Woodstock Triathlon Race Report – May 27, 2012

Race Details:

750m Swim

30K Bike
7.5K Run

The Woodstock triathlon is relatively new, being around for only 3 years I think.   Previously, other races have kept me from doing this race, which is so close to home.   This year, I finally decided to do it to get my first triathlon experience of the year.

The day started off with nice temps and just a little bit of rain as we drove down to Woodstock from New Hamburg.   Once arriving, we made our way into the park down the twisty, bumpy entrance road and found a place to park the van.  

After getting the tires all pumped up, I grabbed my gear bag and bike and made my way to transition to check my bib number and rack my bike in the appropriate spot.   It was actually a nice spot, at the far end of transition from the swim entrance and close to the bike exit.

After dropping everything off, I made my way through the regular registration process and got body marked, my timing chip and my race number and swim cap.

After getting back to my bike, I got my stuff laid out and put on my cycling gear to go for a short ride.  It was about this time that it started raining somewhat steady, and with the little bit of wind we had in the morning, I was actually feeling very cold.   I cut the ride a bit short and just came back to transition to get ready for the swim.

I took one final washroom break and got my wetsuit on and headed down to the water to get warmed up a bit and get some water in the suit to adjust the fit.   I kept the swim fairly short and came back to the starting line with about 10 minutes before the horn was set to go off at 9am for the first wave that I was in.

After a few final race remarks by John Salt, the RD, the horn sounded and we were off.   I hadn’t been in a swim start since Muskoka last year, so it was good to get going and just get the butterflies out of the way. 

I found the start pretty good.   There wasn’t too much contact and I tried to get on some feet early, but those seemed to disappear about as soon as it started.   I should have really focused on doing a bit more drafting, but instead, I think I felt better just finding some open space and swimming my race.   I’ve been feeling pretty good at the pool lately, so I was hoping for a swim time in the 12:00-12:30 range…factoring in the 100m run to the first timing mats as we exited the water. 

By the time we reached the first turn buoys, things were fairly spread out and I was just focusing on maintaining a good stroke to finish out the first leg.   There wasn’t much else exciting the rest of the way, and I finally made it back to shore.   I had my Garmin 310 under my wetsuit sleeve, so couldn’t easily see what the time on it was, so I just kept running into transition.  By the time I got to my bike, I had the suit down to my waist (but again, getting my left arm out was difficult).   When I got to my bike, of course I knocked my helmet and glasses off of it.   I also struggled a bit with the suit around my ankles.   I think I seriously might need to get a new one.   My full sleeve suit is a Zoot, but I also have a sleeveless Xterra suit, and It seems much easier to get on and off.   I always have difficulty with my full sleeve Zoot, and my first transition's always take a hit because of this. 

Anyway, looking back at my swim split on the sportstats website I finished the 750m swim in 13:25, meaning I likely came out of the water in 13 minutes or so.   This put me in 7^th in my AG out of 22 athletes and 35^th out of 180 participants in the entire race.   This is definitely not what I was hoping for, given the extra speed of a wetsuit.   Always something to improve upon at least!   

Given the bit of wetsuit difficulty I had at the bike and knocking my helmet and glasses off, my first transition took 1:08, well off the mid 30 seconds of the leaders in the race.   That’s a smoking fast first transition! 

Eventually, I was off with my bike up the fairly long hill and run to the mount/dismount line where we had to go through a bunch of wooden posts in the ground.   Luckily, I avoided crashing into any of them, and got on my bike and was off on the 30K ride. 

By now, the rain had stopped and the weather was warming up.   It was actually pretty nice conditions on the bike as I made my way back up the windy road out of the park and out onto the nice country roads north of Woodstock. 

I was familiar with the course, since we basically drove it coming down to the race from New Hamburg.   The first 3 or 4 K were mostly uphill as we headed north on line 13.   Right away, I had a few racers up the road that became targets.   It didn’t take too long to overtake them, and focus on the others that cycled up ahead of me.   When we turned right onto county rd 33, we faced a stiff little headwind.   I just tried to stay down in the aero position as much as possible and fight on through it.   Eventually, I passed a few more riders and made the left hand turn onto line 16, which we would take all the way to the turnaround point, just north of county rd 8. 

Line 16 was a pretty smooth road that started off with a nice flat section where I was able to get the speeds up in excess of 40kph for a period of time.   I continued to pass more and more riders as we made our way up and over the rollers just before county rd 8.   Approximately 1K north of county rd 8, we hit the turnaround point, where we headed straight back the same way we came.   I counted the riders as they came back past me from the turnaround, and I was in 14^th place I think, and still behind Angela Quick, the lead female, so I had some work to do! 

After the making the turn around, the next group of riders were about 400m or so up the road.   I pushed hard, and likely caught them within a few minutes and had moved into 12^th place.   Just up the road a bit more was Angela quick, and I passed her shortly before turning right onto county rd 33.  Once onto rd 33, there were two more riders just up the road.   I ended up passing both while we enjoyed the nice tailwind on this return section, despite the fact that the road was pretty bumpy. 

