It was fun driving together to Kingston with Willem and Bryan on Saturday afternoon in Willem’s van. Traffic was much heavier than any of us expected it to be, and a few heavy rain showers slowed us down even more. The three hour trip ended up taking 4 hours, but we had a laugh along the way. The delay really didn’t matter.We got to Kingston about 4:00, checked our bikes in, and picked up our race kits. Seumas was right behind us in the lineup. We checked into our hotels and then met up again right away to go and drive the bike course. It sure seemed a long way in the car. Fairly flat, the odd roller, but all in all, it looked like a pretty fast course from Kingston to Gananoque and back again.
The transition area for the race was directly beside the hotel. We walked over there and had a look around and then headed over and found a patio to have dinner at. In true Willem style, we all had a drink with dinner. I’m not sure why we’re not supposed to drink the night before a race. I’m going to have to look into that some day.
We were back in our rooms by 7:30 or so with the thought of getting a good nights sleep.
Two weddings and a bus backed up outside my room with his backup warning beeper going for a half hour pretty much guaranteed that a ‘good nights sleep’ wasn’t going to happen. I felt like I woke up at least a dozen times through the night. I got up at one point to turn on the air conditioner. The noise from it would drown out a lot of the other noise. I twisted my back a bit doing that, but it wasn’t bad.
We met up at 6:30 in the morning and headed over to Tim Horton’s for a nourishing breakfast. I would have thought a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel would have tasted good. Sadly, it did not. I eat a quarter of the bagel, had a large carton of milk, and that was breakfast!
We got over to the transition area about 7:15 or so. The race is super organized. They had our names stuck on the pipes where we racked our bikes. No fighting for spots. The first people to register got the closest spots to the bike start gate.
I racked my bike and bent over to put my bag down beside it and popped my back again. That one hurt a bit! It was a bit hard straightening up again. I thought for a moment of dropping out of the race, but I really didn’t want too. I’ve heard horror stories of the swim. I’d been worried about it for weeks. I didn’t want to not do it at this point. The bonus was that the water was pretty calm; a rare occurrence in Kingston harbor! We got our wetsuit on and headed down to the water.
There is no beach at the Kingston harbor. The shore is all large rocks. There was a plywood ramp, covered with indoor/outdoor carpet that led up and over the rocks and then down the other side to a floating dock. We jumped into the water off the dock and swam out though the weeks about 75 meters to the start line. We bobbed around for about 10 minutes until the gun went to start the race. About 210 people started the swimming for all they were worth towards the first mark. There was a series of 10 markers about 100 meters apart marking the route out past eh mouth of the harbor and into the lake. I took it pretty easy, as per the coaches plan for the first 500 meters. The crowd had spread out pretty well. It wasn’t too hard to find open water. I took my eyes off the markers a few times, and every time ended up off course. When I got back to looking after every second breath, I stayed on course pretty well.
It wasn’t all that crowded at the turn around. I looked a bit and was somewhat surprised by how far past the marker a lot of people went. It was good for me. I scooted around with the market rubbing on my right shoulder.
Coming out was easy. I could see the markers clearly. Going back was another matter. The course called for us to swim a straight line back to the starting point, but that wasn’t along the markers. I couldn’t see what it was that we were aiming for, so, most of the way, I’d look up to see that I was headed generally in the same direction as everyone else. It seemed to work. I think I veered off towards the shore earlier than I need to. I thought of old sailing days as I swam past the mouth of the harbor again. We’ve sailed in there on a few occasions. The water was calmer than I’d ever seen it here before!
I finally got sight of the dock again and could see the guys on the edge lifting people out of the water. There was no way to climb out, so two big guys grabbed swimmers by the arms and tossed them up on the deck. That was an interesting experience!
It took me a moment to get my balance back, but I made my way up to my bike and started tearing my wet suit off. I got a quick cramp in my right calf that got me hopping on that leg pretty quickly. I stretched it out. It went away soon.
The times didn’t show transition times separately, but I know I spent a minute or two extra getting through transition that time. I headed out on the bike course.
It took no time at all for me to realize that this wasn’t going to end up being my fastest race. My quads were burning almost immediately. I couldn’t push myself back on my bike seat and bend down into any sort of aero position. My back just wouldn’t bend far. I couldn’t lift myself up to push myself back on the seat. I thought quickly about a couple of things:
The week before a race probably wasn’t the right time to cut down on food to loose weight. I wanted to drop about 10 lbs quickly to get to about 165, my ironman race weight. I thought I’d just drop it quickly and then build up strength. I’d dropped 5 pounds that week, but didn’t eat enough in the last couple of days to build my energy back up.
