I was in the very last swim wave.

The nice thing about this race is they start the waves every 6 minutes so you do not run into as many people. This is great.

I was wearing clear goggles on a very sunny morning with the sun in our face for the first 500m. Mistake, bring clear and tinted goggles to adjust to conditions. I could not see anything. While lining up on the start line I did see a mountain in line with the first turn so I used that since I couldn’t see any bouays. If you do Muskoka, use the mountain to sight.

At 500m we did a right 90 deg, about 200m another right 90 deg then it’s a long straight swim about 700m. Really nice. No traffic ahead, good sighting, most enjoyable portion of a swim in my life. Then there’s a 90 deg right turn and 500m to go

One of the race officials told me that on the last 500m if you stick to your left it is very shallow. Sure enough we saw the pros dolphin diving in that section. So I decided to stay right in the deeper water. But I went waaaay to right. If you do this race, go right, but not too much.

I also had my watch that was supposed to beep at 36 minutes. But I screwed up setting it and it beeped at 30 minutes. So I thought it was 36 with 400m to go and thought “crap, this is going to be a 41min swim, great”. I get out, look at my watch, 34 min. Very pleasantly surprised.

They had wetsuit strippers. My luck, I got two older ladies, that probably weight 100lbs combined. They pulled as hard as they could but it wasn’t coming off at the ankles. I helped a little.



Wear tinted googles if there is a lot of sun.

I can do better on the swim but I need to train more at it. My swim has very slightly deteriorated over the last 2 years because I put less time into it. I probably have 2 minutes to gain here.

You then run up a huge hill. This was probably the hardest part of the entire race. I was relaxed coming out of the water but gased on this hill. I came out of the water with a HR of 156 and hit 164 at the top of the hill. Garmin says 20m of climbing over 500m which is a 4% grade for 500m.

Got to the bike, most bikes seemed there so I knew I was doing well relative to my AG. Splits show that 3 guys were way ahead and one guy with 15 seconds of me who I saw in T1. I recognized him from yesterday and he is so tall easy to spot.


Not much, everyone had to go up that same hill. I think I did it just hard enough but people should be prepared for it

Off we went on the bike, shoes on pedals, it all worked well.

First 20min felt ok, but I was a little over my power target at 230w and below my target speed at 29km/h. I figured it was going to be a long ride. But things settled in. But you feel like there is a lot of climbing in that first 20km.

The roads for the first little while are a bit rough but then you get on a nice stretch of good asphalt and can bring your average speed up .

Then back to average roads and then there were 3 sections of about 2km each of the worst roads I have ever ridden. Think of a gravel/ciment mixture. Everything was shaking. Thank god it was aonly 3 short sections.

A bit of climbing in the last 20km so keep some juice for that.

Overrall I hit my normalized power target but I did it with a 1.08 VI which is high. I am “heavy” so I had to put good power up the hills. I had to brake a few times on downhills due to bike traffic.

One of the disadvantages of being in the last wave is you do more passing which isn’t always easy. Many of the people you pass have less bike skill and experience so you get quite a bit of blocking and poor reflexes. You call “on your left” and they look back at you and swerve right into you. Oh well…

I don’t know about others but I struggle with my power at about 50km and it comes back at around 70km. I now know this is always the case so I ignore it at 50km. I also know back pain will apear at 60km and go away.

For those who will do this in the future, the course gets progressively faster, the fastest being between 50 and 60km then progressively slower again

Total calories was
2 bottles of Diluted IM perform = 48oz liquids = 48g carbs + 1/3 power bar
48g carbs + 13g = 61g = 244 calories for the entire bike. A little low, but it worked. I am T2 diabetic, this is a limiter for me. But I never felt like I lacked energy.



I came to the end of the bike feeling pretty good but had no idea where I stood relative to my AG. I didn’t see anybody I knew and nobody my AG passed me.


Next time I will try and negative split my power.

My HR avg was a little lower than expected. I suspect I may have left a few watts on the table but 5watts is not going to make a huge difference.

I don't know if I could have got my VI lower. I did work the downhills, but when you start spinning there is not much you can do. I would be curious to know what other's VI was.

I guess a little weight loss can't hurt.