I finally made the last turn back onto line 13 for the final push back to the park.   At this point, I could only see one rider up the road.   He was a fair distance ahead and I figured I didn’t have enough real estate to reel him in.   By the time we hit the park, he was likely only 150m ahead of me, so I made some good time on him in the last 4-5K.   Coming back into the park, it was a no pass zone, so I was lucky that I wasn’t around anyone, and therefore didn’t have to slow down for any overly cautious riders.

I hit the dismount line and got off, with my bike going on one side of the various roadway posts and me going on the other.   I could easily see someone coming in hot and crashing into these.   That would have been both funny and dangerous!   

My bike split ended up being 47:52 for the 30K, good for 7^th overall in the race and 1^st in my AG.   This works out to 37.6kph, but also includes the run to and from transition zone to the mount line.   My garmin GPS which I started and stopped right around the dismount line had me at 38.4kph for the ride. 

Once back into transition, I quickly racked my bike, took off my helmet and put on my shoes/visor and was off.   37 seconds later, I was on my way out and starting the run.   T2 was much more in line with the top guys in the race, compared to my slow T1 (wetsuit issues!). 

As we exited transition, the rider who was just up the road as we came into the park, just snuck out before me.   As it turns out, his name was Brendan Howard.   I had never heard of him before, but he could certainly run.   I stayed within 50-100m of him for the first K as we made our way over to the dam across a combination of bumpy grass and gravel roads. 

Just past the 1K marker of the run, I knew I likely wasn’t going to catch him today, as he just slowly put more and more distance between himself and me.   In the end, he ran the 7.5K run 45 seconds faster than I did. 

At about the 2K marker, as we began running on the crushed limestone trail, I ended up passing my first runner.   At this point, I could see nobody else up ahead except Brendan, who continued to pull away slowly. 

Once I made my way up the short little hill to Tecumseh street, we did a quick right and then a left into the nice trail section in the park.   This section was pretty flat, and once we got to about the 3.75K point, it was mostly tree covered and shady.  It had warmed up quite a bit from the pre-race rain showers we had, so when the sun was out, it was actually quite hot.   I found the air in this tree covered section a lot more humid and “thick” so that sort of offset the shade that we were getting. 

In the lower trail section by the river, I passed a few aid stations and one medical volunteer on a bike, but other than that, I was alone and at times, wondering if I was going the right way?   The good thing is that they did a great job of marking off any trails we weren’t supposed to go on, so getting off course likely would have been difficult. 

I finally made it back to the shared trail section, where I started seeing other athletes coming towards me.    This helped push me along, as you wanted other people to see that you are still looking strong.    At about the 6K point, there was a short little hill before we got back onto the dam.   I was feeling a bit tired and hot at this point, but there was also another runner just up ahead about 75-100m.   I pushed hard back up to the dam and about halfway across, I caught up to him and gave him a congratulatory “nice running” comment. 

With only about 1K to the finish line, and somewhat downhill, I pushed hard along the final gravel/grass sections.   There was nobody else to catch, so I was really just looking to put in the best time I could.  As I approached the finishing shoot, both my sons, Holden and Tate popped out and ran with me through the finish line.   Holden is fast enough to keep up for the final sprint, but little 4 yr old Tate, ended up coming in behind us.   Mike Cheliak of My Sports Shooter, who took all the pictures of the event, took a cool picture of me finishing with Holden right beside and Tate coming up from behind.   I chose this picture as my award photo for winning my age group.    You can see it below. 

I ended up running the final 1.5K at a pretty good 3:53 pace, finishing the 7.5K run in 29:16, good for 9^th overall in the race and 1^st again in my AG. 

Here are my Garmin splits for the bike and run:

Woodstock Triathlon 30K Bike

Woodstock Triathlon 7.5K Run

Overall in the race, I finished 9^th and 1^st in my age group as I mentioned.   So other than not having the swim I wanted and a slow T1, I was pretty happy with the result in this race and the first triathlon of the year.    This was the third race for me in as many weeks, going back to the Hamburger Hill 7 mile road race.   I’ve placed first in my designated category in all of 3 races, so I really hope this is a sign of things to come as we progress through the summer racing season.   

The bigger races are coming up fast with Ironman Mont Tremblant my next race likely, on June 24^th.   I hope to put in some good training miles between now and then, and hopefully continue on with the success I’ve had to date.  Stay tuned!

Victoria's Duathlon - Race Report 2012

Race Details:

4K Run
30K Bike
4K Run

This being the first race of the multisport season, the weather for the race is often unpredictable.   I’ve seen hail, wind and cold temps to sun and high humidity.   The weather on this day was pretty darn good.   Some would say it was actually pretty hot, but other than the last 4K run, it was a non issue.   Even the wind didn’t play much of a factor on the bike (although it was definitely there!).

