lagoon

lagoon

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Hot August

This past weekend I wrapped up my 2011 race season by competing at Canadian Nationals in Kelowna. This race was about redemption for me, as last year I was told two days before the race that my foot was broken...
I finished up my summer semester at SFU on tuesday and drove back to the Kootenays, just in time to snag some perfect summer weather!
My mum and I drove to Kelowna together, and arrived just in time to check in my bike and pick up my race package.
Race morning: my start was at 9:35 with the 20-29 females. That gave me plenty of time to set up transition and watch the other swim starts. The water temp. this year was wetsuit legal for the AGers, and I am glad, because it felt a little chilly!

Swim-
Time: 24:10 I am happy with this result, as it is a full 47s faster than two weeks ago. But I felt that my swim was horrible when I was actually swimming... it was pretty rough with all of the girls swimming in a big mob pack and not separating until partway through the second lap.

T1- Slowly getting better stripping off my wetsuit!

Bike- Kelowna's course is a 3 loop circuit, each time climbing up Knox Mtn. The climb isn't all that bad, but it is deceiving in the fact that the uphill gradually continues for another couple of kms. I really enjoyed this course- the fact that it was closed to traffic, had some fun fast turns and looping past spectators was a good mental boost.

T2- I came into transition and there was only one other bike on the rack... so I racked mine and suddenly the rack broke!! The metal bar between the sawhorses wasn't in place- needless to say that got my heart racing as I started yelling at the volunteers to come and fix it.

Run- This was the scary part. Right after Sooke I noticed a tight pain in my knee, and thought nothing of it. Turns out I badly pulled my rectus femoris, making running almost impossible, and swimming for that matter. I took running on and off easy for two weeks- scared to test it out.
I started the 10k with a half plan in my mind of what to do if the pain started, but luckily no such thing happened! Just general stiffness/tightness in the quad. My pace felt really great, and I was having fun chasing this one lady. Unfortunately my time of just under 48min didn't reflect how I was feeling, but c'est la vie and that's what I get for no proper running for 2 weeks injured.

Post race- I am very happy to say that I qualified to go to Auckland, NZ in October 2012 for AG worlds! My mum and I got to watch the elite females and males race, and cheer on Emma in her first elite race!

Back at home now I am having a "mini-vacation" week of rest and no training. The no training part is definitely there, but I am not too sure about the rest aspect.... moving my grandparent's out of their 60 year old home is not a restful activity haha! I am looking forward to this weekend to volunteer in T1 at Ironman Canada and to cheer on my friends that are racing.

That's all for now- time to hit the beach!


Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Sooke Race

Instead of writing a big long race report of the Subaru Sooke race, I've decided to try it in more of a picture format (because I had my dad's camera with me). Plus, procrastination here is at it's greatest today!

Simply put, my race was ok. I was sick for about 2 weeks and still sick race morning, so I knew that it would be a "give it what you have, and don't expect anything crazy" type of scenario. I swam a new 1500m PB (actually I felt amazing on the swim!) and even though the run was all types of horrible for me, (cramps, diziness, etc) I managed to pull out a new olympic distance 10km PB too. The course was very challenging, the bike was just epic. I was actually scared when I looked way up some of the climbs and saw racers walking their bikes. The race though was my first good result, putting me as 6th woman OA.


Sooke River Campground


Swim start at Young Lake


Heading into T1- 24:57 swim time


Starting the run


Next up in two weeks time is Canadian Nationals in Kelowna! Less that 6 days left in Coquitlam (and 3 finals to write) then back to Rossland. The focus this week is to get in some good training sessions, major study time and to tackle my Physics and Biology 101 finals that are both on friday.

Full results of the race here.