Hello Ontario!

We arrived and were welcomed with a wall of humidity! This is our longest vacation since a three week visit when I was pregnant with Mina. This year, after this trip and our earlier Toronto visit, a week in Shawnigan Lake and the traveling with triathlons in BC, I will have spent about 1.5 months in Canada!

Post-race Paddle

Amica Mid-Summer Olympic Triathlon at Blue Lake, Oregon. I found out about this race just over a week ago and decided to do another Oregon road trip.

I had another fun and strong race! 6th overall and 2nd in my age group. Results. Fourth week in a row winning an award. :) This course was flat and fast. I saw lots of TT bikes. Hmmmm. I had set personal time goals and also wanted to see how i would do on a flat course. I was super happy that we made the extra trip! I am slowly gaining more confidence with racing. This time i didn't get nervous until the morning of the race!

I'd like to go back for the entire race weekend next year. They have two days of racing including a kid's race. This venue was great for watching the race as well as a weekend adventure. Paddleboats, splash park, playgrounds, beach, community garden...


Our first ever family paddle boat ride. About an hour after my race!



My very tired legs! The beach and paddle boat ride with my family were a perfect way to relax post-race. Not to mention a great dinner at Rambling Jack's in Olympia with my favourite porter to celebrate.

Blue Lake Beach Afternoon

Another road trip to Portland! Tomorrow I'll race my last Olympic before Ontario!










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Le Fournil

Absolute yum... It is fun to bring the kids to a place from my working days. Well actually my coffee break days...


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Hello Fremont

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Seafair

I made a little video of our Sunday morning aka racing at Seafair: http://www.vimeo.com/13464478

Hagg Lake Olympic (aka take two) (July 10th)

Even though I had been planning on this race since late winter, I was scared to sign up because the description/recommendations made it sound really tough. I’d think about it and then pause with accounts of “relentless hills”, “challenging bike and challenging run” and a well accomplished local triathletes’ memory, complete with up-and-down hand-gestures, of a very hilly, paved run. Just over a week before the race, I finally signed up.

My goals for this race were to a) get down to a normal-sounding T1 (i.e., not 4:18 or 6:36) b) to finish at or below my Shawingan Lake time (2:49) on the Hagg Lake course which offers a lot more challenge especially on the run and c) to push it harder on each leg. I wrote little notes of encouragement and left them on my mirror: “I like hills. This will give you confidence.”

The Thursday before: After Mina’s Thursday night swim meet, we drove down to Hillsboro, which is outside of Portland. She herself had a great swim meet and left with her own body-marking! We got in at midnight and it is fair to say that it was a tough drive. Then, Mina woke everyone up at 6:45AM with the excitement of being in a hotel. So we had an early start to Friday which largely focused on me checking out the course. At this stage, I was still saying things to Rich about we’ll go see and then I’ll decide if I can do this race.

Henry Hagg Lake is out in the middle of rolling farm fields and is a pretty little spot. Artificial and all.

It was rather hot (mid 90s), which was also adding to my queasiness about the race. Saturday was suppose to be about seven degrees cooler but I’d never done any sort of a race in any sort of heat. I actually hate working out in hot environments. So we drove the bike/run course and I said “I can do this”. The course had plenty of hills but I really like hills and these ones were like-able especially for the bike. I knew the run would be the most interesting part of the race.

Rich and the kids had a snack and I went out on the bike. I had read that there was near 2000 elevation climbing during the 25 mile bike. I did one lap of the course and felt totally confident. I finally committed mentally to doing the race. I started to feel more excited than nervous and unsure.

Before leaving we got on swimming gear and jumped in the lake. It felt great. The beach is basically a clay beach. When stepping, your feet squish and clay melts away. Feels soft but weird. Mina loved breaking up pieces of it and making a collection. Miles loved, as always, looking for big sticks, which he called “his jet”.

I first decided to go out without a wetsuit. This lake was about twenty (!) degrees warmer than Shawnigan. I went out a short ways and then came back for my wetsuit. Half because I, a new lake swimmer, was swimming by myself in an unknown lake with motorboats, and half because it had cold/warm pockets. Coming back in, I got to ask the AA person about the swim course. He’d just laid out a set of smallish markers. Unlike Shawnigan Lake, I didn’t feel intimated by looking at the swim course. That being said, it would still only be my third time swimming this distance!Anyways, we swam, had a fun time at the lake and then went into Portland for lunch/packet pick-up. Packet pick-up was at a really fancy triathlon store The Athlete’s Lounge.