I arrived at the race site at Creekside Church, just outside Waterloo at approximately 8:40 or so with Darryl Huras, who was doing the running side of a relay team with Brian Scott from Waterloo.    After arriving, I quickly pumped up the tires and dropped my bike and bag off in transition and went through the standard race registration process.   I elected to bump myself up to the first wave to compete with the elites and faster age group athletes.

It should be noted that I just got my new Argon E118 only a few days prior, after spending nearly 7 hours at the Braun’s Cambridge store having it built up and fitted for me.   I did a short 45 minute ride on the Saturday before the race, and a simple 15 minute ride on the bike on race morning.   That’s all the time I’d spent on it before the race.   Things seemed pretty good on those rides, so I was hoping for good things during the 30K bike portion of the race.

At about 9:50am, we started to assemble at the starting line for the first wave that was to go off at 10am.   I situated myself near the front beside Scott Dickie and a bunch of other Running Free athletes.   The race started right on time, with the horn going off right on schedule.   As usual, a whole winter of built of energy releases, and people fire off the start like crazy.   It’s only about 100m to the first left hand turn, where things were pretty tight.   I just tried to make sure not to get caught up in anyone’s feet and make it to the first downhill in a safe position.  

The first K of the race you get a fast downhill, followed by a short little uphill.   By 1K, there were likely 20 or so guys in front of me and I went through it in 3:35, so a pretty quick pace.   It is a very gradual decent followed by a flat stretch to the 2K turn-around point at the end of the Laurel Creek Reservoir.  

By this point, everyone seemed to settle into their pace and I actually began to pull some runners in and pass them, as we retraced our steps back to transition.   When we finally made it back to the transition zone, I was likely somewhere around 12-15^th overall in the first wave.   I finished the first 4K run in 14:34, a 3:39/km pace, good for 19^th overall in the race and 3^rd in my AG.

I quickly took off my shoes, put my helmet on and grabbed my bike and was off.   T1 only took 35 seconds, which was pretty good.   I haven’t mastered the running flying leap onto my seat as of yet, so once past the mount line, I carefully got on my bike and started the charge down the road.   Once out on the road, I quickly got up to speed and then got my feet secured into my shoes and strapped in.

The bike course once again has changed in this race.   Previously, we had to do a rectangular loop to Bamburg and then turn right to a turn-around and come straight back to transition.   Last year’s GPS of the race had it about 1K short, given we couldn’t go much past the turn-around due to a gravel road.   This year, instead of turning left into Bamburg, we continued straight, all the way to Hutchison Rd.   The distance turned out to be 30K right on, so that’s good.

Similar to all other years, we had to head out on Erbsville Rd. before turning right onto Kressler and hit a couple of pretty steep hills right off the bat.   I didn’t find these too bad, especially the second one, which I almost didn’t feel since I really pushed the downhill hard.   Once past the second hill, we turned left on Hessen Strasse road and would take this all the way to the turn-around.

By this point, I had passed a few more people and was sitting around 10^th or 12^th in the race.   I worked with another rider for a few K until that fell apart.   I can’t remember whether I passed him, or if he pulled away from me.  

It was about that time that I looked back and saw Scott Dickie, working his way through the bike course.   He has been riding very well lately, so once he eventually passed me, I was hoping to be able to stick with him.   I did for a short period of time, but eventually he pulled away and I couldn’t keep up.   Now I found myself on my own, and just focused on my own race.  

For the first 5-10K of the ride, my power was up over 300 watts on average.   I usually start some of my rides on the high side, but not 300+ high.   I decided to back off a bit, rather than keep pushing a pace I knew I likely couldn’t hold much longer.

The course this year I’d say is generally tougher than last year too, as there isn’t much flat ground at all.   We were either climbing or descending.   The hills weren’t huge or anything, but there were lots of them.

A few K from the turn-around point, I noticed someone had got on my wheel and was sticking pretty close to me.   Before I even had a chance to say anything, another rider passed both of us and called this guy out behind me for cheating.   I think after that, he dropped back a bit, because after the turn-around, he was no longer with me.

I think I averaged just under 38 kph to the turn-around point, which was ok, because I knew it would be slightly better coming back.   The wind was mostly out of the south, but I think there was a little bit of westerly in it, so I think it helped more coming back, then it did going out.

Things really were spread out by this point, and I believe I counted 12 riders in front of me at the turn-around point.   For the most part, I was working totally alone, which is never good, but eventually, at about the 20K point, I caught up and passed one other rider.    I eventually made it back to Kressler and tackled the two rollers before turning back onto Erbsville for the final push back to transition.  

A friend from Waterloo was at the top of one of the hills and snapped a few cool pictures which you can see below.

