This weekend I drove up to Penticton with my dad to race the BC Duathlon Championships. It was a good opportunity to gain some fitness for my first triathlon coming up on June 3 in Dallas, Texas. I also figured it would be kind of fun to do something other than a triathlon for a change, and it was good father daughter bonding time :).

We left Friday morning, and arrived in Penticton at about 4 pm that night. It was fun to travel somewhere, even if it was not as far as other ventures I’ve been on in past years. I’m not sure why, but I really like Penticton. There is something about the Okanagan Lake, and the small town feel that I love.

I raced at 2 pm on Saturday, so had quite a bit of time to kill that morning. At about 9:00 am, I went out on my bike for a little spin and wasn’t able to shift out of my big chain ring…. obviously something kind of undesirable on race day. I took my bike in to the local bike shop, the Bike Barn, to get this looked at. The mechanics were really nice (one guy even offered us gingerbread cookies), and in about 20 minutes my bike was good to go, and I was feeling relieved that I wouldn’t have to ride 32 km in my big chain ring.

The race consisted of a 5 km run, 32 km bike (nondrafting), and 5 km run. I felt good in the first run, which made it difficult to not go out too hard. I think I paced it pretty well, but it was still a solid effort. The first half of the bike was brutal as we were riding into a pretty powerful headwind. The race wheels I was riding also made it challenging to control my bike as I kept getting blown from side to side. On the plus side, we had an awesome tailwind on the way back to transition and I was really able to motor along. Starting the second run, my legs felt awful… I don’t think I have ever felt that drained in a race. Thoughts of not finishing definitely crossed my mind, but then I thought of all the time I had just spent in a car driving up here, the fact that I was the first woman, and that first place won $150 (and a bottle of wine… although for me that wasn’t very motivating), and knew that I couldn’t just stop when I had less than 20 minutes left in the race. So I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other, staying relaxed, and just finishing the race no matter how horrible it felt. I was the first woman to finish in a time of 1:41.

This race was a good learning experience for me, and I’m hoping that the more I race the better I’ll be able to handle the longer distance. Next step… add in a 1500 m swim and another 8 km of biking :)

So now I am back home after 7 hours of driving and 2 hours of ferrying, and I am really exhausted. I think I will just continue to lie on the couch….

Christine

Huatulco World Cup Race Report

After having committed to coming down and racing here in Mexico, I really wanted to prepare as best as I could for this race. With it being notorious for its difficulty with the “3 H’s” (hills, heat and humidity) , I knew that if I came in without addressing the specificities of the course I would fail. Hard.

In the 2.5 weeks I had between my return from New Zealand and my departure for Huatulco I nailed a few key bike sessions, including a large workout up the punishing Newton Heights climb and a criterium bike race which helped get me into the racing mindset.

I also set up the downstairs bathroom as an impromptu heat chamber. With the help of some heat training protocol from Simon I was able to improve with every session I completed and started feeling a bit more comfortable in the heat.

In the days leading up to the race I started feeling a bit fresher and ready to rock. It was a bit disheartening to be reduced to a walk after a 30 second pickup due to the heat! But looking back I am really happy with my preparation, and I don’t think I really could have improved it much.

After waiting quite awhile to hear my name called out, full name I might add (thanks Barrie!) I ran over to the far left of the start line and selected a spot. After a decent run-in I wasn’t really able to turn it over as quickly as I would have liked. That seems to be an issue with me as waiting close to 20’ to start the race kind of makes my warm-up feel a bit redundant. After the first 1000m loop I was in the front of the second pack, about 25m down from the front bunch. In the second 500m lap I had to reconnect and I caught up to the back of the main bunch with about 300m to go, not something you really want to be doing, but that’s just the way it was.

No problems with T1 and was comfortably in the main group after the first minor hill.

Now this is where it starts to get better. As I wasn’t sure how I would fare in a World Cup level bike pack I was worried coming in that the higher quality of riders and the demanding course would leave me in a reverse breakaway position. I am happy to say that was not the case! I was actually able to stay seated most of the climb (my preferred position) and not get too wasted from the hill. At some points I was even near the front going over the top which was pretty damn exciting. I was really comfortable on the technical parts and tried to get a good position leading into the hill. When our pack of around 25 was caught by the second pack things got a bit sketchier and going into T2 I was fully expecting, but not ready for the craziness, I probably need to be a bit more aggressive.

Now this is where it starts to get worse. I exited T2 in DFL (dead *expletive* last) and set out at a pretty quick clip. By the time I went over the hill again on the first lap (hilly run, 2 times up the same hill on each lap) I was starting to lose it, also it was hot. I doused myself with water and ice at each aid station and by the second half I had cooled down a bit and I was able to pick up the pace, if you could call it that.

I finished in 34^th place in what was a race I was just happy to complete. No points and no cash but valuable race experience. I’m really glad I came down here as it was a chance to see how my training has progressed and what I need to work on for the upcoming block of work.

Since it was quite a hassle to get down here, I decided to stay a couple of days extra to help recover from the race and the tequila shots at the post race festivities. I hear there is some surfing to be had so I want to hit that before I leave.

I’d like to thank my coaches (New Zealand and Victoria), my parents, teammates and sponsors for helping me get to this point in my career. Really hoping this race is something I can look back on as a valuable experience.

Time to hit the beach!

                                 Leading Up The Hill!

Photos credit: ITU

I ran the TC 10 k on Sunday, the first time I’ve run this race and the first 10 k I’ve done in 2-3 years…. so I was pretty confident I would get a best time. My goal was to have a really good run, pace it well, and finish strong, the result would take care of itself. The course was challenging, with false flats both up and down, but I really liked it and I achieved my goals for this run. I went out strong but conservative in the first 5 km, I had lots of people to run with and really focused on my own pace, trying to ignore what the other 14,999 people were doing! Once I hit the 5 km mark, I picked things up, I wasn’t going to play it safe and just worked hard for the second half of the run. Thinking about keeping my form together allowed me to forget about how tired I was or what I was feeling, and just run. I was very happy that I was able to hold everything together right to the end and finished with a time of 38:31. I was really relieved to have a good solid run, as I feel like things have been a bit up and down over the last few months of training, and this was a bit of a confidence boost.

Driving down the road to Hamilton tomorrow for the first race of the year, a nice little 5k to get the juices flowing and have a lil fun. After a swim/bike winter not sure where the run fitness is at so best bet is just to get after it!  Will follow up the results and a report on training..

Everyday we go down the mountain, and everyday we come back up. The routine is ingrained in us now. The days are starting to flow into one another river-like, broken only by the banks of rest days, who themselves, often arrive without notice but nonetheless are correctly timed.

I feel as though I’ve picked up where I left off.

The first two weeks of this camp have seen a return of some good volume on the bike including a couple of crits with the men where, for the most part, I am still getting my ass handed to me. But I am seeing some improvements, so I’ll keep plugging away.

I’ve been able to build my running back at a reasonable and successful pace. The confidence is instilled having accomplished runner and coach Jon Brown keeping tabs on the process.

Usually around 8PM

   “Jon, what am I running tomorrow?”

   “What did you do today?”

   “60”

   “Ok…45”

   “Sounds good”

That’s pretty much how it goes. So far, its going well.

The upcoming weekend is looking pretty standard with the usual SBR. Maybe a long ride up over the Crown Range. We’ll see.