Peterborough Race Report

Wow, what a race.  Just look at that smoking swim time!!  It doesn't get much better than that.

Name

Time

2000m SWIM Cat Ovr Time /100m

90 km BIKE Cat Ovr Time km/h

Tr1

Peter TAKEDA

4:22:45.6

27 46 67:30 3:23

21 27 3:12:34 28.0

2:44

So we left the house about 5:45 am and Peterborough is only about a 90 minute drive.  The race is supposed to start at 8:24 am so we had loads of time.  We stopped off at a Tim Hortons (famous Canadian donut store) before driving into the park.  I went to registration and then went into transition to get ready.  I checked my watch and saw I had tons of time but had trouble finding space for my bike as all the racks were full so I racked my bike under the Duathlon bikes.  I couldn't find my race kit so I started to panic but saw that I dropped it a couple of yards away.  After I was finished, I thought I forgot my strap for the Power Tap but found it in my bag.  Not off to a good start so far.  I walked down to the beach to where Tammy and the kids were playing.  I checked my watch and still had a good 10 minutes to get ready so I started to put my wet suit on.  I looked over to the water and saw a whole bunch of athletes in the water swimming.  The course is a two loop swim so I watched for a couple of minutes and then I noticed that there were a lot of people with the same color swim cap that I had.  I checked my watch again and had about three minutes to race time but there were people running along the beach and heading back into the water for their second lap.  I started to get a little concerned and ran down to the beach.  I ran into Jen, Scobie's wife and asked if he was already in the water and she said yes.  I thought the Aqua\bike started at 8:24 am while the regular group started at 8:00 am.  Jen told me to check with the announcer on the beach and he cheerfully told me that everybody started at 8:00 am but not to worry as I had plenty of time to make the swim cutoff.  He zipped me up and I ran back up the beach to the park where Tammy was playing and I yelled to her that I was supposed to have already started.  I then ran down to the water and jumped in.  The slower swimmers were starting their second lap and it was a horror show as they kept crashing into me.  It was impossible to draft off anyone and I finished the first loop with a ton of people behind me.  I was wearing my Road ID bracelet but if fell off during the swim so I had to carry it for the last 300 meters.  I ran up the beach and Cathy S yelled at me so I tossed her the bracelet and headed out for my second lap.  This time I was completely by myself.  I tried to hold a steady pace and if I didn't know better, I could have sworn they moved the buoys out further for the next race.  According to my watch I swam somewhere between 41 and 42 minutes and as I ran out, Cathy was there yelling.  I asked her if I was winning and she gave me the thumbs up. 

Running to T1 was brutal as it was at least 300 meters and my shin was aching.  I finally made it to the entrance and did my usual horrible transition time.  I headed out when a race volunteer yelled I had racked my bike in the wrong spot.  I should have been on the left side with the Half Iron instead of the right side with the sprint.  I asked if it made a difference and he said I would get crowed out.  Whatever that means.  

I was so far behind everyone, I was riding by myself.  I took off and tried not to hammer it.  The sprint had gone off at 9:00 am and the first riders caught me around the 7 km mark.  One of the guys that passed me was Derek who swims at Centennial.  He very fast and has a whole bunch of tattoos on his arm.  I recognized the tats and yelled at him as he blew by me.  At the 10 km turnaround point for the sprint, I saw one girl slow and turned around while another lady behind her plow into her.  They both went down hard and when I passed, one was calling for an ambulance.  I kept riding as there was nothing I could do but there was a race official about one kilometer down the road so I slowed down to tell her there was a crash and to call an ambulance.  I rode through a small town and the roads were open to traffic.  There was a tractor pulling a wagon of hay chugging along and five cars behind it when I came flying up.  I passed the cars on the right but there was no room to pass the tractor so I swung to the left and blew by the tractor except I crossed the center line and probably got DQ'd.  Doh

I was bagged and began to slow down but then realized that its an out and back so the turn around point was at the 45 km mark.  This part of the course was all down hill and it was great but it would be trouble coming back in.  I saw Lisa around the 40 km mark and if I wanted to catch her before the end of the bike, I would have to boogie.  As soon as I hit the turn around point, I ran into some strong headwind and I had to ride mostly uphill.  This wasn't going to be fun.

I was able to pass more riders on the hills as I worked my gears and was in the easiest gear quite a bit.  The goal was to keep the cadence about 80 rpm on the hills.  The heat, hills and wind began to take its toll as I started to crap up in my legs, my boys were killing me and my back was sore.  I had trouble holding the aero position for long periods of time.  Traffic wasn't too bad but one one climb, a pick up truck with wide mirrors wouldn't pass some riders going up a hill.  There were 6 cars behind him when I came up.  I was passing the cars until I came up behind the pick up truck.  There was no room for me to pass him so I yelled at the driver to pass the bikers through his open window.  He gunned the engine and blew by the bikers and the other cars followed.

As I got closer to town, the cramping was bad and I ran out of salt pills.  I was also in danger of running out of water.  I came up to the bottle exchange and was unsuccessful in grabbing a bottle on the way out as it just bounced out of my hands but this time the guy handing the bottle out was good and he moved forward to make it easier for me to grab the bottle.  I emptied the water bottle as well as my other two water bottles and the two bottles of Amino Vital and was still thirsty.  If the race was any longer, I would have had serious problems.

As I got closer to the park, there already were runners on the course.  At one point, I could not even see any other bikers behind or in front of me.  I slowed down and asked a volunteer if I was even going the right way.  She said yes and just follow the road in to the park.  I saw some riders ahead of me and burned it in.  I was totally bagged and thankful I didn't have to run a half marathon.  Lisa came in just ahead of me so I made pretty good time on the bike.  However, when I saw my time on the bike, I was pretty disappointed.  I thought I would be faster on the new bike but that was basically my Muskoka 70.3 time for the bike (minus the flat).

Much work to be done.  Also Calgary 70.3 is out.  The side and bottom of my left foot is all swollen and I could barely walk after I came in from the bike.  Wonderful.  More injuries.

So lessons to be learned from this race?
1.  double check the start times
2.  work on the nutrition -  need to figure out how to take more calories on the bike and salt pills
3.  work on the water situation.  I had two bottles of water and two bottles of Amino Vital and it wasn't enough
4.  start taking the B and C races a little more seriously. Drinking beers Friday and Saturday night before the race probably didn't help
5.  Don't leave the suntan lotion in the car.  It doesn't help when you're in the sun for four hours

Oh and in case no one knew the song of my last post