I made it back to T2 in 47:20 with an average speed of 38kph and 288 watts for the 30K bike ride.   This was good for the 10^th fastest time in the race and first in my AG.  T2 took 38 seconds which is ok, but I could definitely look to shave a few seconds off here.   I quickly racked my bike, put my shoes back on, grabbed my visor and was off.

When I started the run, I saw my son Holden, who said I was the 13^th person to come in off the bike.   As it would turn out, there was a relay athlete ahead of me, so I was really in 12^th I think.  

I quickly made my way down the hill and was feeling generally pretty good at this point.   There were a few runners just up ahead, including Dickie, who I could see around the corner.   I was likely 250 or 300 meters behind him at this point.   I went through the first K in 3:59 and hit the aid station for some water.   The first cup I drank, the second went on my head and down my shirt, as it was getting warm.  

I started to approach and then pass a few other athletes as we approached the turn-around at 2K which I went through in 3:50.   At this point, I believe I was in 10^th place, with another athlete about 20 meters ahead.   Eventually I caught him, but at the same time, someone was right on my heels.   As it turns out, the guy I was about the pass was the guy who yelled at the guy that was drafting me on the bike, and the guy right on my heels, was the guy that was drafting me on the bike!   When we passed him, he yelled out to the guy behind me, “still drafting eh?”.   I heard the guy behind me say something like “I’ll talk to you later about it”, which I’m sure he never did. 

Once we got past this guy, I was technically in 9^th, but running almost stride for stride with him.   It was actually good (for a while) to have him beside me as we ran back up the hill to the corner to make the final push for the finish line.  

Unfortunately, as we started running down the hill, he snuck in behind me and was actually running so close to me, he kicked my feet.   Not once, but twice.   The second time really pissed me off, so I had to yell out at him.  To top it off, about half way up the finishing hill, he decided to pull out from the draft behind me and start his finishing kick around me.   I tried to respond, but didn’t have the energy in the legs to keep up

The last 200 meters of the race is over some bumpy grass, which makes it a bit hard to sprint really hard.   Despite that, I pushed on, and actually ran past my son Holden, who decided he wanted to run with me through the finish line which you can see in one of the shot below.  

In the end, I did the final 4K run in 15:27 for a 3:52 pace and 14^th overall in the race and 1^st again in my AG.   Overall, I finished in 1:18:31, a new PB for this race, but given that the bike course was different again (both in the course and actual length), you can’t compare to other years, but generally, I’d say I have improved, since the bike course was tougher and longer.

After checking results, I saw that I did crack the top 10 overall, finishing in 10^th place out of 406 participants and 1^st in my AG out of 40, so a successful start to the 2012 multisport season and hopefully a sign of things to come.

GPS Data for the various segements:
Victoria's Duathlon 4K Run #1
Victoria's Duathlon 30K Bike
Victoria's Duathlon 4K Run #2

Next up for me is the Woodstock triathlon on May 27^th.  It’s just a semi sprint with a 750m swim, another 30K bike and a 7.5K run.   It seems like a long time since I’ve done a Multisport race.   In fact, I haven’t done one since 2010 (Lakeside I think).   I’m looking forward to it, especially now that one of the primary sponsors is Recharge with Chocolate Milk…in fact, that’s the name of the series now.   It should be a blast!

2012 Hamburger Hill 7 Mile Road Race - Race Report

Being a race in my hometown, I did not have to get up any earlier then I normally would have.   After getting up, I got a bit of food in me and then headed out on my mountain bike to just “wake up” the legs and get a bit of blood flowing.

The kids were also racing today, so once we got everyone packed up, we headed over to the Wilmot Recreation Complex where the race took place.  

After arriving, we quickly looked up our bib numbers and got our race kits.   You’d think that with how many races I’ve done, I’d have this process down pat, but for some reason, I forgot to grab my timing chip.   I didn’t notice this until about 5 minutes before the start when someone pointed it out and I had to quickly run inside and grab it.   Luckily, it wasn’t far, and it didn’t take long before I was back at the starting line.

Prior to the race, I just spent some time hanging out and talking with people and doing some stretching and warming up.

This year’s race was the third time I’ve done this race, so I know the course well.   It starts out flat for about 1.5K, and then it’s basically hilly the rest of the way.

At just after 9am, the horn of the local fire department truck went off, and the race was on!   Here are a few pictures from the start.

For the first K of the race, we enjoyed a slight tailwind and the pace was pretty quick.   There was a group of 4 of us that took off out front as I basically lead the small pack through 1K.   In this group was myself, Matthew Ort, Ken MacAlpine and Joe Harker.   Joe is from another small town in Wilmot township called Baden, and he won the Wilmot Township division last year with a pretty quick time.   I wasn’t really competing for that last year, as I did the race twice as a long training run in preparation for Ironman Austria.   This year I wanted to compete for the win!

After 1K, Ken started to pull away for the three of us as we headed downhill past Erb transport.   Joe and Matthew also started to pull away from myself, leaving me in 4^th place.  

