Lake Summerside Triathlon 2009 (goal!)
On Dec. 31, 2008, I told a room full of people that one of my goals for 2009 was to “achieve a first place finish for my age group in an Olympic distance (or longer) triathlon.” Today, I reached this goal at the 2009 Lake Summerside Triathlon in Edmonton, AB.
See a few photos here. Or, you can read the complete results here.
You’ll notice that my split times don’t show up; my timing chip fell off when I removed my wetsuit. According to my watch, my splits were 28:03 for the swim and T1, 1:10 for the 42.5km bike and T2, and 41.20 for the 10km run for a total time of 2:19:36. Because I lost my chip the race organizers put my time at 2:20:00.
I had the good pleasure of racing with the Mighty Joel H. and Indafatigable Ian E—whose sprint distance results can be found here.
I am proud of meeting one of my goals for the year at my first race, however I felt like I could have pushed myself harder, especially during the run . . . but I’ll get to that. I also feel that I should strive for an overall first place finish at upcoming races.
First place overall went to Kristina Schultz, the 2008 International Triathlon Union world champion for the Olympic distance (women’s age group 35-39). She came in 3 minutes ahead of my time. Second place went to Graham Doody, a Ironman competitor, triathlon coach, and firefighter. Both of these individuals have a great deal of experience and drive to achieve and they definitely earned their places. I am, of course, kicking myself, because although the 2.5 or 3 minute difference in my time and their times is a gap, it isn’t so large that I should lose heart. I think I could have made up a good deal of that time if I had done a few things differently.
Things I learned at the Lake Summerside Race:
- Things go wrong. I raced with focus up until lap #2 of the run, when I realized that my timing chip had fallen off somewhere along the way. I spend the next 7km of the run obsessing about when it fell off, how I would get timed, and whether I could notify race organizers before crossing the finish. This concern took a significant amount of mental energy and stole focus from thoughts about my running technique, pace, and form. My run suffered becuase of this. Psychology and mental attention play a big role in performance, and my choice to dwell on something that I couldn’t control negatively impacted how I did.
- Push it. I gave myself a steady pace for the run, but I should have definitely pushed the last 5km. I ended up finishing the race with more energy than I should have—energy that should have been expended on course.
- Pack recovery food. In an ideal world, race organizers will be mind readers who have exactly the food that I want and other competitors will save me some. It is not an ideal world. At this race, there was a little fruit, but nothing I could really eat. They didn’t even have water handy (only sports drink that was too sweet). I need to start packing food and other items for recovery.
- Practice stripping my wetsuit. (need to get faster at this)
- Run at my own pace. This item is hard to decipher. During the run, I caught up to a guy named Mark, ran at his pace for awhile, and then picked up the pace again. Later, he caught up to me, drafted me, ran at my pace, then I dropped him again. He had a great race pace, but I think that I ended up settling for a pace set by someone else, rather than focusing on the pace I was capable of running. Hard to say, I guess. Either way, I would like to run a under-4:00 min/km pace sometime this season.
- I had some nerves. I had trouble getting to sleep the night before the race and I also had weird dream about the race. Clearly, I need to relax, let things go, and trust in my training. Worry solves nothing.
General things I could do better:
- Get more sleep on a more regular basis (I went into this race tired–too many 3:00am nights)
- Taper (?). This item would be ideal, but I have a rather stupid race schedule, so I can’t expect myself to taper before every race. Still, better self-care would aid performance.
- Transitions. I need to become unconsciously competent when it comes to T1 and T2. When I’m tired or cold, things are slower and I lose opportunities to catch people or create distance. I had this on my to-do list last week too.
- Fueling and nutrition. I need to dial in this part of my training, especially since I am going to do Sooke in Sept.
- Sprint at the end of the race (didn’t focus on this)
Things I did well:
- Incorporated recently learned swim techniques into my swim
- Didn’t stress about people passing me in the water
- Beach starts. Racers began lap 2 by going around a buoy on the beach and then diving into the water. I managed to make up nearly 25m on someone because I performed better on this part of the race than they did (thank in part to my long legs)
- Let the swim and bike be at my own pace rather than trying to match my speed to others. During lap 2 of the swim, I ended up passing many of the people who passed me on lap 1.
Incidentally, I did get a roofrack for my bike. Of course, when it pouring rain, I still want to put the bike in the car, which drives Laura bonkers.
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You were looking very strong out there. I see a 1st place overall in your near future. Keep up the good work!