The Race Report You've All Been Waiting For

This is a race report for my first Triathlon of the season, the Toronto Waterfront Triathlon. I've done many Tris before (including Ironman in 2003), but every race poses its own set of challenges, regardless of the distance. This one was a 750m swim, 32K (20-mile) bike, 7.5K (4.7-mile run).

Sunday morning:

I woke up before my alarm at 5:15AM to the sound of rain coming down in buckets. I immediately had flashbacks to Lake Placid in 2003 where we raced in the most unbelievably bad conditions imaginable. Today would prove to be equally challenging weather-wise, although (thankfully) on a much shorter and less challenging course.

The rain did subside for a while, but my plans to ride down to the race site were put on hold because I didn’t want to be soaked from puddles before I even got there. My friends H and P picked me up and then P dropped us off and we got settled in transition. Half of our age-group's bike rack was under water. We were lucky to be the second and third people there, so we got a good spot. In the end, there weren’t that many people in our age group, so there was plenty of room for all of us on the half of the rack that wasn’t under water.

The race itself was delayed, first by 30 minutes, then by another 15 minutes, then by a final 15 minutes, meaning that it eventually started 60 minutes late. This was to ensure safety since there was so much water on the roads and so many puddles (small lakes, actually). I tried to keep my gear dry under a garbage bag I had brought, but at times before the race the rain came down so hard it was almost unavoidable. My start wave (Women 40+ and Men 50+) was the last to go and didn’t start until 30 minutes after the first wave. They staggered the waves by 12 minutes or so because they wanted to regulate the number of people on the bike course simultaneously. I was only worried about this because I thought it might get really hot for my race, which would be a big problem for me. In the end, that wasn’t a factor.

The water temperature was great (low-70s) – you could have easily swam without a wetsuit. I felt pretty good in the beginning, but the course was a weird triangle shape (we swam out on a 45-degree angle from the beach), so when I made my turn at the buoy, I got disoriented and off course a bit. I finished the swim in 16 minutes flat (by my watch), but the timing mats that pick up the time from the chip around my ankle were at the top of the beach. Official swim time: 16:33. This was more than a minute off my goal time of 15:00.

On to transition… This part went off without a hitch. My stuff was a little damp, but since I was also wet, it didn’t really make much of a difference. As I stripped off my wetsuit I heard my friends MV and MS cheering for me by the sidelines, which is always a good thing. T1 time: 2:13.

There was a bit of a run with our bikes out of transition, which accounted for some slower average times, but we all had to do it, so it was fair. Actually, it was the weather and the course itself that played the biggest role in the slow bike times overall. The course consisted of a 6.25K rectangular loop done five times. My plan for the first loop was to just take it easy and do some reconnaissance. Well, my heart rate indicated otherwise, so I just tried to focus on bringing it down a little to a level I knew I could maintain. I got passed a lot (from the speedier people who had started in the waves ahead of me and were on their third or fourth loops), but I did manage to pass a few people, too (none in my age-group, though). The rain that had stopped before the race started up again with a vengeance. I felt like I needed little windshield wipers on my glasses to see. The puddles were the size of small lakes, but since I was already wet, it didn’t really matter.

On my first loop, I passed VA, one of the guys from my tri clinic. He was fixing his bike and it looked like he had flatted. However, later on, he passed me on the bike, so he must have been able to fix the flat (but he was sporting some lovely road rash on his shoulder). I also passed H, who had also flatted out on her second loop. I was so sad for her because this was her first duathlon with her new bike and she was so excited about the event. The loops all became a blur after this point. Being in the last start wave, the crowds that were there on the first two laps had vanished by the time I got to my final lap. Official bike time: 1:11:07 (pace 27 km/hr), although my bike computer said 27.9km/hr). That was about 6 minutes slower than I had hoped, but considering the conditions, I’m happy with it.

T2 was also uneventful. I heard MV and MS cheering for me again (and some comment from MV about the colour of my socks and weren’t they supposed to be white). Thankfully, my shoes had stayed dry, although my socks were soaked (and black) from the bike ride, so it was moot. My official T2 time was 1:16, which was fine.

Off I went onto the run. My legs were feeling good, so I just went at a pace that I felt comfortable with. I passed someone from another age group (and an earlier start wave) right out of transition, so that felt really good. I also saw TC, one of the guys from my clinic, on his way back in, so I gave him a shout-out and a thumbs up. When I got to the first water station at the 1K mark I had a quick glance at my watch and it said 5:16, or something like that. 5:16? Surely that can’t be right! I don’t run that fast! Anyway, I kept at it. When I got to the 2K mark, my watch said 10:-something, so I knew I was still running well sub-6:00 Ks. On the way to the turnaround point I saw CA (who looked like she was suffering) and a bit further along, RO, another guy from the clinic. He was on his way back and suffering a little bit. I hit the split on my watch at the turnaround but didn’t look at the time. I could see RO in the distance ahead of me and tried to focus on catching him (for no other reason that to have something to work towards). There was also this other woman with a long ponytail braid who passed me at the turnaround that I was trying to stay with. She wasn’t in my age group, so it didn’t matter to me, but it’s still nice to have someone to pace off. We hit the water station 2K from the finish at the same time, however I stopped to drink a few tiny gulps of sports drink, so she got ahead of me. I eventually caught RO with about 1.5K to go in the race. He had been walking and I said to him, “C’mon, let’s go!” We ran together right behind ponytail lady all the way to the 7K marker where we dropped her and made the charge for home. I didn’t care if I crossed before RO or ponytail lady because I knew that I would have a faster time since my wave had started a good 10-12 minutes behind both of them. I think I dropped RO in the last 200m or so, but he wasn’t too far behind me.

Official finishing time: 2:11:26. H and CA were both there at the finish to congratulate me. When I finally had a chance to check my run splits, I saw that I ran the first half in 20:30 and the second half in 20:12, for a final run time of 40:42. I was shocked and ecstatic about this as it meant that my pace per kilometer was 5:26 (faster than a 9-min mile), which is WAY FAST for me – especially in a triathlon.

After wolfing down some food, H and I stood around for the draw prizes and awards. To my surprise, they called my name for the Athena 40+ category! Who, me? [Athena is a category for women who weigh more than 150 pounds. The men's equivalent is called Clydesdale, and their weight cutoff is 200 pounds.] In the end, I was the only person registered in that category, but heck, I’ll take it (and my time was faster than my friend CA who won 2nd place in the Athena under-39). In fact, this was the first time that I had actually entered a race as an Athena, even though I always qualified. I just never figured I'd be competitive in that category (most Athenas are over 5'9" and are 150 pounds of sheer muscle). I even got a medal (my first one that wasn’t for completing a race). I grabbed my stuff and packed up to go when a guy said that he had heard them call my name for one of the door prizes, but since I had already left, I missed out on it. Oh well, I was so thrilled with my hardware that it didn’t really matter.

All in all it was a great race under very challenging conditions. The organizers did an awesome job and I will definitely do this race again. I’m sure now that they’ve had the experience of the race under their belts that they’ll make modifications for next year.