Shawnigan Lake Olympic Triathlon

I think that I will remember this event as the coldest thing that I’ve ever done. It was my second ever triathlon and first Olympic.

Us. About 1 minute after my finish!

Thanks to Rich’s parents, who are babysitting our kiddos, we’ve been on the island for a few days. We’ve been getting regular updates of the adventures back in Bellevue.

These extra days gave us a chance to look around and preview the swim, bike and run.

Us out for a light run on the day before.

This preview included talking to the race organizers (including the director and transition guy) which gave me a good grasp of the course and how things were laid out. I liked being familiar with all of these details. Triathlon-wise it was pretty quiet around Shawnigan Lake until about Saturday afternoon when all of a sudden fancy time trial bikes and riders appeared. It felt like we overtook a quiet and sleepy town normally catering to students from the local private schools.

On race day, we woke up at 5am. I was happy that I hadn’t heard rain during the night and the sky looked promising.

 

View from the resort at 5am. We had a good breakfast and walked to the shuttle. Logistics note: no parking at the main park.  After arriving, we got marked and picked up our timing clip.

At 7am, we watched the Half Ironman wave leave and I took a survey of neoprene swim caps. I was still debating two swim caps or the neoprene and the race cap. We got our transition area set up. Went out for a light jog. Legs felt good. I felt good. I’ve been fighting a cold all week, never to the point of being a cold but always that lump in my throat/sore throat/tired. Wasn’t noticing any of this. Thankful for that. Got back to transition and got the wetsuit on. Talked to some other racers. One girl told me how she got hypothermia last year at Lake Stevens while on the bike. I decided to go with the neoprene cap. Got down to the water. We had somehow run out of time and didn’t do a warm-up swim. Water was so cold (15C)  I didn’t really care. I filled my suit and worked my arms as best as I could. Rich and I looked at each other and I said to him, “Happy Anniversary”. (This trip is our ten year anniversary celebration trip. A week on Vancouver Island for a race and some biking).

I was not nervous. I was calm all morning. Yesterday, I was on-and-off nervous but not today. I was ready and excited. I am surprised that I was not more nervous.

The swim was a cannon start with all the Olympic competitors going out in a single wave. I tried to stand without any men behind me. Or men that looked like they could run me over. I hadn’t done a real mass swim start or anything like what was to follow. It was what I heard about: people, feet, arms, etc. Thankfully, no one swam over me.  I had my head up for too long trying to navigate the confusion or avoid it. This was not helpful. I finally got my head down and it instantly got much better. It took a while for the chaos to sort itself out and to find a groove. Rich had kindly agreed to swim the swim part with me. Before the race, I was a little concerned about how it would go since the water was 15C and this was my longest open water swim ever. I should have practiced the full distance before this but didn’t get the chance.  I had been for a few open water swims this season and practiced in the pool but this was it. A year ago I wasn’t swimming and open water was not something I liked doing.

The swim itself was totally fine. I eventually got into a semi-groove. I didn’t swim super fast but I had no worries on the swimming part. But before the first lap (of two) was over though, my feet were frozen like bricks. I was extremely thankful for the neoprene cap. Rich stayed around me and I could spot his dark green/fluorescent green swim cap combination every so often. Turns out I didn’t need him with me but it was sweet to see him every so often. I did get a little off course at times and need to work on sighting. I took the advice from the swim clinic and tried to just follow the bubbles ahead of me instead of spending the time putting my head up to sight where I was going. That is fine if the bubbles ahead of you know where they are going. I need to work on sighting. By the second lap of the swim I was cold. My feet were REALLY cold. I touched my nose at one point and it was just numb and tingling. I had planned to speed it up on the second lap. The cold got in the way of that plan. I didn’t worry about it though. I was excited to see the end. I ran up and was a fair amount dizzy coming out of the water. My swim time was 29:30 for 1500m. Not so happy with this. When we got in the water a few days ago, I told Rich that I honestly wasn’t sure I could do the swim based on how cold the water was. At that time I dropped my expectations for the race and just focused on doing it. So I’m happy enough.

T1- Transition one. My time for T1 is merged with the bike time. So it is part of the 1:33 listed for the bike. I was in T1 for way too long. I’m betting over 5 minutes. Easy. I’ll need to check my Garmin and see if I can pull out the information. Everything in T1 took forever. My wetsuit didn’t want to come off. I was so cold. My arm warmers were a mistake because they took forever to pull on. The lens to my glasses fell out. I was just feeling SLOW. Two girls in my age category got ahead of me here, until later in the bike. In the midst of this, Rich, who was stacked diagonally and on the next rack, said goodbye, told me that it was raining now (I hadn’t noticed) and took off! My super sweet guy!