As we turned right onto Sandhills and faced the steepest climb of the race, Matthew began pulling away from Joe and I started to slowly gain some ground on him.   Up and over Sandhills, I slowly picked away at the distance between Joe and myself.   After Sandhills, it is a fast decent to the turn-around point at about the 5.5K marker.   At the turn-around, I was only about 10 meters behind Joe.

Not long after making the turn, I caught up to Joe and began pulling away from him as we began the climb back up to the top of Sandhills.   This left me in 3^rd place, and Matthew Ort also caught and passed Ken, leaving him in second place.

Before the race, Ken told me he ran the Toronto marathon the weekend before in 2:47 (smoking fast!) so I was hoping there was a chance his legs were going to get heavy and maybe I could catch him.  

I worked hard on the downhill section after Sandhills and back towards the Rec Complex as we fought a bit of a tough headwind.   By the time we reached the climb in front of Erb transport, I was within about 50 or 75 meters of Ken and I had put about 300-400 meters on Joe, sitting comfortably in 3^rd place.

Amazingly, Ken’s legs stayed strong, as I worked as hard as I could really, but could not catch him before the finish.   He finished 2^nd and I got 3^rd overall out of 59 runners in a time of 41:38, for a 3:43/K pace and captured the fastest Wilmot male category, which is what I was really after today!

Here is the 7 mile race results:

2012 New Hamburg 7M road race results

Here is my garmin data from the race:

2012 Hamburger Hill 7 Mile Road Race Garmin Data

As I said previously, my kids were also racing.   Holden did the 3K race, where he did great again and finished 8th out of 51 runners with another sub 14 minute 3K.   Below is a link to the 3K race results:

2012 New Hamburg 3K road race results

Below are some pictures of the kids doing their race.   Tate, who is only 4 did the 1K and did an amazing job.   He ran the whole way and was very determined to push hard when he was starting to get tired.   Amazingly he even beat a bunch of kids that were 9 years old!   Awesome job Taters!!!

Next up for me is the Victoria's Duathlon, which is actually tomorrow, since it took me a week to get around to doing this race report.   The weather is looking awesome so I'm hoping it will be a great race.   I finally got my TT bike from Braun's and so I hope I can hammer out a fast 30K at the race tomorrow.   We'll see how it goes!

2012 Around the Bay 30K race report

Like most ATB race mornings, I was up relatively early in order to get some breakfast in, well advance of the 9:30am start time. I usually still have my bike on the trainer this time of year, but given the amazing stretch of “summer-like” weather we’ve been having, I’ve already had it outside for many rides. Therefore, instead of my normal 10-15 minute early morning spin to wake the legs up, I decided to head out on my mountain bike and rip around the neighbourhood for 10 minutes. It was already a balmy 8 degrees at 6:15am. Sweet!

At 7am I picked up Darryl in New Hamburg and after that, went into Baden and picked up Patti Warr, who was also catching a ride into the Hammer with us.

Once again this year we had to make a small detour into Dundas to get our race kits at a friend’s house that had picked them up for all of us. This didn’t take long and by 8:30 or so, we were parked near Copp’s Coliseum in Hamilton (in a great new spot that Patti told us about!)

We made our way inside to use the restrooms and just stretch out a bit. The line-ups were unusually long this year, so by the time we were done, it was time to head outside and get to the race start. Since Darryl has qualified for front of the pack status (having a previous sub 2 hr time), we were able to just walk right into the front (I didn't qualify for this, but I just stayed with him anyway and got through).

We warmed up for 10 minutes or so, and then made our way to the starting line, about 5 or 6 rows from the front. Going into this race, I was hoping to once again do better than last year. I was running more and felt like I was running slightly faster and stronger this year than last, so realistically, something between 2hrs and 2:05 was what I was expecting. Going sub 2 was possible I thought, but it really wasn't my main goal going in. Darryl and I talked about hitting 10K in 39:30 or so and then reassessing how we felt from there.

Right at 9:30, without delay, the horn sounded and all 6,119 of us were off and running under warm sunny skies, by far the best weather this race has likely seen in a long, long time!

Here's some video of the start.

As usual, the start of this race is pretty fast, as there is a net downhill for 2K. I quickly did some weaving in and out and found a good line along the left side of the course until it opened up and everyone could just run their own speed. Darryl and I were pretty much running together through the first kilometre which we covered in 3:47, which felt VERY easy! I was unsure whether to back off or just keep running along at this comfortable pace. I decided that if it wasn't broke, I wasn't going to fix it. Therefore, instead of backing off to something like a 3:55-3:58 pace in order to hit 10K in 39:30, I would just continue on at the pace I was feeling good at.

As a result of this, I ended up losing Darryl, who took a more conservative approach to the first 10K. Somewhere around the 5K mark, the 2 hour pace bunny (and his posse) caught up to me. It was at that moment that I decided I was just going to stay with them and see how this race played out. I thought, if I don’t make the effort now to go sub 2, I will never be able to get that time back in the last half of the race, so I followed his lead and basically ran right behind him all the way to the 10K mark, which we went through in 38:21, well over a minute faster than I planned to do with Darryl. On a side note, Darryl hit 10K in 39:24, so he stuck with our original plan.