The night before I noticed that my bike was making a really horrible sound when shifting up from the small ring to the big ring. This freaked me out. But I knew there was race day bike support and tried not to worry. After being really tired from the late drive up to Portland on Thursday night, we all went to bed before 9pm.

Race day. I slept really well and woke up 15 minutes before my alarm of 5am. I had a quick shower, and started eating my porridge which I had cooked the night before. Lesson learned from Rich’s Victoria race. I had a banana and an hard boiled egg. I think that I was really nervous because I had a really hard time eating. Normally eating is not a problem for me. I also started drinking Nuun. We woke up the kids at 5:30. We quickly packed the car and pumped my bike tires. At 5:45 we were drinking through the Hillsboro Starbucks. We were staying in Hillsboro so it also meant that we had 40 minutes to drive to the race location. I sipped my coffee and trying to ignore any butterflies. It looked like a beautiful day ahead and thankfully a little cooler.

We got to the race site around 6:45AM. Rich and the kids took my bike to get checked out while I went for body marking and to set up my transition. One of my main goals was to lower my T1 time, so this was going to be my first race without socks, bikes gloves or any additional layers on top of my tri kit. The weather meant I really didn’t need these things. My transition spot meant that I had a long and hilly run up from the beach…

and then a run all through transition. The upside being that I didn’t have to run as long with my bike/bike shoes. My bike was thankfully not making the horrid noise anymore. I went for a jog, both testing out the steep hill from transition starting the run and my legs. I felt good. The check-in line was getting really ugly and I was thankful for our early arrival. Rich had spotted two other members of the Vo2 team, Gio and Erik. Always fun to see familiar kits and faces.I got on my wetsuit and went for a pre-race warm-up swim. I felt good. Happy.

Gio and I about five minutes before the start of his race.

The orange cap wave aka the women! There were around 65 female racers. Notice the male wave ahead of us.

The swim. It was a wave start, starting with bibs 1-20 belonging to elite athletes. Then a men’s wave. Then the relay wave. Then the women. Last year, only about 150 men and 50 women raced the Olympic distance. The sprint seemed more popular at this course. I spotted Rich and the kids right before I swam off. There was a count-down, horn blast and we were off. This was only my third time swimming this distance (1500m or near a mile). I tried to focus on staying on course, trying to draft and pushing harder on the second lap. I found it difficult to stay behind people when "drafting". I couldn’t see a thing and would repeatedly look up and they were gone somehow, not necessarily infront of me just away from me. :) For the last half to quarter of the second swim lap, I increased my kick. Mainly I fought off a negative dialogue about the swim and just focused on doing it as best as I could. Rich told me that if I can swim for an our at generally a higher pace in class MWF, I can do half an hour at a high pace during a race. Hmmm. Maybe one day. My swim time was 28:37. So an improvement on Shawnigan Lake and I was happy with that. I still have much room to improve with open water swimming. Up out of the water, running up my first of several hills of the day! As I was climbing the hill, I could hear Rich yelling that I was looking strong.

T1- a big goal here… and I did it. I dropped this to 2:18! I skipped out on socks and gloves and any clothing. Got my bike and was out there. Rich and the kids missed seeing me off on the bike.

The bike. I am a hill climber. 25 miles with many rolling hills, one rather LONG hill of a good grade and one hill with a steeper climb. My main goals were to ride the flat sections fast (22mph+), and to work on descending faster. This course meant that I was constantly working my gears and thankfully the horrible noise never returned. I passed a bunch of women early in the race and then didn’t see many women at all. So I was mainly passing men. One man told me that I was “a machine”. I tried really hard to not get stuck behind anyone. My first lap was right under 45 minutes and I was happy with that pacing. My Clif Bloks didn’t sit well, so I switched to taking a GU which I had thankfully also brought along. During the second lap, I saw a women who had a horrible spill and tried to not notice. At the end of the bike, I started to see people on the running course. There was also a sprint triathlon and a duathlon happening at the same time. I started seeing female runners wearing bids in shades of orange, red and I think pink. I figured i was one of those colours. I started to think that I was in a really competitive field and/or having a really bad day. I started to think that I had got really behind on the swim. I rolled into transition, somewhat confused, but still happy with my own ride. Rich and the kids were there cheering for me.

