Weather: 15ish, foggy morning, sunny afternoon
Distance: Half IM
Gun time: 5:28:16
Swim: 40:39 (2:08 per 100m pace)
T1: 1:53
Bike: 3:04:50 (29.5 km/hr)
T2: 1:14
Run: 1:39:43 (4:44 per km)
Age Group: 5/9
Overall: 29/110
Good friends make threats to get other good friends to the race site on time. I happen to have some very speedy friends, however when it comes to the previous day to check in our bikes and attend the supposedly mandatory pre-race meeting, it’s a completely different story. We seem to always take our princess time to get everything ready and arrive very fashionably late. Not sure if everyone else is just early...;)
We easily missed our intended ferry sailing which was a blessing in disguise; I knew there was this awesome Montreal smoke-meat sandwich place nearly to kill time for the ferry wait - yummy goodness!
In the end, we managed to arrive to T1 only minutes before the 6pm cut off time to drop off our bikes. Success (minus the mandatory meeting, so sorry to the race organizers)!
I had learned I had a pretty awesome number coming into for this race in Sooke.
Double Symmetry is double sexy!
Okay Carl had a cool number too (but obviously not as awesome as mine).
These local races in the Subaru West Coast series have been a huge asset to my training for the upcoming Ironman Canada in less than two weeks! I’ve learned that doing these races are not only the fun part of my training to keep my motivation and sanity, but also these races allow me to build some solid lactic threshold training. These are huge confidence boosters for preparations for my first Ironman.
The swim!
We all know very well I can’t swim (or very well for that matter) and it is only with reason I let the WORLD pass me. Being a bottom-half swimmer, I usually leave family members and friends wondering if they had missed me coming out, but then humbly realizes – NOPE – he’s still way out there still swimming. This time, nearing the final length of the two lap swim course, I just envisioned “ice-cream scooping”. Yes, you'd read correct, big fat and generous ice cream scoops for my swim technique. I wanted to desperately bridge this 10m gap to a group of half a dozen swimmers to use their draft. After envisioning the ice cream scoops, pretty soon I found myself exceeding the pack and arriving onto the swim transition carpet in front of that group. I was impressed!
Then onto T1!
This was one of my quickest transitions (shaved 6 seconds from last year).
The Bike!
It was a little bit tricky swiping off the hay-ie grass off my feet and putting on my bike shoes just in time for this picture!
Crisis averted! No cones were slowing me down this time around! Road rash all healed. =)
I’m sure you’ll find people saying this bike course was much tougher than last year’s course. I had to take the descents gingerly to ensure I didn’t do something I’ll regret later, and it’s just a smart time to nutrition up. Unfortunately, a few blind turns and suddenly you realized crappzers – maybe I shouldn’t have swallowed that cliff bar right before this climb. It happened several times, and that was just what caught me a little offguard. Overall it was a hilly and challenging course – so glad they closed off traffic! Terrrific!
Then onto T2!
And finally the Run!
This is by far my favourite run course of the series. I enjoy the hills, the grass, the gravel, the road, the jetty and the town. It’s rockstar like atmosphere and I like the challenges that this course throws at you.
Thunder thighing it up. Love this run course!
So only two weeks until Ironman? T-week begins now!
Thanks to UBCTC team, race organizers, and most importantly volunteers for this race! =)
