Race – Toronto Island Triathlon
Website – www.multisportcanada.com
Date – Saturday, August 18th, 2007
Location – Toronto, Ontario
Type – Triathlon changed to Duathlon due to water temperatures
Distance – Run – 5K; Bike – 30K, Run – 5K
When I heard about last years race, swimming from Cherry Beach didn’t really interest me very much. When I saw that they moved it to the Island I thought that the swim would be a little cleaner so wanted to do it. Unfortunately with the crazy winds we had the night before the water turned over and brought up all the cold stuff from the bottom and dropped the temp from in the 70’s to the mid 50’s. I would have preferred to swim as cold water doesn’t bother me very much but with the seemingly vast amounts of newbies it was the smart thing to do. If you haven’t swam in cold water before you don’t know how you are going to react and most would have tried because they had trained hard to be in a position to complete the distance.
Getting to the race meant that you had to line up to get a ticket, line up to get on a ferry and line up to pick up your race kit. I figured it would be a bit of a long process so wanted to be there to catch the 7am ferry but it took a bit longer and was able to get on the 7:30am ferry. This process needs some improving but for a first time atttempt I think it went pretty well.
First Run:
I was interested to see how well I could run 5k without the swim and bike warm up. I started off decently and was through the fist few kms holding a 3:45 pace. I was thinking if I could hold this I should start to pull in a few of those ahead of me but it actually went the other way. I actually picked up my pace a little and came through averaging 3:42kms but the group ahead of me held and I didn’t pull anyone back. It was a good run for me but I think the distance might have been a bit short.
Bike:
About 3k into the run I was looking forward to getting on my bike so that I could rest up a little. I was able to get out of transition quickly and onto the bike course. I was a little worried that the bike course would be really busy and it would be hard to keep up your pace with so many out there. If you could hold 35kph for the bike you had the option of going into the first wave that would hopefully give you a clear lap, so I opted to take it. This is a flat bike course but for some reason there always seemed to be a headwind. I was able to hold a decent pace but not having done any bikes off the run I think that first run took a lot out of my legs. My normal plan for the bike is to ride like you don’t have to run, I used the same approach for the first run but it didn’t work out as well because I still had to bike and run again. Suprisingly the bike course was relatively traffic free and the only challenges I had with traffic was coming up to finish my last lap. In each turn around you had a no passing zone and I came across a group of 3 that were not pedalling so I went from 39kph to 10 instantly. This probably cost me around 15 seconds or so on the bike. I could see the guys that I had been racing with all day quickly pull away. I was yelling asking that they at least pedal but they didn’t seem to want to do that so I waited until they came around the corner and I was released to transition.
Second Run
After a quick transition I was out on the run again. I need to remember to bring socks to run in. Not ever thinking that this would be a duathlon I decided not to bring socks with me, now I was running 10k without socks. Got out on the run and my legs felt better than they had on the bike and I saw a few ahead of me that helped me to push to catch them. I was able to catch a fellow in my agegroup at around 2k and thought that I had dropped him but I guess he used me as a pace bunny because when I took a look back with with about 1.5k to go he had closed a little. With about 1k to go he was closer again but I did not pick up my pace, 500m to go I could now hear him. It was time to give it everything that I had and I was able to hold him off by about 5m.
Overall:
Yes there were a few challenges with a first time event, but the venue was great. They did a great job at spacing the race out and made for an enjoyable day.
As I thought there were a lot of fast people out for this race. I was able to finish 30th overall and 6th in the 40-44 AG. This helps my goal to be in the top 3 for the season and I now have a good gap on 3rd and more importantly over a race to 4th.
Saw a bunch of the Team Running Free members on the course and all seemed to be having good days. Congrats to all.