I was pleasantly surprised that I could run in my bike shoes and made my way up the carpeted hill to the road. Yes, uphill. Got on my bike and didn’t stumble with my shoes as I expected. Rode off.

The bike. This is where things did not go well. I rode semi-strong. My bike felt good and all the TT bikes weren’t sailing past me as I was expecting. I played cat and mouse with several guys. The 10M no-drafting rule was annoying. But my big problem was that I got REALLY cold. As soon as I got out on the bike, I noticed that my legs and knees were blue/red all over. My quads were all red. They hurt. I expected that I would warm up on the bike. I had practiced swim to bike and this seemed to always happen. Not today. Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the 15C swim for half an hour. I’m not sure. The air temperature was cool but not cold. I had practiced in this.  I should have taken some extra time in transition and put on knee warmers or the 3/4 pants that I had! I didn’t know that I would need them. I wish that I had toe covers on my shoes. My feet were FROZEN and hurt. My legs hurt. I tried to stand when sort-of-required just to move the different muscles. My first lap was in somewhere near 40 minutes and I was happy with that. The second lap didn’t go as I thought. I did not warm up. I started to shake. A couple of times, I felt unsafe on the bike because of the shaking. Descending the hills was AWFUL as it made the cold even worse. I started to worry about finishing the bike. I started to debate the run. I kept going though. I took some more nutrition. I drank. I told myself it would be better on the run. My bike time, oddly including (a very long) T1, was 1:33 for a freezing 40km/27 miles. I think that my actual bike time was under 1:25.

I will point out that in keeping with my racing tradition, the bike was in the rain. My first triathlon, my first bike time trial and my first road race have all been in the rain. We woke up today to sun but it didn’t hold for the whole event. Rich says that his biggest concern on the bike was the wet roads. Not me!

T2- Much faster. No real issue. Took off my vest as I expected to warm up. Ran out on the wet grass mud/loop that led to the real trail. Dropped my watch while smiling to a women who was complimenting me on my arm warmers. Ran up out of the park again. My legs were talking but not screaming. But my feet were massively numb. During the first one mile or so, I seriously checked about four or five times to see if my feet were on my legs. They felt horrible.

You run up a muddy path (above, taken the day before) and then run along a flat gravel trail. It was actually a little boring because it was so flat. It was an out and back which was nice. I even saw some guy on the Canadian Olympic Team who I think was doing the sprint race. Eventually I saw this cute guy wearing a jersey that I happily recognized. He was running really strong! (He ranked 20th on the run!) At the water station, I took mouthfuls of water but did not stop. I had planned out with Rich where to put on the gas. I just couldn’t feel the pedal. There was no extra gas.  I just stayed steady and was happy to be doing the run. My run time was 47:29.

I came into the finish area and could hear Rich cheering for me. That was cool. I ran to the end. Some 20 year old girl passed me during the final loop but I had left it out on the course. I let her go. I crossed the line. Someone wanted my chip. It was over. Just like that. I walked over to Rich and smiled. He asked me how it was. I answered “COLD!”

Me about 10 seconds after crossing the finish!

My first Olympic Triathlon. My legs were pretty tired. Pretty humming. Someone took our picture and I quickly went to put on everything warm that I owned. I learned this from the first race that I did where I didn’t have proper post-race clothing.

Lessons from this race…

I like the Olympic distance. Seems perfect. On the run, I was thinking that I just couldn’t have imagined doing anything longer.

Don’t ever do a triathlon, at least a long one, in water below 60F/16C. Not my cup of tea.

Look for ways to speed up transition. Hard to do after a really cold swim. My T1 was horrible.

Your feet are always there. You just can’t feel them.

Here’s the overall information for my day.

Couple of points: Oddly the T1 was included in the bike time. I need to check my Garmin. I know that my T1 was long.

I’m including the top female of the day. She happens to also be from Bellevue. Most of the people were from Canada. We did meet a few Seattle area folks including Samantha, the top female finisher. She was really nice and is on the Canadian Olympic Triathlon team! Wow!

OA Place * Place In Sex * Place in Division * Participant Name * City * Prov *  Final Rank/Time *  1.5 km Swim Rank/Time *Pace/100M * Bike Rank/Time * KM/H * Run Rank/Time * KM pace *

20 * 1/62 F * 1/7  F2529 * Samantha Mazer * Bellevue WA * 20 2:30:56 * 20 24:46 * 1:40 * 25 1:24:47 * 31.1 * 11 0:41:24 * 4:09

74 * 16/62 * F 4/7 F3034 * Annie Richardson-Lander * Bellevue WA * 74 2:49:59 * 67 29:30 * 1:58 * 74 1:33:01 * 28.4 * 57 0:47:29 * 4:45

First Olympic. I’m done and happy enough with that, all things considered!