T2- I was actually less happy with this. I fiddled with my new race belt (why can’t I clasp these things) and my watch. Took another GU and drank some Nuun. I picked up my *BLUE* race number and put it on. I realized that I hadn’t seen any female runners with BLUE race numbers. Hmmm.

The run. I had already determined that this would be the hardest part of the race. I ran out of transition with a guy in a black unitard. He looked strong and were were starting off with the same pacing. I decided to test out Rich’s advice of trying to stick to someone. He started running ahead and I told myself to not let him go. After a mile, I was back at his side. He said “you found your running legs?”… I said “yes, my goal was to stay with you.” He said “now what?” I said “I don’t know.” He asked me my target pace and I said “I don’t know…sub 50.” He started running off. I didn’t know what to think of that. I followed this guy the entire run. He’d get away and I’d catch up. I was generally faster on the descending and he was faster on the climbing. I was trying to pace myself up and push it down. A few times he pulled a good bit ahead and I had to work steadily to stay with him. At about the Sprint 5K turn-around point, the first two women in BLUE numbers passed me heading back. They both looked really strong. One was about 30 seconds ahead of the other. I yelled something encouraging at them and kept going, watching for more women in blue. I semi-walked and drank water at every aide station. It was getting rather hot. I was thankful for the visor and anytime I ran under shade. I told myself three hills up and three hills down because that my simple way of looking at the run course. I started to see some other bibs in blue. I saw some women who I couldn’t see. And there were tons of women in other non-blue bibs. I just stayed with my “friend”- black Aquaman, age 42. Two women passed me on the run and I passed a few myself. The first women FLEW by me. The second women stayed in sight. Somewhere around mile 4, my friend told me that I had my sub 50 and that we’d been running under 8 minute miles for the entire run. (I need to learn to use my watch and/or do math while racing). He complimented me on my running, and me him. I was starting to be really happy with this race and expected, based on last year’s numbers, to be near top 15 for women. At under 1 mile, I think that he expected me to take off. He congratulated me on a great run and awesome race. I started running faster and pulled ahead of him. I passed Rich and the kids again and Rich cheering loudly.

Here I come (not the one with the unzipped jersey) and my “friend” is right on my tail! He passed me right at the finish but that was okay! We shook hands while our chips came off and I thanked him for his help. His name was Doug.

Post-race. I look at the clock and am really confused. I estimate my time to be 2:52. I couldn’t believe that. That didn’t make sense. Totally bummed. Walk back to my transition. Happy to be done but surprised that my time wasn’t so good. I’m opening a chocolate milk when I remember that I didn’t start at 8am but in the waves afterwards! So that meant my time was perhaps more like 2:42. Yippee! I find the kids, give hugs and am delighted that I met my race goals! I’m REALLY happy. I’m cleaning up my gear, and Rich finds the results. 3rd in my age category and 10th female overall! YIPPEE! YIPEE!! I’m REALLY REALLY happy. And I really can’t believe that I almost didn’t do this race because I thought it was too hard for me. This race gives me confidence.

Awards Ceremony! I get to go up for a medal for the 3rd in age category!

New tradition: post-race massage! Ahhh…

Looking-at-the-results-in-the-tent-early-the-day-after-and-while-my-family-is-still-sleeping: WHAT!!!!!!!!!! 2:36:23!!!!!!!! Sub 2:40 and I’m the happiest person in the KOA campground! I also noticed that the two women before in my age group were elite racers. I had no chance of being higher in the AG but was happy to be in their company! Four of the nine women ahead of me registered in the elite wave, whatever that means. Places 1,2,3 and 5. The women who won is the reigning National Master Champion. The women who is 62 rocks! What inspiration!