At 10K, the group of us was down to maybe 4 or 5, as we made our way up the small overpass hill and under the QEW and onto Beach Blvd. At this point, the race really levels off for 5 or so kilometres to the lift bridge. I was starting to feel a bit of fatigue but was still able to hold a good pace on average just under 3:55/K, which is a bit slower than the sub 3:50’s I was putting out in the first 10K. One new thing I saw this year was the guy cooking up bacon on the side of the road and handing it out. Damn, if this wasn't a race, I would have stopped for sure....yum...bacon!!

I carried on and hit the 15K half-way point in 58 minutes flat. This gave me a 2 minute cushion on a sub 2 hr race, which made me decide right there that I was officially going for it today! I knew the last half was going to be tough, but as long as I kept working, I thought I had a very real chance of hitting this goal.

The next few kilometres were still sub 4:00 (barely) as I made my way to Northshore Blvd. This is where we get slightly more crowd support thankfully, but this is also where the hills begin. By 18K, we start to see our first set of rollers. I never think they’re too bad and barely notice them until we get to the longer one at about 21K at LaSalle Park. This is one of the longest hills on the course and goes through more of a forested area, so there isn't much support either. Starting in the 18th kilometre, I would no longer see a sub 4:00 K until the end.

Not only was I beginning to feel a bit tired, my stomach wasn't sitting well. I think the late banana/peanut butter wrap I put down was too close to the race, and was honestly thinking it could come up at any point. Luckily, it never did, and I just continued to push along keeping a close watch on my splits and my avg. pace which continued to creep up slowly. I knew I couldn't rely on my avg. pace on my Garmin, because for some unknown reason, like prior years, my kilometres on the GPS kept coming up at least 100-150m before the actual race markers.

Eventually, I made it up to Plains Rd. West and Spring Gardens Rd. where it’s generally flat/downhill and usually with a great cheering section. I really needed that, I was really starting to lose some steam. As we passed Woodland Cemetery, the 2hr pace bunny caught up to me again. There was a pretty small group of guys with him, and I just hopped on board as we made the tough “quad-burning” downhill grind to the bridge before the Valley Inn Rd. hill. Of course, I had to give the midget his annual “high-five” for good luck!

After crossing the bridge, the final hill loomed large right in front of me. I wasn't feeling great at this point, so I really took it easy going up the hill. I thought to myself if I can just get to the top while still under the pace to go sub 2, I can just lay it all on the line in the final 3K to bring it home. About 1/3 and 2/3 of the way up the hill, I took a couple of quick walking breaks (only a couple of seconds really) to let things come down. The runners I was with weren't really getting away, so I wasn’t concerned.

Eventually, I got to the top feeling “ok” but not great. Just down the road was the 27K marker and when I got to it, my watch read just over 1:47. So with 3K to go, all I had to do was run under a 4:20 pace to come in under 2 hours. I knew this was totally possible, so I just focused on leaning forward and trying to make efficient (relative at this point) foot strikes as fast as possible. The 28th kilometre was at a 4:04 pace, and my garmin was at 1:51 I believe, so at this point, I really thought I was going to do it, as long as something brutal didn't present itself.

 The last two K are downhill/flat as we run up to and past Copps coliseum. Both I did in under 4:00 (3:58 and 3:53 respectfully). As I approached the big downhill ramp into Copps, I just thought to myself, don’t wipe out here! I didn't, and made the final turn into Copps, with about 45 seconds to spare.

At this moment I hear “Hey, it’s me!!” and I look over to my right and it’s Darryl. Amazing I thought! I hadn't seen him all race and within only 20 metres to the finish line he catches up to me and we cross with the exact same time ( I officially beat him by 1/100 of a second...but hey, who’s counting right!). As it turns out, he saw me at the top of the big hill and he was likely only a few hundred metres back at that point. I didn't know it, but he spent those last 3K completely stalking me, finally catching me right at the finish line. I finished with an official time of 1:59:22. This put me in 8th spot in my AG out of 453 athletes and 81st overall in the race out of 6,119 runners.

In the finish line video below, you can see Darryl hammering it coming into Copps to catch me, and then finishing right beside me. I guess he could have blown right past me and kicked my butt, so I am thankful that he didn’t! His strategy to race a more consistent pace paid off for him.

Looking back, I averaged a 3:50/K pace for the first 15K and a 4:04/K pace for the final 15K. I’ve read a lot about negative splits (or even splits in races) and while I tend to agree with this, I don’t think this is the race to execute that. I knew from running this race for the 5th time that I really needed to put some time in the bank. Maybe I went out a bit too hard through 10K, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. I finally got my GOLD medal at this race, with time to spare (not a lot really, but at least it didn’t come down to the final seconds at the finish line!).