I’d got a lousy night’s sleep that night. There was way too much noise in the hotel, so I was a bit tired. I could feel that my back was going to be an issue. I had to use a certain amount of energy keeping my back comfortable. It was taking away from my ability to just peddle quickly and pass folks like I had in Peterborough a month earlier. Oh well, it was a beautiful day, the crowds were great, I’d have another race over soon enough. I figured I’d just make the best of it and not get all annoyed that I wasn’t doing as well as I wanted.
The bike route took us from downtown Kingston over to Hwy 2 and over to Gananoque and back. I was getting passed a lot, and hardly passed anyone myself. Half way back I started to think about if I should do the run or not.
Through all the races I’ve done so far, this being the 30th since Oct ’05, I have only one DNF. That was the Peterborough Half just before Ironman last year. I dropped out of the run after 5k, but that was as per the coaches plan. I’ve hated the fact that I quit ever since I did it. I know why. I know it was the right thing to do but . . . . . I don’t quit stuff as a rule.
I started to think of ways that I could quit, but hide it! I thought of catching up to the rider in front of me and drafting off of her for a bit. I actually caught up several times and drafted for a few seconds. If the official caught me, they’d disqualify me. Then I could say it wasn’t my fault I didn’t finish the race! Within seconds I’d pull back again. “Thanks Mom and Dad” They taught me not to quit and not to cheat!
I did my best on the bike course. I’d hoped to average 30k but only managed 27.7. That’s an average Zone 2 training ride for me these days. I took a bit more time in transition again. Probably about 2.5 – 3 minutes, and then headed out on the run course.
“Oh my God” – this was going to be unbelievable. It’s enough to have those cement feeling ‘straight off the bike out on the run’ legs, but this was ridiculous. I’m going to have to check my GPS data, but I bet I did the first 500 meters to 1k at about a 10 minute per kilometer pace. My back was killing me. I couldn’t straighten up and I couldn’t make my legs work.
It took a while to get going, but eventually I did. There weren’t that many people heading out with me. I was reminded of my early races when I was lucky there were still people around at the finish line at all when I came in.
The run course was a long 15k total distance out and back that wound it’s way through town, through parks along the lakes edge, past the prison and out of town to . . . . . I really don’t know where the heck we went. Adam said Hi as he passed me. He was on his way back in shortly after I headed out. Willem was next. Bryan, Seumas and then Donna. Everyone passed me on their way back as I was still heading out.
I sure want’t going to set any records for myself on this race, so I decided I wanted to make the best of it. I joked with folks at the aid stations. “You’re looking great” they’d yell. “No, I look like crap. You should see me all dressed up” I’d yell back.
I offered folks on bikes $50.00 for a ride to the finish line. I asked the folks at the turn around who wanted to earn $100 giving me a ride back to the start line. I asked some where the bus stop was! I thought of slapping my tired butt onto one of the picnic table seat that folks were eating at along the lake shore on my way back. I couldn’t decide if I thought they’d find it funny that someone dropped in, eat a few grapes and then took off again or not.
Eventually, I made it back to town. There were still folks around. I’d gotten over the defeated feeling I had as some guy passed me, yelling encouragement too me to keep going. I looked at the age on his calf and saw he was 69 years old, and he’d run past me like I was standing still.
Humbling, very humbling!
Seumas was waiting just before the finish line to cheer me on. I found the rest of the guys all in the transition area. I had to sit down for a few minutes. That sure wasn’t one of my fastest races, but it’s going down as one of my hardest. Several times along the way I wondered how the heck I’d managed to do Ironman last year, but a tougher thought was, how the heck am I going to do it again next year?
We went back up to Bryan and Willem’s room and showered before heading back home. The roads were clear and we made good time. Conversations were a little less animated than they were on our way, but we still had a few chuckles.
It was a tough day, but a great weekend. Once again I’m at home with a medal that says I finished. It doesn’t say anything about the time!
Now, off to the chiropractor to get this back fixed ASAP. 4 weeks to the Guelph Sprint, but only 6 weeks to the Muskoka 70.3!
