RVM

All I can say is I'm glad that I didn't know yesterday that I was going to feel like this today.

On top of being potentially more sore than from any other race I have ever done, I am sick as a dog. I pushed very hard yesterday, and a half marathon is a much further run than I am accustom to racing. I am, however, pleased with my time. I planned to finish anywhere between 1:20:00 and 1:24:00, and my gun time was 1:22:53.

I knew it was going to be a long run, and I kept telling myself to hold back. I know that I tend to start off fast, but as long as I was able to fall into a decent pace after the first km that it would be ok. It was hard to watch the more consistant runners go by from km 2 to 7 but I knew that I had to hold back or I wouldn't finish. I didn't even look at my watch until after the 10km mark, as I just wanted to run by feel. I was happy to note that I was at 38:50 when I did finally look.

I was almost half done, and I started to think that it might be time to start to slowly reel in some of those ahead of me. Every time I chose someone however they seemed to get away. I continued to try to find someone to run with or to catch, but it just wasn't happening. This trend continued until 17 km or so, when I completely forgot about everyone else and just focused on my pace. I was really starting to hurt, so I kept a careful eye on my watch trying to not slow down. I ran well until km 19 and 20 where I slowed to a 4:00/km pace, I tried to keep the pace time down, but with about 1.5 km to go I started to limp.

My right knee (ITB insertion I think) was incredibly sore, and it felt like it was all I could do to keep going. I limped for 100 to 150 meters before finally forcing myself back into a run. I had such a short distance left and I needed to finish strong. With about 900 meters left I found a runner who had slowed and I focused on making it my goal to pass him. I got by him with about half a km to go and by focusing on him was able to pick up the pace. He made a last ditch effort around the 150 meter mark and I was forced to respond by sprinting the last 100 meters. It made for a great finish for me, but very painful.

As I said earlier, I finished in 1:22:53, placing me 38th OA and 11th AG. I couldn't believe it when I saw that... I placed well, had a great race, but my age group was rediculous. In order for me to have taken a 5th AG (to be called up on stage) I would have had to have done 1:11:30.

I am very pleased with my run, it was a solid first Half Marathon. However, it reminds me that I need to put in more training so that I don't feel like so much garbage after the race.

I wanted to say a BIG thanks to everyone I saw out on the course who was cheering, your cheers really helped!

Well, I've got time to recover... I don't plan to race again until Nov. 11 for the Thetis Relay.

The Grind

Before I say anything my race, let me first start with a little information about the trail so aptly named the Grouse Grind.

Length: 2.9km

Elevation Gain: 853 meters

# of Stairs: 2.51 x 10^57 (who knows, too many to count)

Record time: 25:24 Sebastian Selas (2009)

Having raced the Grind two previous times and hiked it once, this race will be my forth ever accent up Grouse mountain. I am lucky enough to start with the first heat of racers (the men who have the top estimated times). There are about 40 or 50 of us waiting on the start line and I know it will be hard not to run fast right of the gun, but it is very important to conserve your strength on this race.

The countdown is started and everyone presses evermuch closer together as if those next few cm might make the difference of a placing. My HR is over 110 just standing there. It seems like an eternity... ... ...

GO! And we are off, I let a few of the more eager runners go by me knowing that it will likely not be long before I catch them. There is a problem, however, with letting them go that I am quickly reminded of as we try to squeeze a group of runners 4 wide through a gate barely wide enough for one. The race has just started and it is frustrating to have to slow down just to get through. Once on the trail it becomes very hard to pass, the section just after the gate is the widest part of the trail, but it is also the flattest and the section where most people go too fast. It will be a waiting game for me. I stick to my pace, knowing that there are likely 20 or more guys in front of me, but that if it all plays out like previous years I will slowly work my way though the numbers.

It is not long before the real accent up the mountain starts, and not long after that that the pace slows. I am able to pass a few people here while I still have energy to put in a little spurt to go by. It becomes harder and harder to pass on the narrow trail as the race goes on and my legs loose strength. I am not even at the half way point and my body is beginning to tell me that I just don't have the energy. I try to remind myself that this is how it always feels, and to just keep going.