After grabbing my gold medal, we made our way underneath the stands to sit down and stretch out. One thing I noticed right away was that my left knee felt really good (or at least not sore or swollen like last year). I was definitely tired, but moving around was not too difficult. After walking through the food line and chatting with a few other racers, we finally made our way upstairs and to a restroom to get cleaned up a bit.

Just then, we ran into Patti, who had just finished as well. Perfect timing indeed! All three of us walked to our car, changed into some drier clothes and got out of town.

So overall, I was super happy with how this race ended up. I feel like I am in a good spot to start the spring/summer triathlon training and racing to hopefully do well at my “A” race, Ironman Mont Tremblant.

Waterloo ReFridgeEighter 8K - February 12, 2012 Race Report

Going into this race, I had hope of breaking 30 minutes for the 8K if conditions were good.    Well, race morning arrived and conditions were far from good.   I solid dumping of snow, cold conditions and a stiff wind out of the north put all hopes of going sub 30 out the window.

As in previous years, I was entered in the 8K again, as part of a corporate team for work.   8 miles is still too far for others in my office to tackle, so we stick with the 8K race.  

I picked up a colleague of mine who also lives in New Hamburg, and we were off to RIM park, where the event is held.   Once there, we grabbed our gear, found a table and got ready to race.   About 10 minutes before the 10am race start, we headed outside to find our spots.

After a quick singing of the national anthem, the race kicked off.  Here's a few shots at the start to give you an idea of the conditions.

The race started off heading south, so we got the benefit of the tailwind at the beginning.   The roads were really slushy, but for the most part we were all able to find some sort of tire tracks to run in.   Because I thought the roads were going to be snowy, I decided to wear my Saucony Peregrine's.   They're built on a similar base as the Kinvara's, but have a beefy trail type tread to them.   So although they aren't the lightest shoe around, they aren't too bad.  As it turns out, I likely could have got by wearing my Fastwitchs, which certainly would halped with the splits.  

The first few K were in the 3:40 pace, as we headed down wind and for the most part flat/downhill to Lexington.   Once we hit the 2K mark, I was likely running in about 9th place overall between both the 8K and 8M runners.  

As we climbed the hill at Lexington and started making the slight turn back to University, I picked off two more runners to move into 7th place between both races.

Once on Bridge, and running north back into the wind, the level of difficulty picked up substantially.   At this point, I picked off one more runner and I didn't know it at the time, but the two race leaders of the 8M were just in front of me.   As we turned right onto Lexington, they were only 10 or 15 meters in front of me.   I picked up the pace a bit and joined up with them, as we crested the hill and made the run back down to University.

I was a bit disappointed to see them go to the right, when I had to go left, as that left me totally alone to face the uphill run on University into a very strong headwind.   By far, the hardest kilometer of the race was 7 as I continued to "try" and hold a strong pace while going uphill into the wind.

As I turned onto University, I noticed that the next runner in front of me was likely about 200m or so up the road.   I did what I could over the next 2K to try and gain some ground, and I got him to within about 15m, but I was really feeling depleted at the end, and just couldn't catch him.   It turns out, he was a runner from Baden, so I'll likely get the chance to redeem myself at the Hamburger Hill 7M road race in May here in New Hamburg.   I believe he won the Wilmot Township division last year.

I finished the 8K in 5th place overall and 1st in my AG in a time of 30:50, 35 seconds slower than last year.

Here's the link to the race results:

http://www.chiptimeresults.com/resultsreader.php?y=2012&r=refridgee8rS.htm

Here's the Garmin data of the race.   I don't think I had the satelites locked in when the race started, so the first K is a little long and the pace a bit faster than it really was.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/149106804

So with this race being the first of 2012, I guess I'm off to an alright start.   I hope it can continue into the spring and some of the early season tri results.

Road to Hope Half Marathon - Nov 6, 2011 Race Report

I signed up for this race a little late, not knowing what my fall was going to be like.   After some decent training, I thought I was ready to make an attempt at a fast paced half marathon.   I've only done one other stand up half marathon race in the 8 years since we moved back from Bermuda, and that was the Run for the Grapes in St. Catherines.   That was a few years ago and I thought I had run a decent race finishing in about 1:28 or so.

I knew that the Road to Hope course is a net downhill, so I thought it was a perfect race to try and go after a NYC marathon qualifying spot.   To do that, I had to run under 1:23 for my AG.   That works out to about a 3:55/K pace, and although I'm totally comfortable doing that for a 10K, I've never attempted to run that fast for a full half marathon.  

Conditions on race day were more than ideal (for the most part), as we had a nice south wind and dry sunny skies.    Darryl Huras (also from New Hamburg) and I showed up at Confederation Park in Hamilton around 7am or so and quickly picked up our race kits and grabbed our gear bags before hopping on one of the many school buses that were there to shuttle the racers to the start line out at a high school up on the Niagara escarpment (key word UP!).

