Strong finish

Sunday was the last triathlon of the year for me, the event where it all began at Rondeau Park. This is the third year I've done the full-distance race (4th year, if you count the shorter try-a-tri event that was my first race ever). I was feeling a little low heading into this race, having woken up one day in the last week or two and suddenly realized that it has been a significant length of time since I'd done any serious biking. Like, before our Algonquin trip. Lately I've been following a structured running program, and the biking just kind of fell by the wayside. NOT good when the bike component is the longest component of a tri. But Liam was pumped for his race, Chad was going to race the du, the weather looked beautiful, and let's face it - this is a sport that you can only participate in for three months of the year. I didn't want to wake up one cold, snowy day in February and regret not having raced when I had the chance.

I didn't feel much better when we got to the race venue and the water was choppy like it had been the day before. I'd done two sprint races here before and I'd eaten it on the swim both times. I had been hoping for some redemption.

To make a long story short though, I had a great race, and am so glad I did it. The water conditions were tough but I put my head down and swam, something I have not had much success with in the past and I totally credit it to getting out to Erieau every week or two this summer with someone from my tri club for some open water practice. It really is such a different beast than swimming in the pool. It was not a fast swim, on account of the chop, but I finished it faster than I'd finished in the two previous years, was comfortable from start to finish, didn't mind the contact from other swimmers and in fact welcomed it - I was swimming with the pack rather than lagging behind! The bike was slower than last year, but I expected that. The run started out slow; it had been a while since I'd run right off the bike - but I put down some successively faster splits, and I think I ran my fastest 5k to date in this race. The run focus seems to be working!

At the end of the race, a friend from my club and I sprinted it out to the finish - this is probably my favourite race photo ever - I love that even though I am dying at this point, I am having a ball, and so is she. In the end, my time was awesome - I shaved 5:00 off last year's time.

And with that, the 2013 tri season has come to a close for me. I finished 3 races this year, went sub-1:30 on two of them (though that milestone eluded me on the Tomatoman course again this year - that one is still my nemesis!), stayed injury-free, and had a lot of fun belonging to a tri club for the first time. I feel very fortunate to live where I do as it relates to this sport. Being in a small town surrounded by cornfields has its drawbacks some days, but the easy access to the lakes and country roads make for some great swimming and biking opportunities.

A few more non-tri events are still on the calendar for the next couple of months, so there is no rest just yet. Taking it easy for a couple of days, and then I'm going to jump back into the running program and see what else I can make happen this year.