TOP 10 OVERALL FEMALES – SINGLES

NAME AGE OVERALL* OVERALL AGE DIV* SWIM*PLACE AFTER SWIM* T1(TRANSITION)* BIKE* TRAN 2* RUN* PL AFTER RUN CITY/STATE

1. Ann Davidson 46 F 2:21:08* 1 *0:28:27 *77* 1:57* 1:08:41* 17* 1:15* 24* 0:40:48* 10* Portland, OR

2. Kaytee Petross 31 F 2:21:19 *1 *0:24:59* 23* 2:04* 1:10:43 *26 *1:14 *18 *0:42:18* 13* Troutdale, OR

3. Brynje Enderle 32 F 2:23:47 *2* 0:26:45* 53* 2:24 *1:11:03* 29 *1:15 28* 0:42:19 *14* Portland, OR

4. Debbie Potts 38 F 2:27:35 *1* 0:25:35* 29* 2:46 *1:11:33* 33* 1:19* 27 *0:46:22* 37 Bellevue, WA

5. Kristina Lackner 39 F 2:28:49 *2* 0:27:17 *61* 2:08* 1:08:19* 15* 1:22 *19* 0:49:43 *56 *Sherwood, OR

6. Lauren Binder 62 F 2:31:22* 1 *0:25:40 *30* 3:00*

1:11:37* 34* 1:18* 29 *0:49:46 *57* Portland, OR

7. Susan Barth 29 F 2:33:35* 1 *0:25:29* 25* 2:46 *1:20:02 *96 2:12* 62* 0:43:06 *16 Portland, OR

8. Joy Roberts 38 F 2:35:03* 3 *0:26:21 *43 *2:15* 1:15:14 *49 *1:19* 38 *0:49:53* 61 *Tigard, OR

9. Kristy Aalberg 45 F 2:35:44* 2* 0:29:51* 105* 3:16* 1:16:21* 66* 1:14* 64* 0:45:01* 26* Portland, OR

10. Annie Richardson-Lander34 F 2:36:23* 3* 0:28:37*

82* 2:37* 1:15:07* 48* 2:12* 57* 0:47:49* 45* Bellevue, WA

About 20 minutes after the race. Notice that I’m still BEAT red!

After some food and relax time at the lake, we took a car ride….

and stopped at the local Rogue Pub to celebrate!

Brutal Bitter!

Here is another race report from that day: Race Center

Rich’s Race Report: Vancouver Half-Iron (July 4th)

The trip north and across the border is beginning to seem like a pretty familiar one. We drove up to South-Western British Columbia for the 3^rd time since May for triathlon. This time, we were headed towards the great city of Vancouver, for the Vancouver Half Iron, on the auspicious day of July 4^th. July 1 would have been even better! This race would be my second time competing at the half-iron distance, with the first being just two weeks earlier at the Victoria race. It is fair to say that 2 weeks between races doesn’t really allow for much intensity training, however, I was certainly ready to go again by that point.

Race Morning

Race morning came extra early, at 4:15AM. The race start was 6:30AM, so I didn’t actually have a ton of time to play with, but wasn’t going to up any earlier than that. I had cooked steel-cut oats + raisins the night before, so gave the concoction a wee zap in the microwave, and started consuming my early-morning meal. I’ve never eaten quite that early, so eating was a little slow going. Fortunately, the Tour de France had just started, so I watched the 1^st stage of the tour as I had my breakfast. This was the stage where a dog ran out on the course, and caused a nasty crash from some fine cyclists. I was certainly hoping to fare better on the bike course a few hours later.

I carefully left the hotel room to avoid waking up my sleeping family. I went downstairs, grabbed some tea and ordered a taxi for the short ride to Locarno beach. The taxi pulled into the beach around 5:15AM, leaving me lots of time for pre-race prep. I really like how friendly tri-folks are. I don’t know of any other sport, at least that I’ve competed in, where it is so typical for competing athletes to share tips, chat casually about the sport and wish each other good luck. All while being body-marked together or standing in the portapotty line.

Swim

The swim took place in the Burrard Inlet, at Locarno Beach.  I’ve never raced in salt water, so this swim promised to deliver something new. I was hoping to swim the 1900m in 32 or 33mins, which would line up with my performance (33min) at Victoria. I did swim the course the day before, so I knew that I would have to deal with small swells, and had noticed the presence of the current.

The course was a 2-lapper. The swim felt strong, although I never got into a super-great zone. I think that the current and the swells were the main reason for that. On the way out each time, I felt the swells pushing against my head. On the way in each time, I felt the swells pushing against my feet. In terms of the current, I would say that it mostly just confused me. If I have any more ocean-swims, I’ll need to do some more prep with current to be able to accommodate it better.

The swim ended up being a lot slower than my expectations. Chalk that up to the salt water and the sharks that never showed up to eat me.

