Kelowna Apple Race Report

Kelowna Apple Triathlon - Olympic
2006-08-20
Kelowna, British Columbia
Canada

Total Time = 2h 36m 54s
Overall Rank = 188/446
Age Group = M2529
Age Group Rank = 13/19

Pre-race routine

Kristi and I got up at around 5am. Basicaly just ate a few bagels, drank some water and headed off to the race at around 6am. My heat didn't start until 8:30 but transition closed at 7:15, so I had to get there to set everything up and get ready a while before my heat started. This race was the Canadian National age group championships and as I expected the field was really strong. I beat my PB by over a 1.5 min which would have put me in the top half of my age group in the olympic I did 2 weeks ago, but today that time put me 13/19 in my age group. The top 6 in each age group qualified to be on team Canada and got to enter for the world age group championships in Hamberg, Germany next year.

Event warmup

I did about a 400m swim 15 min before the race start, with a few sprints.

Swim (1500m - 28:29, 1:54 min/100m)

This swim went much better then my race 2 weeks ago. I still swam a bit off course, but all in all it went much better :) In my wave were the M2529 and the M4045 age groups. It was a run into the water from the beach for the start which was new to me. I was just hoping not to get mauled in the sprint to the first bouy. Luckly I think I made it through quite well. The first loop I was with a pack of swimmers and I got to draft a bit but for the most part I think I was being drafted off of. I had hands hitting my feet for the whole first loop. At the end of the first loop we had to get out of the water and run on the beach to start the second loop. I was expecting chaos at that point because the turn around on the beach was pretty small but it actually wasn't too bad. The 2nd loop was not as good as the first. The pack had thined out and I had less people to follow. As a result had to rely on my own sighting skills (which are pretty poor :)). I got to the first two bouys alright and then as I was rounding the second bouy looking for the next one to sight I saw 3! In the chaos of the race I couldn't figure out which way to go. I just kinda tread water for about 30 seconds trying to get my bearings. Eventually I saw a few people up ahead swimming towards a bouy in the distance and decided to just follow them and hope for the best. Luckly they were right. The rest of the swim was pretty uneventful with the exception of this one guy who kept trying to swim over me even though it seemed like there wasn't really anyone else around us.

T1 (2:23)

The transition area was a bit of a jog away from the beach and took a little longer then I hoped.

Bike (40k - 1:16:01, 31.6 KPH)

The bike course was 4 loops and was changed from the course last year becuase of construction. So to change it they had to add in a pretty big hill which we had to climb 4 times. That kinda sucked. Beyond that hill this course was pretty fast. There was one guy that was playing cat and mouse with me. We seriously passed each other about 7 or 8 times. It was jsut back and forth and we would pass each other at the exact same points on each loop. I actually really liked this bike course and my parents we out spectating so I had a chance to see them 4 times on the bike which was a bit of a boost. They keep hearing about this crazy triathlon stuff I got into this year and they finaly got a chance to see what all the months of training are for. I also ended up catching Kristi on the last loop of the bike course and it was great to see her. She looked pretty strong and was climbing the hills really well. She ended up taking over 7.5 min off her Oly time from 2 weeks ago in this race!
T2 (0:52)

Good fast transition. I did take my feet out of my shoes a little early though.

Run (10k - 49:10, 4:55 min/km)

It was HOT! I knew it was going to be really hot so I expected that my run time would be quite slow today. It actually turned out to be faster then I expected. I thought I would be over 50 min for sure in this heat. The run started off pretty well and I saw my coach along the course cheering me on. It's always great to see people you know on the course. The run course was really flat but I didn't really like it all that much. It seemed like they didn't have enough room for a decent 5k course so they had us doing out and backs down steets and even run around a track to tack on some distance. My parents were out again on the run course so it was good to see them. I was really happy with my run preformance though. I was passing a lot of the women who were in the swim heat that started about 15 min before me. Every aid station I would try and take in a bit of water and throw 2 cups of water over my head to keep the body cool. There wasn't really any shelter from the sun on this course so the heat was getting to me a bit. The first loop indicated that I was on course for about a 48:00 - 48:30 min 10k, but it looks like I slowed down a bit on the last 5k.

Post race

Walked around a bit, ate 2 banana's and drank 4 cups of gatorade.