World Triathlon Championships Olympic Distance

www.vancouvertriathlon.com
www.triathlon.org

Saturday June 7/08
Olympic Triathlon 1500m swim, 40k bike, 10k run

Day 1
I was excited to be going to the World Age Group Triathlon Championships in Vancouver, so my husband & I decided to head out on Tuesday, June 3, with my race being on Saturday, June 7.
We checked in at our hotel & then headed over to the race site at Stanley Park to register around 3:15. Got through registration relatively easily. Nice long sleeved technical shirt & matching hat in the bag. I headed over to the transition for a Team Canada meeting @ 4:00 for the run course in the pouring rain. The sprint coach came & said that they are not sure of the run course for either the sprint or olympic distance & the maps are unclear. He sent us out on a couple of different loops, so that we could see the type of terrain that we would be running on. Seemed like a waste of time. Let’s hope tomorrow’s swim & bike are better.

Day 2
Up at 5:30 to eat oatmeal in the room, to be at English Bay for the swim course warmup @ 7:00. All of the countries seemed to be here. The Canadian coach said to swim out a bit & then come back. We got down to the water & another Canadian told us to swim over to Beach 2, which is where we would swim to on race day. Seemed like a good idea, so in I went. FREEZING! We were told it was 14C. The first 10 strokes of so were very hard to breathe. After that not too bad, & I swam over to Beach 2 & got out with an ice cream headache. Swam for 24 minutes, & I’m figuring about 30 minutes on race day, so not too bad. Quickly changed my top clothing into my running free long sleeve shirt & jacket. The bottom of my feet were freezing! Got on our bikes & did 2 laps of the Olympic bike course. Not a lot of flat. Some rollers, with a long climb up to Prospect Point, then some fast downhill. Lots & lots of corners, some very sharp, with white painted crosswalks. Oh, & some speed bumps & rough road. It was raining a bit & the coach said that it will be treacherous in the rain. There were a couple of corners, that if you missed them, you literally ran into a brick wall. Yippee!

Day 3
Woke to yet another day of rain & cool temperatures. Was at the race site to do a brick session @ 8:00. We couldn’t ride on the course, because the Junior Girls were racing. We went for a half hour ride, then did a short run on the seawall. Then headed back to find Jim.
Team lunch at 12:00. Good concept, but not enough food. I guess they didn’t expect everyone to come? They made announcements here that the opening ceremonies & parade of nations were cancelled due to the bad weather. That was a disappointment! Also that the water temperature had measured 12.9C today & the Olympic swim will likely be shortened to 900m. The run course is still unclear, so we are to follow the people ahead of us. Okay for me, because there are about 500 people starting before me.
Pasta party at the Vancouver Aquarium starting at 4:30. Good food, but you had to eat as you walked through the aquarium. Lots of standing & no place to sit. I ate quickly & took the bus back, then waited in the rain for Jim to pick me up.

Day 4
All I had to do was take my bike to be checked in at transition from 3:30-8:00. I think my bike was right in the middle of the transition area of about 2000 bikes.

Race Day
We were up at 5:00, to be at the race site early & try to get a parking spot within Stanley Park. I also wanted time to check out the run course. Got parked, but couldn’t see any sign of a run course anywhere, so went to set up my stuff in transition. My hour to be there was 6:35-7:35, so had lots of time. The first waves were starting at 6:30, with a corporate challenge, then the AWAD athletes (athletes with disability) going off at 6:45. Waves were every 10 minutes after that with mine going off at 8:05. One of the team managers came over to see how I was making out with my set up. I was having trouble deciding where to put my glasses, because the bikes were so close together & I didn’t want them getting stepped on. We decided on my bike shoe, & he told me to put my arm warmers on under my wetsuit. He felt that my hands would be too cold after the swim to put them on. Got my stuff set up & headed down the beach to the swim start to put on my wetsuit.