Swim (1900m): 35:05 – 88th

Bike

The bike was a 4-lapper, around various sides of the University of British Columbia. Wow; UBC sure is a beautiful University. Sure beats Waterloo.

I am developing a bit of a love/hate relationship with the bike. I had some back-pain issues, again. Fortunately, it showed up later than at Victoria and wasn’t quite as severe. The back pain was uniform across my lower back, as opposed to centered on my right-side SI joint. As strange as it sounds, I found that situation a lot easier to take and to make semi-comfortable. And even stranger, the thing that bugged me most was that I had numbness in my left hand that took ¾ of the bike to go away. That’s a new one.

Anyway, the bike course was hilly enough and had a fair bit of false-flat. I quite enjoy doing laps, so the 4-lapper bike-route was my cup-of-tea. Each lap, I tend to find that you learn a little more about the course and can apply it next time around.

This is going to sound super-naïve, but this race finally delivered home the message of what winter and spring training is all about. This being my first full season of Tri, it has become strongly apparent to me of how serious mileage (which I don’t actually have) under your belt can be a major advantage on the bike.  I did 3 bike races this spring, and plan to expand on that next season too.

This is the first time that I placed better on the swim than the bike, and my swim wasn’t too hot. Ouch.

Bike (91km): 2:52:08 – 96^th

Run

Finally … to the run.

I had no specific time goal for this leg, other than to run reasonably fast. My main strategy was to run my own race this time. In the past, I’ve gotten caught up with someone else’s pace and then crashed. Not this time.

At about the 4km mark, a guy blew by me. I saw “relay” on his leg, so was quite happy to let him pass by. A couple kms later, we hit an aid station, and I did a few second stroll through as a gulped my water. For some reason, my legs got heavy at that point. A 20-something woman passed by me. I felt the recharge come on and was able to pass her back. She stayed behind me for about 300m. She then flew by me. I stayed at my pace. Soon after, I rounded a corner and saw her and a number of others more slowly running up an incline about to hit a hill. I flew up the incline and hill and never saw any of them again.

After that, I just kept at the faster pace. I was able to hold it w/o any sense of drain, so why not. I would say that I’m still developing the confidence to run at a faster pace. So, at this point, it appears that the game is more mental than physical. That being said, on the 2^nd lap, I was starting to feel some not overly pleasant knee-pounding. It was not painful per-se, but it wasn’t giving me a warm-fuzzy feeling either.

About 2km before the final turnaround point of the final lap, I saw my male relay friend from earlier in the run. I was determined to catch him. I told myself that I had to catch him before the turnaround so that I could just focus on the final 3-4km run into the finish w/o any concern for catching anyone. With 500m to go before the turnaround, I caught him. He clearly remembered me. I sped around the turnaround and then last 3-4kms just played themselves out, with an ever-increasing pace.

Run (20km): 1:29.04 – 35^th

Overall

Final: 5:01.15– 57^th – 12/32 AG – 46/169 Gender -- 228 finishers

I missed the sub-5 hour mark by just over a min. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it at about 20mins before that. At that point, I wasn’t going to make up over a min on the run, since I was kinda cooking at that point. In any case, I was pleased with the race, such that the sub-5 hour thing wasn’t even a concern. In fact, relative to my last race (3km shorter bike), I was aiming for sub 5:10, with an outside sandbag of 5:15. Given that, I was pretty happy with the result.

Closing

The Vancouver venue is a really nice one for a Tri. Running just off the beach and looking into the inlet is pretty incredible. It is the best venue that I’ve experiences so far. Most folks that I’ve talked to have done Victoria, but not Vancouver. Must be the 4^th of July thing. I hear that it is an important holiday around here. We did run into another local Microsoftie at the event there, however, she’s Canadian too, so there you go.

We hadn’t been into Vancouver-proper in a while. Wow. Vancouver is a wonderful city. It is so good that someone should award the city the Olympics or something. Right.

We continue to love Kitsilano, although had fun in Stanley Park as well. There is this massive pool in the Park, where just one part of it is a set of 4 or 5 50m lanes. Wow! I can assure you that my body was more than happy moving around like a lobster in the shallow-end of the pool, playing with our 2 kids, as Annie hung out in the swim lanes.

We watched the fireworks as we drove south towards Bellevue. It was fun to watch each cities’ spectacle as me sped down I5. At some point, I could no longer manage to stay awake. Somehow, Marysville turned into Everett, and Everett into Bellevue. My eyes just didn’t want to stay open any longer.