By the time Darryl and I arrived, there were already a lot of people in the school keeping warm and loose.   We quickly found an open space up stairs in one of the hallways to get into our running gear and pack up our bags for the bag check.   After dropping our bags off at the bag check, we headed out to the running track to do a few warm up laps and some stretching to loosen up.   Before we knew it, the marathon had started and in a few more minutes, so would the half.

While at the start line, I ran into Larry Bradley who was also running the half with the aid of his coach Tyler Lord pacing him to a planned sub 1:19 finish time.   That was well faster than I had really wanted to go, so although it would have been great to start off fast with them, I really wanted to do what I thought I could handle.

Shortly after 8:30am, the starting gun went off and the race was on!

I knew that we had a few kilometers before we were going to hit the downhill section of the race on the Red Hill Valley Parkway, but the beginning of the race also seemed pretty fast.   The wind was from the south and we were running west at this point, but it seemed to be at our backs.   There were also a few slight downhill grades, so I was pretty much cruising along, hardly working doing about 3:45 K's.   Darryl and I were both shooting to go sub 1:23, but right from the start, I pulled away, as he wasn't too comfortable going out at this pace (more on this later though!).   At about 3.5 or 4K, we made a couple right hand turns before making a left onto the on ramp to get on the parkway.   At this point, the pace really picked up.   The next several kilometers as we ran down the escarpment with the wind at our backs, I was easily doing sub 3:40 K's.  I think kilometer 5 to 6 was at a 3:28 pace!   I was running in a small group with two other guys, so I was just tucked in with them and was flying along.

When we went through the 10K marker, I wasn't really surprised that I was almost on my 10K PB time.   The fastest 10K I've ever run is 37:04, and I believe I passed the 10K marker in this race in 37:10.   I'm pretty sure that if I was only running the first 10K of this course, I could have done it in about 35 minutes!  Wow!

Just past the 10K marker, we got off the parkway and onto Barton street.   This is where the race started to get tougher.   We had to go uphill to get to Barton and then we were dealing with a cross wind.   It wasn't too long though before we got onto Woodward Ave., which is also part of the Around the Bay course.   Just before the 12K marker, there is a set of train tracks, and when I was only a few hundred meters from them, the lights started to go off and I thought what the fuck???   Anyway, the arms went down and sure enough, an Amtrak passenger train was crossing the road.  Luckily though, it was short and before long, the arms were going back up.   Perfect timing really, as the arms started to go up when I was only about 10m from the tracks.   I didn't have to slow down at all.

The course continued down Woodward before finally going under the QEW and getting on Beach Blvd. (again, same as the ATB course).   At this point, I was running closer to 3:50-4:00/K's on average, and this would continue until we turned right off of Beach Blvd and got on the Lakefront trail at about the 16K marker.   This is where things started going fairly quickly downhill.   We were now running east back to the finish line at Confederation Park and had to deal with a nasty southeast wind whenever there was an open area.

The fast pace that I started out at was quickly catching up with me and I found myself struggling to do 4:00-4:05 K's.   I'm sure that a few of the last K's in the race might have been over 4:10.   For some weird reason, my Garmin did not save this race, so I don't have the ability to look back and see what I was really doing in the last few K.   All I was really concerned about was getting to the finish line!!

So as I said earlier, I never saw Darryl once the race started, and I had no idea where he was.   I did look back a few times but never saw him, so I wasn't sure.  Well, with only 1K to go, he caught me, which was great (for him at least!).   I thought "Cool, we can finish together again like we did at ATB", but that was not to be.   He had more juice than me in the final stretch and I just couldn't keep up.   Finally, we passed the finish area and had to make a very short loop around before coming back to the finish line.   I was very happy to see that line, as I really didn't have much left to go any further.

In the end, I finished in 1:21:59, beating my goal time by just over a minute, which is awesome.   Darryl finished 12 seconds ahead of me, meaning that if we both wanted to, we could go to the NYC marathon in 2012.   Having Boston and NYC under my belt would seem sufficient from a marathoning perspective.

 

Here is some cool finish line video showing both Darryl and I finishing:

So overall, I was very happy with my time, but just a bit disappointed in how I couldn't manage to finish as strong as I would have liked.   Overall, I finished 34th out of 1,721 runners and 8th in my AG out of 87.   Unfortunately, in the last few K, I likely gave up 7 or 8 spots overall, and possibly even 5th place in my AG and maybe a podium??   Not sure really, but at least I kept pushing when I really didn't have much left.   I know that feeling will come in handy when the Ironman training kicks in again next year for Mont Tremblant.

This is the last race of the year, and now it's time to get organized for a solid off season.   Hopefully more swimming and I'd like to keep a good amount of base mileage going for running, but likely back off on some of the distance runs.

It's been a good year and I look forward to another one next year!