Swim
Rumor was we were swimming 1100m, with the water temperature at 12.5C. The water was still & flat with the first waves, but the wind was picking up & the water was getting choppy. As each wave of ladies went off the waves seemed to be getting bigger, & we were swimming into them. Went into the water for a quick warmup, & then got corralled towards the starting platform. 2 women on each number of the platform. The wind was really blowing & we didn’t hear the horn start us. People near the starter were running into the water, so I decided I had better get going. You couldn’t help swimming on top of people with the waves flinging you around. With the waves crashing down, I took in lots of water. I was very glad to finally touch my feet down & run out of the water. Ii have no idea how far we actually swam. Checked my watch on the run out & I was around 24:45. I have never been so tired after a swim!

T1
I made the long run into transition & struggled to get my wetsuit off. I felt very dizzy, so sat down to get my feet out. It seemed to take forever, & then to try to get my Running Free socks on & my bike shoes. Finally got my helmet on, & made the long run out of transition to the bike start line.

Bike 4x10k laps
Got on my bike & started pedalling & my legs felt like lead. My left hand was too cold to change my gears, so had to reach over with my right hand to get into my big gear. I took it easy on the sharp turns & made the long climb up to Prospect Point. Pedalled like crazy on the long winding downhill to try to flush out my legs. Felt alot better at the start of lap 2. Another Canadian woman #808 had come out of transition with me & I could still see her up ahead of me. I finally caught her on lap 3 & she passed me back. I was feeling better on each lap of the bike. I figured that I would go all out on lap 4, so came flying down the last hill, to make my turn for the start of lap 4. An official was standing at the bottom of the hill just before the corner, blowing her whistle & waving her arms like crazy telling us to slow down, because a rider had just gone down around the corner & she was laying in the middle of the road. Not nice to see. We made our way past & I again passed #808. I stayed ahead of her for the rest of the bike & made my way around the course & into transition. I drank 1 1/2 bottles on my bike, which was good for me.

T2
Got off my bike & made the long run into transition to rack my bike & put on my running shoes. Didn’t feel like I took too long putting on my running shoes & race number. Made my way out to the run course, only to have #808 run by me.

Run -1 lap of 2.7km, 2 laps of 3.6km, then 100m into the finish
#808 had put on her garmin, which immediately started beeping at her, so I thought that I would try to stay with her. Other racers were asking how many times we had to run around the course, so it was still not clear to everyone what we had to do. I actually felt pretty good on the run. I was drinking at every water station & I was getting hot. I thought about taking down my arm warmers, but didn’t want to waste the energy doing it. I just kept on running right behind #808. I had no idea of the pace, because there were no kilometer markings. The course did end up going through the parking lot where we had parked our car though. It was great hearing everyone cheering for Canada as we made our way around the run course. Not so great to have them tell you that the finish line was in sight, when you had to pass by it 2 more times before you could really head for it. I felt very tired at the start of the last loop, but stayed right behind #808 as we made our way around the course one last time. As we headed down the finishing chute, Trevor the team manager handed us a small Canadian flag to take into the finish. I finished right on the heels of #808, & asked her what our run time was. She said 51 minutes & that it wasn’t good for her. I said it was good for me & thanked her for getting me through the run.

Overall,
This was only my second time racing at this distance. I had qualified in 2:57:57, so I had set myself a goal of 2:50:00. I thought that on a good day,that I might be able to achieve this. I had also set a run goal of 52 minutes, so was very happy to get that one. The results are still unofficial as there were very many protests for the various age groups.
I know that my swim was under 25 minutes.
My bike & my 2 transitions I think were 1:25
My run was 51 minutes
Overall time 2:41:24 I was overjoyed with this result.
38/73 Age group
11/19 Canadian Age group

I found out later that we were the last wave to swim. They felt that the course was too dangerous to allow anyone else to swim. The women 55+ & all men then did a duathlon. I know that I would not have been happy doing a duathlon, so was glad that I was able to swim. I also found out that I was competing against ex pros, so felt very good about my results.
I did see Paul & Arthur during their runs & cheered for Team Running Free.

Thanks for reading. I will post pictures in the forum, as I could not figure out how to do it here.

Karen