I get to the rack and there is one bike there. Wow, cool, this means I am in 2nd place for my AG. Hopefully the Achilles would be ok.

I know I was a little dazed coming off the bike. I don't think I realized I was having such a good race.

I didn't know where to go for run out, which is my bad.

Then as I am leaving for the run, my son who is volunteering shouts at me, smiling, waving his yellow volunteer flag. Then I had this 2 minutes of thinking : what do I do ?

I thought I had a good shot at a podium thinking there was one guy ahead of me. I thought it would be nice for my son to see me podium since this was the first time he saw me race.

I thought chasing the guy that I thought was ahead of me could cause me to blow up, which I usually do or I could hurt the achilles.


Normally my quads, hams....are sore and tight. They felt 100% normal. I actually felt fresh. But I could feel my heals and achilles were really really tight. Not sore, just really tight.


So I decided to pace it easy, test the achilles, see if it was improving and if someone from my AG caught me I would decide what to do then.

All summer, I really wanted to pace this run properly. In the past I would go out at sub 4:30/km and die, having to sometimes walk 30 sec or so. I asked Bryan about this, he gave me what he believed to be reasonable pacing as well as training ratios (bike/run). I followed them to the letter. I wanted to run an average of 4:45 per km so was hoping to start at 4:40ish and fade to 4:50ish.

I also spent a lot of time working hills this summer. Learning to slow down on the up and speed up on the down. I use to over do it up and use the down to recover. This is wrong

So off I went, and was going really easy because a) I always overdo the first km b) I wanted to test the Achilles. First 2km was at 4:40 even, 146BPM. Perfect. I just tried to keep this. Sure enough pace stayed even and HR stayed low.

KM 7 to 10.5 is uphill. So my pace was a little slower here (4:53/km).

Got to the top of the hill, and down we came. I looked at my watch to figure out how far ahead I was of anyone I could recognize from my AG. I saw the really tall guy from T1 that came out of the swim with me. I counted 3 minutes, so x2, so I had a good 6 minutes on him. At this point the Achilles was very stable, still tight but not getting worst and this was the best I ever felt after 10km on the run.

I had a down hill so decided to pick up the pace. I started dropping the pace, 4:37, 4:34 then got into some nasty short hils 4;44, 4:42, 4:34.. At this point I was looking for the guy ahead of me. We should all have to run with same color run caps :-)

The last kilometer has a huge uphill. I could see people up ahead and thought maybe the first in my AG was in that pack so I gunned it. With the climb, and the time in the chute I did a 4:15 for the last km. That hurt.
My normalized gradient pace, that takes in account grade gives a 4:01/km.

The guy I was chasing was not there :-). The one bike that was racked when I got to T2 was a guy who didn't finish the swim. On the bike I passed the 3 guys that were ahead of me after T1 but didn't realize it. So I spent 1/2 the run protecting my 2nd spot and achilles and half the run chasing a guy who didn't exist

I didn't use the aid stations at all. I did have a race belt with 20oz of fluid 20oz of carbs so took 2 oz every 2km
20oz = 20g carbs = 80 calories

Nothing. This was well executed. I probably could have started picking up the pace earlier, but in hindsight it was just right.

I finished this event fresher than any other race I have ever done. I was more gased on my Oly 2 weeks ago.

I looked for my son. Found him giving out water at one of the stations so did that with him for a while

We went to the awards ceremony, I got a trophy and a spot at Vegas.

Total calories for race = 244+80 = 324 calories or about 60 calories/hour.


I am a very very conservative racer. I am always afraid to run out of gas. So I hold back.

Next year I will be more aggressive on the bike once I've established a proper FTP.


This is a tough race but an incredibly well organized race.
The scenery is beautiful and there is a very laid back sense to it.

I have to send out a special thanks and appreciation to Fred's mentor group. These are a bunch of knowledgeable and friendly people that are extremely supportive and provide tons of great racing and training info.

There are several times during the race I thought of things Fred, Bryan and others have shared.

Also, there are 3 or 4 lines of information I got from Bryan Dunn that directed my run pacing and training. This made my race. All through the very limited communication channel he has to share his wealth of knowledge