We headed up to Kamloops on Saturday afternoon and drove out to the race site to scope out the course. The bike course is a fairly flat loop around town that we have to do four times to make up the 20km bike. The run is a similar neighbourhood loop, this time with a fairly hefty hill, that we have to do three times for 4.5km.
After our recon, we headed over to Dan's. We had our new addition, Kash, with us so there was quite the load of luggage including sneaking said puppy past the "no pets" sign into his apartment. Thankfully, he is still small and actually quite quiet so I wasn't worried about it once we were inside. Who could say no to such a cute face?
After a delicious pasta dinner made by Dan, we headed to bed to be up at 6 to leave for the race. Thankfully Kash was fantastic overnight and I only got up once to take him outside.
We got to the race, picked up our race packages, got body marked, and set up our transitions. The transitions weren't assigned so we set up next to each other. Before long is was time to head into the pool to get in order for the swim start. The start times were seeded based on your estimated finish time. From the chatter in line, everyone was worried they would be slower than the person in front - "just tap my toes and I'll let you by!"
All the sudden it was ten seconds to go time and I jumped in the water. Then I was off swimming zig zigs across the pool - up the right side of the lane, down the left, cross under the lane rope, repeat until the end, before walking around back to the start to do it all over again for 600m. I actually finished pretty close to my estimated time, passing the transition timers at 10:47.
This is me, doing a lazy open turn... sometimes I think I should learn how to flip turn...
A quick run out of the pool and onto the soccer field and I was into T1. Nothing too eventful but a long run to the mount/dismount line.
Now the bike turned out to be the most eventful part of the whole gig. Matt and I both had recently worked on our bike fits. Aerodynamics is very important on the bike and we are working to eek out every second we can from our positions. Well, for some reason, neither of us checked the tightness of the bolts that held our seats on. And both of us had our seats tilt way backwards during the bike. Not. The. Most. Comfortable. Position. I kept trying to bang it back down without luck. Finally I gave up and just rode harder so I'd have less weight on my seat. Grrrr.
Lesson learned - for our next ride we'll both be checking ALL the bolts.
Here's Matt coming in.
Next up was three laps of the run course. It featured a large hill and usually I would have loved this type of course because I can run uphill fairly well. For some reason, though, I really struggled on the run course and never felt like I got going. Matt, on the other hand, looked pretty pro and had a good run for the first time in what feels like ages - almost no knee pain.
In the end, Matt came in at 1:10, good enough for first in his age group and 3rd overall. I came in at 1:16, first in my age group and 2nd overall female. I am in a better place than I was at the start of last season and I learned a lot (again) this race. I can't wait to race again and hopefully work out some of the kinks/feel better on the run.
Plus, Kash really enjoyed the day, mister attention seeker dog!
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