Rich’s Victoria New Balance Report

Victoria New Balance Half-Iron Triathlon (June 20th)

Summary

This past weekend, I did the Victoria NB Half along with 400 others. It was my first half and 4th Tri. I hit my goals, and had a good experience. The bike was painful (lower-back pain), but the other legs were really good. This was the first tri were I felt really good about my swim, both during and also when I looked at the results later. Sweet!

Pre-Amble

On Friday, we jammed the car and car-box full of Tri and camping gear. We also had my bike on the bike rack up top, and 2 other bikes (Mina and Annie's) on the back of the car. If that's not the definition of a sport's car, then I don' know what is. We headed North toward BC, for the race in Victoria. I love visiting BC, both because it is a great place, and it is a return to home soil.

Saturday rolled around for packet pickup, bike check-in, mandatory meeting and a kid's race. The line for packet pickup seemed to grow longer and longer. Wow. The sun was blazing down, so I was wondering a little bit about the conditions for the race. Rain was apparently in the forecast, but there didn't seem to be any evidence of that. We went up with another family, so out of the shared pool of 4 kids, 3 did the kid’s race (ages 4 through 7). My son missed it due to a major faux-pas of mine. Ooops.

The swag for this race was great. We got a non-hooded sweatshirt-style jacket that said "NB 15" on the front in huge letters, commemorating the 15th running of the event, and New Balance sponsorship. We also got a metal drinking bottle that read "Powered by Chocolate Milk". Very cool. Any rumors of the death of the dairy lobby are vastly overblown.

Race Morning

Sunday at 4:30AM rolled around early in our tent. I quickly got up and started into getting some food together. I had some definite problems doing that, but eventually got it together. I first could not find the matches for the camp stove, and then could not get it lit. Ahhh. Perfect timing. I didn't really start eating my breakfast until just before 6AM. Oops. Won’t repeat that.

Swim

We got to the race with no time to lose. By the time I had my suit finally on, we had six minutes to go. Geez. So much for a warmup. I quickly headed down to the water for a waste-level water-start (definitely my favorite type). About three minutes later, the gun went off, and we were off, for our 6:45AM start. I probably placed myself a little too far back, but also didn't have to deal with very much of the hazards of mass starts. There were 400 of us.

The swim was pretty uneventful. It was a diamond-shaped 1900m course (one pass). About 800m in, I found myself in-between two people, and we swam together (not really by design) for the rest of race. I actually tried to pass them, but that didn't work. It probably did, however, help with my time a fair bit. My placing wasn’t dramatic, however, this swim felt really good and gives me a lot of confidence that I can continue to pull in my time on this leg. I guess you could say that I’m finally a reasonable swimmer!

Swim split (1900m): 33:10 – 92nd place

Bike

The race organizers sent us all a mysterious message a week before the event that read: “we had to change the course due to construction and added a pretty steep hill; change your back cassette if you want any chance of getting up it.” OK.

I quickly got onto the bike, and started into the second leg. I could immediately tell that my legs were not there. This was surprising since the Half swim is only marginally longer than the Olympic distance, which I've done twice and not had the same experience. Anyway, after about five klicks, my legs mostly came back to me. Odd. Unfortunately, my weak legs were soon replaced by lower back pain. The pain only went away when I stood up and stretched, or when I was climbing hills. This situation took *a lot* of the fun and enjoyment away from the bike. I had been a bit worried about the bike, having skimped on longer rides, so I guess my worries were well-placed..

The horrible hill didn't end up being all that bad. It definitely slowed us all down *a lot*, but was OK. On a Tri bike, I can imagine that it would have been harder.

The first lap went pretty well. I passed significantly more people than passed me, and my legs felt pretty good. I played cat-and-mouse with a bunch of folks, some of which I kept behind me and others that I kept in eye-sight. Soon into the second lap, I started getting passed by a lot of folks. I was able to pull a number of them back in during the lap, but the second lap was a significant net loss. By the last third of the bike, I was starting to feel a lot of weakness in my legs. Coming into the end of the race, I had the distinct feeling of “there is no way that I could do two more laps of this course”.

I'll need to re-group on my bike leg, to get better. It is pretty clear to me that the big time wins are likely to occur on this leg.

