minutes. So I just got to get that in order.

Find some way to affix my number to my bike so it won't move. Bring my own twist ties or zap straps to the race.

Rank=110/214 AG Rank=16/25. T2 was okay, but when I pulled in there wasn't enough room to rack my bike. I had to move the bike across the rack over a bit, then I could rack my bike, but only got one break hooked on and then rest of the bike was kind of leaning against the joint in the rack. It felt pretty solid.

Was able to take my stuff off and put on my shoes quickly enough I thought. I had some sips of gatorade and then put the bottle in my special needs bag and carried my special needs bag to the table. I took my banana out of my jersey. My special needs bag had bananas, a bar, a bottle of gatorade and aspirin.

I ranked this transition as below average because I was slow to rack my bike due to the fact that it wouldn't fit in it's original spot without me moving another bike.

I felt pretty good in T2 and I was ready to give er on the run.

Make sure I take up enough room at the beginning so that I am left enough room to rack my bike.

Again I should have figured out exactly what I would eat on the bike as I didn't need my banana and I had to spend time putting it in my jersey and removing it. I shouldn't have stopped to drink gatorade, but rather I should have ran with the bottle to the special needs table and drank at the same time.

I should work on getting on and off of my bike more quickly as it could have saved seconds.

The air temperature felt very warm by the time I came to the run. The run was on trails though so it was very shady and I was able to keep cool no problem.

I am simply not a strong runner, though I was getting better times in some of my training runs. My legs felt fine after the transistion. Maybe not 100%, but pretty good. I did start a bit slow then was running and lots of people were passing me and I wasn't passing many. There were a few roots and rocks on the trail, but it was a really nice run. Just went I was getting into a grove and feeling stronger... I fell. I got Road (trail) rash on the left hand and a bleeding and scraped up right knee and leg. It kind of hurt, but when I got back up, I started hyperventillating. I guess it's just a shock to your body exercising a way then very suddenly stopping. So I walked for about 10 minutes or so, just trying to get my breathing under control. I tripped at about 6.5km and walked until about 8km. Then I tried to get a bandaid from an aid station, but no one had one. I was able to continue running after 8km and who knows if it held me back or not. I'm happy to say that I ran most of the run expect the walk after the fall and I did walk through all of the aid stations and drank a cup of water. I also poured the rest of the water on my head in the aid station.

By the last 2-3km I was feeling pretty tired and my legs barely felt like they were moving but that was to be expected.

Suck it up and get my legs moving faster. I know that I am a faster runner than what I did during this race. I shouldn't stop at every single aid station as I had no problem keeping cool and I run all the time without any water. I was a very hot day though and I wasn't sure that I drank enough on the bike so I was a bit worried. Alot of the aid stations had garbage bins far enough away so that I could drink and run and then throw my cup in the garbage but some aid stations, I actually had to stop moving at to get my cup in the garbage. So less stopping is necessary for me.

Oh yeah, I guess I should be more on the lookout for roots. I think I handled the fall quite well though.

Some stretching. Mostly leg stretching, calves and quads. Dinner/lunch at the pub and a pint of Carlsberg. I definitely earned that one. A late night all-you-can eat sushi dinner as well. Even after eating two dinners (I weighed myself after that) I still lost 6lbs, so I'm estimating I lost 7lbs during the race. Could be more.


My run. I need to see all the things that I said I would do differently, but I was pretty disappointed with my run. I was happy because I beat my 3 close friends, though I only beat one of them by 1.5 minutes. Her run was 21 minutes faster than mine and I usually run at the same pace as her. So even though I held her off I was still disappointed knowing that I could have gotten a much better time. Oh well, could have, would have... blah blah blah. Next time. ;)


What can I say. This was an awesome race and I recommend it to anyone who wanted to do it next year. I was lucky because the weather was awesome. It was warm, but wasn't too hot. I think being in the shade on the run is very good. There were lots of volunteers and water stations and everything ran smoothly. There was a special needs station available. Everything you could want in a race, this one had. Pros, Ironman Canada qualifying spots, National Long Course Championship qualifying spots for 2005 and 2006, plenty of water, gatorade, gels and bars at aid stations, finishing medals, cool hoodies, good weather, one of the warmest lakes in BC at least at this time of year. Everything!