Welland Triathlon, Sunday June 29/08

www.multisportcanada.com

Distance: Swim 750m Bike 30k Run 7.5k

I was asked to go to this race with a friend, because we heard that it was a time trial start for the swim, & not the usual wave start. We thought that it would be interesting to try it. Got to the race in lots of time & set our stuff up in transition. I had checked the course maps during the week & again with the prerace email, so wasn’t too concerned that I couldn’t really hear the prerace instructions. The microphones they were using that day were echoing badly, & unless you were standing directly in front of the speaker, it was very difficult to hear. This I found out later was a HUGE mistake!

Swim: It was a time trial start with swimmers going every 5 seconds. It started with the youngest & went to the oldest, unless you had signed up that day & were put at the back of the pack. I started #115 of 176. We started in the water at the side of a dock & swam up one side of the Welland Canal, & back down the other side. I passed the person in front of me by the first bouy, & continued passing people the entire swim. Exiting the water was a bit tricky. It was very deep right up until the edge of the canal, & then it was lots of small pebbles to step on. They had 2 guys helping everyone get out of the water. Then it was a long run, up the grass, along a cement path, across a gravel road, around the side of transition & then in to our bikes. Time 14:34 A little slow I thought, but it was a long run up, so maybe it was okay?

Bike: We had been told that the bike course was flat & fast. We rode into a headwind for the first part, & then turned into a crosswind. Turned again into the headwind. I kept wondering where the fast part was, because I felt like I was barely moving. I was very glad to finally see the turnaround, but I don’t know what I was thinking, because I rode right off the road, down the grass hill & onto an asphalt path. I went to stop my bike to get back up the little hill & they yelled at me to keep going. So I rode along the path, had a lady jump out of my way, rode up onto a driveway, as the guy was retrieving his newspaper & thanked him for letting me use it to get back on the road. 2 guys on Cervelos rode by me laughing & I told them I was just getting out of their way to let them by. Finally got some speed going back, & was feeling pretty good, until I saw a woman down on the last turn coming into transition. A man down on his stomach was yelling at her to stay with him. Not good to see. Got into transition & yelled to the girl with the first aid kit that she was needed out on the road. Time 57:03. Yippee! That is good for me!

Run: Thought I felt pretty good going out onto the run. Started on one side of the canal & ran over to the other side. The map showed that we were to run along this side, around the end to just past 4k to the turnaround & then follow the same route back. This is where the problems began. There was a turnaround sign at 2.5k, with a sign beside it that said 5k. No one was monitoring the turnaround, which was unusual. The duathlon turnaround is always before the triathlon turnaround, so thought nothing about running past it. After all our turnaround was on the other side of the canal. Ran around to the other side & met alot of runners including 2 Running Free guys coming back saying they couldn’t find the turnaround, so they just turned around & came back. I thought that I would just keep running, because the turnaround must be there somewhere. I kept running to the next street, took a left over the bridge, still following other runners, then turned left again & ran to the 5k turnaround sign. Surely I had run 5k by this point? Turned back at the turnaround & headed back towards the finish. On the way back I see another turnaround sign & they are telling triathletes to go back & do the loop between the turnaround signs again. Surely, I have run more then that distance by running all the way around the canal? I decide to head towards the finish. The race ended inside the Welland Arena which was a bit different. Crossed the finish line & all I can hear is people complaining about the run course being changed & not knowing about it. Apparently, it was a last minute call to change the run course because there were rowing trials for Olympic qualifying further down the canal, & they didn’t want us interfering with them. I think more then half of the field ended up running the wrong run route, & everyone seemed to run somethingn different. We were told to signup on a sheet of paper saying that we had run the wrong route & they would talk to us. When they finally talked to us, they said that if we had run short of 7.5k, & they described a route that would have put us short, then we were to tell them & they would adjust our time. Anyone else who had run something other then the route of the day, had run long & times would not be adjusted for that. Time 43:10

I know now that I need to listen to the prerace report even if I think I know the routes. I checked the results & I was 1/7 in my age group. I do know that the lady who finished 2nd, did pass me about 20 minutes into my run, & she also ran the wrong route. She was definitely the better runner, so did feel a bit guilty about finishing first. Overall time 1:58:51.

Other then the mixup for the run, it was a really nice venue. The time trial start made the swim less congested, & it was fun to see myself passing # 2 & # 3, while on the bike. Next up Gravenhurst Olympic Triathlon!