Watching Great White North

Today was the Great White North half iron triathlon. This great local race was my first and, thus far, only half iron. As you know if you've been following my blog, I had planned to do it this year until my hip flexor injury changed that. Because I couldn't race it this year, I decided to volunteer and then hang around and watch my friends race.

Last night, my daughter, Chloe, and I went to the volunteer dinner. The food was OK but we met the people who would be working at our aide station and they were friendly and nice. We also both won door prizes, which was a little bit exciting. This morning, we reported to the first aide station on the bike course, about 10K from the lake where the swim takes place. It was really fun! The athletes are still fairly close together at that point so it all happens pretty quickly. I managed to see some of my friends go by but missed a few, too, in the pandemonium. After our shift, we drove over to transition so we could settle in to watch people come and go.

It was interesting to watch the race, having done it last year, and see where the pack is compared to where I was last year and where I might have been this year. Oh boy! Do I have work to do! With an 8 hour finishing time, I knew I was nearly last but I had no idea just how far behind the pack I was. Many, many people finish at the 5:30 and six hour marks! There are still plenty of people out there after that but it really starts to peter out at 6:30 and 7 hours. Amazing! What I really need to do is work on my bike time. I still don't really get why I'm so slow on the bike. My dad, who is 72 years old and a bit overweight and rides a 40 pound recumbent bike, can do 90K in under 3:30! So why does it take me 4:00 on my road bike? I rode 1300K in training prior to GWN last year including time trials, high intensity spinning, and long endurance rides. Perhaps I am still weak. Maybe I really need to do more strength training. Losing weight couldn't hurt either (although there were some chunky racers pulling in some pretty good times). I'm sure I can cut a few minutes off my swim time and improve my run time just with another year of training but my bike time is my main mission for this next training year.

The hip flexor is not much better at this point. It comes and goes but right now it's fairly troublesome. I am going to go get some ART and exercise therapy and see if that gets me somewhere. I want to be healed in time to commit to serious training for next season. This season, I still have the Banff sprint tri in September. Swim training will have to wait a couple more weeks until the tattoo is healed and running will have to be minimal. But I can still focus on the bike. Generally I have to try not to embarrass myself in Banff!

Watching GWN was a good learning experience for me. I feel a little overwhelmed but I am also very motivated to do what I can now and commit to another solid training season in the coming months. I still have big plans and my revenge on GWN is one of them!