I get to the half way marker and glance at my watch... 15:40. Not good, I wanted to be sub 30 for the race, and the last half I expect to be slower, especially as that feeling of low energy is still with me. My legs are tired, but no more than I would expect them to be, perhaps even less than I would expect them to be. My brain is sending me messages "you don't have to do this", "you had a great race last week... you could just stop", "perhaps you could wait and do the rest with Sarah, when she get's here". Fortunately I see other racers ahead and I set my sight on them. I need to focus on passing them and it will keep me going.

I find the energy to pass one of the two of the runners and get stuck behind the other. The rest of my race would be spent behind this guy. He was ever so slightly slower than I would have liked to be going and I tried a few times to go by, but each time he either picked up the pace a little or I just couldn't find the next gear I needed to go by. The racer who I had passed earlier near the half way point had found some hidden energy that I certainly did not have and he was able to go by me and the runner in front of me. That had me worried and I wondered if we had slowed, but I glanced behind and there was no one else to be seen.

Finally we got to a part of the trail where the trees open up a little, and I know this is close to the end. Apparently the guy in front of me knew this was close to the end too as he picked up the pace. I held with him in hopes of being able to pass him. I though if I can go by him before the 200m flat section at the end maybe I can beat him (I did not have much faith in my chances if he were to get to the flat before me). Unfortunately he was able to keep up his pace and he got to the flat a couple of second before I did. "Oh well", I thought to myself "I raced hard last week and I just don't have the energy this week". And just as I was thinking this I realised that I was passing him. In the last 200m I was able to run at a 3:50 pace! Not bad for the end of the Grind.

My time for the run was 30:46, which is a new pb.

I won my age group and got a new pair of Oakley sunglasses. I was 10th OA with a little more than 500 finishers.

I was happy with my result, but at the same time a little disappointed because I felt that there should have been more energy in the tank. I felt that I was stronger and that I could have put in a better time had I not felt drained. I am looking forward to next years Grind as I am sure that I should be able to be well under 30 min providing I am healthy.

I really enjoyed having Sarah do the Grind with me this year. It was nice to be able to cheer for someone else while I was up there. Sarah did very well for her first time up the Grind, placing 5th out of the elite women and wining $75.

A long time in coming

I has been a long time in coming but I have finally found the time to sit down and write this. Well here it is, my race report almost three weeks after the big day.

September 12, 2009: Age Group World Championships, Australia

Pre-Race

I got to the race site early... Earlier than intended due to not being able to sleep with my HR buzzing at 70bpm while I was lying in bed (this was 5:00am). It has been a long time since race day nerves have kept me from sleep. Being there early proved to be beneficial though, as I was not having to run to the start line seconds before the race start like my last race. I was able to set up all my gear and have a final walkthrough of transition before setting off to drop off my post-race gear bag. On my way to the swim start I met up with Mike Janes who was just dropping off his gear bag. I was very much looking forward to having another race with Mike, and although we were not directly competing it is always good to have a little friendly rivalry on race day.

Mike and I got to the start line/area early and were able to have a little pre-race swim warm up. I pretty well never do any warm up before race, but I needed something to keep me occupied before the start. Being in that water was amazing! I have never really swam in salt water, and certainly not in a wet suit. I only swam a couple hundred meters, and at a very slow pace, but even swimming slowly I felt like a rocket ship.

After getting out of the water I realised that I had put my goggles on with the strap on the outside of my swim cap. I knew that the swim was going to be violent and I certainly did not want to have my goggles knocked off so I put my cap on over my goggle strap and left my goggles resting on my forehead. When we were corralled into the start area, in an effort to be strategic, I made sure to line up on the start line at a point that was almost the furthest from the first swim buoy. In doing this I expected that the majority of the swimmers as well as the faster swimmers would line up in a closer spot allowing me to have a less hostile swim start. However, in lining up early I ended up with having people lined up on either side of me and two rows deep behind me (exactly the situation I was trying to avoid, and I was having to swim further to boot). And then we were ready...