Finally, the dismount area was in sight. I pulled up to it, and started dismounting, to hear my buddy and Vo2 Multisport team-mate Lee (also competing) say "Hi Rich". Wow. That was a surprise. Lee and I dismounted at exactly the same time. Nice Bike, Lee, who came out of the water after me.

Bike split (87km): 2:46:27 – 31.4 kmh/19.6 mph – 67th place

Run

I love the run. It is a comfortable leg for me and the one where I have the most control. My first lap was really strong. I passed a lot of the folks that had passed me on the bike. In particular, I was looking for 507 and 508 (in sequence by pure happenstance). I had gone back and forth with those two guys on the bike, and I wanted to see if I could catch them. I caught them both on the first half of the first lap. I did get passed by some really fast folks (presumably on their last lap), but they had “E” written on their legs, so I was good with that.

Soon into my second lap, my watch beeped at the hour. I quickly realized that the beep on my watch, -- must be 11AM -- signified that I had 45 mins (give or take) to my goal time of sub 5h. I continued to push along, with a growing desire for that goal time, and lots of gas in my legs to make it happen. Eventually, I felt someone come along side me, but not pass. I looked to my left and saw that 507 had caught up with him. He said “I’ve been chasing you all day”. OK. I thought that I was the one chasing him! I said “We really have spent a lot of time together, today.”

At this point, I picked up the pace, with the hopes of dropping my new-found friend. His response was “I guess we have to hold this pace until the end.” Ouch. We stayed side-by-side for about 2 kms, passing by a number of folks and doing 6:30 miles or better. I pulled ahead, pushing the pace even higher, and he ran a step behind me. I was really hoping to drop him, and thought that I was on the verge of that. He then got a step ahead of me, and he stayed there for a while. He eventually pulled further ahead, and I lost him. He would end up with a final time 1:13 better than mine. At this point, I crashed (mentally and physically). I ran more slowly (8 or 9min miles) for a about a km and a half. By this point, I had only about 3km left in the race. My goal time came back to mind, and my legs came back. I pushed as hard as I could for the remaining 3k, picking up another 5 or so folks, including 2 or 3 “H30”-marked (my AG) legs. Picking up AG spots at the end feels pretty good, and I knew I wouldn’t be giving up any of them this time. For information, 507 was actually in the AG above mine.

The finish line came into sight and I passed through it in 4:57. Goal met. The pic below was taken about 100m before the finish line.

Run split (20km): 1:33:06 -- 4:40m/km or 7:26m/mile -- 10k splits -- (45:36/47:31) – 33rd place

Final time: 4:57.08 – 46th place – 5/27 AG – 42/230 Sex

Post Race

Happy … I was left really happy after completing the race, and hitting my goals (sub 5h; top 25%). I remember thinking that a half seemed very daunting, after finishing my first Tri, an Olympic, in September. A half is definitely harder, but truly not that much harder, just a lot longer. I can definitely do another one of those, and in fact am, given that the next race in the Subaru series is July 4th, in Vancouver (including an ocean swim).

Racer 507 and a few others that I had spent time with on the course came up to me post-race and chatted. Everyone was super positive about it all. I really like a sport where you can be pretty competitive, but leave that on the course, and then just enjoy your shared accomplishments with your fellow athletes.

I do realize that this race was a tad short, so not a 70.3. The major take-away is that my time wouldn’t be the same for a real 70.3, except maybe one with a super-flat bike. The distances were close enough that there is no question that a true 70.3 distance is “within reach”.

I had an awesome support crew, both leading up to and during the race. First, Annie and the kids were super supportive leading up to the race. During the race, my family and friends did a lot of cheering, which definitely helped. And last, I raced with four other Vo2 Multisport team members, who have a lot more experience than me, and who gave me a lot of support and advice leading up to my first half. One of the team members produced goal times (per leg) for us, derived from our last race. It was helpful to see the kind of splits that I should shoot for, and to keep those in mind during the day out on the course.

The pic below was taken about 15mins after I was done. You can see a carton on chocolate milk in the crook of my left arm. A local grocery store – Country Grocer – was one of the sponsors and had provided the post-race spread, including a ton of chocolate milk. Mmmm.

Cooling off my burning quads! I’m second from the right. I eventually submerged myself, which felt *so good*. We were hardly the only ones doing this.

Four on bikes

First famly bIke n brew of 2010!