Swim 23:41

As we were given the 1 minute to start I pulled my goggles on that had been resting on forehead only to realise that in the heat they had fogged so badly that I couldn't even see the first buoy. I gave them a quick wipe, but it hardly helped... "oh, well" I thought to myself "I guess I'll just be following feet." And then it all began. 110 race driven athletes thrown into a washing machine (or at least that's what it felt like). In the first 50 meters I swam over at least two people and had one or two swim over me, and it was not until after the first swim buoy that I was no longer in contact with one swimmer or another. It was also not until that point that I was aware of pacing. I had been swimming pretty hard for the last several hundred meters and I needed to fall into a more comfortable pace. I found some feet to follow and set into a more relaxed swim.

All was going well until I saw what I thought was the turn buoy for the swim finish. I did not realise that this was not the swim finish until after I had swam over someone and ended up 25 meters to the inside of the swim loop with no one else around. I quickly changed directions but the rest of the swim it turned out I would have to swim on my own.

T1 1:39

I am always happy to finish the swim portion of the race, and it was no different in this race, but T1 was a real up hill battle. Quite literally as we exited the water we had to run up a steep sand bank, which made the transition from swimming to running harder than it normally is, and this hill was followed up by a very long run through the largest transition area I've ever seen. Other than the long run however transition went very smooth I would have liked to have had my shoes already clipped to my pedals, but I still need to practice that.

Bike 1:01:28

It was time to start making up some ground, unfortunately it took between 5 and 8 km to really settle into my groove. Perhaps I need to work on my swim bike transitions because this is becoming a trend. However, once I found my biking legs I started to make good time. I was passing a lot of cyclists and as I passed a rider who was close to my speed he dropped in behind me. Despite trying to drop him he continued to hold on, and as I passed a few more cyclists the ones who could also dropped in behind me. Before long I had a draft pack of 8 or so riders, and the group started to cycle. I made an effort to always pull off to one side or another whenever I was passed so as to not draft, but in some of the tighter sections of road I had no choice. I also made a few efforts to break off the front off the pack, but it never resulted in anything.

Somewhere around the beginning of the second 20 km lap an official motorbike found our group and tried to break it up. I saw one guy get a penalty and he had to pull over to the side of the road, but mostly people were just being told to drop back when they were passed. I was told to drop back at one point, which was very frustrating, because I had been working hard to not be drafting, and once you drop back other bikers in the group pass you and you have to drop back from them.

Normally I love the bike and would stay on for longer if given my choice, but between the thin sham in the tri suit making me a little saddle sore and having to fight the draft pack I was glad to finally be rolling into transition.

T2 1:05

Second transition also had a long run, but it too was smooth and it was not long before I was out on the run course.

Run 40:29

My legs were definitely feeling a little spent as I had worked very hard on the bike. But for the first few km I felt like I had a good flow to my run so I went with it. Unfortunately this only got me through to about 3km or so, but I had seen Kamal, Mike and a few others I knew near the 1st turn around and seeing them helped to keep me going. It was relatively hot out and I could feel that despite my effort to keep the pace up I was flagging. km 6-9 were slow, but I was able to find one more gear for the last km and even a final sprint down the chute to finish the race.

Total time 2:08:24

I was absolutely spent. I felt like I had had a decent race, and I knew that I had put in a good bike time, but it would be days before I found out what my actual results were.

Finally I had posted a semi-decent swim time. I guess my lake swims after work really did pay off. Of course swimming in salt water and swimming with a wetsuit didn't hurt either. I will need to continue to work on the swim as I know I can still make up a lot of ground here. But for this year it couldn’t have gone better. I cut 3 and a half minutes from my previous best swim time. I was averaging 1:35 per 100m!

My bike split was great, far better than it has ever been. I had hoped to crack the hour mark, but it looks like I will have to save that for another race.

My transitions were, of course, longer than I would have liked due to being such a big transition area. In fact I thought the transition was what was going to stop me from hitting my goal time of going sub 2:10:00 for the race. That being said, I thought both transitions were very good, I felt smooth and under control.

The run was the only part of my race that I was not ecstatic about. I did run a pb for triathlon as I was about 9 seconds faster than my prior best, but I was hoping for and expecting to do a sub 40min run. All the same it wasn’t bad considering how hard I pushed on the bike, and the heat on the run.

All in all, a well executed race, and a new pb by almost 7 min!

It was great to have the huge crowds out cheering for everyone, and it was encouraging to hear Go Canada! in the cheers. It was too short a trip, as I would have liked to have seen more of Australia, but it was a great race.