Shawnigan Lake Triathlon 2015 Race Report (with photos)

As usual, this is long. Scroll down if you just want to see the pictures.

What a difference a year makes! I just competed in the Shawnigan Lake Sprint Triathlon, the first race in the Subaru Western CanadaSeries. I did this same race last year, and let’s just say I didn’t love it. It was cold, it was wet, and it just felt really hard all around. There were highlights, but my memory of the race was not one that made me rush to sign up again. But I did (sign up again) because my BIL was going to do it again, and it’s fun racing with him. That and it’s really an excuse to visit him and his family – they live 30 minutes away – and I love hanging out with my BIL and SIL and my son loves seeing his cousins. As it turns out, my BIL was injured and so didn’t sign up (although he’s better now). So I was stuck in a race I didn’t really want to do. I wasn’t going to not go – my kid would never have forgiven me for not going to visit.

I’m glad I didn’t bail. I had a really enjoyable race. For starters, the water was way warmer than last year. The swim was longer this year – 750 meters instead of 500 – and I felt it. The distance itself wasn’t the issue, it was swimming that in a wetsuit, which I find really tiring even though my wetsuit is very flexible at the shoulder relatively speaking. Anyway, I went out with the intention to swim at a comfortable pace so as to not exit the water exhausted, and I accomplished my goal. I was pretty slow, but wasn’t exhausted when I got out. The one thing I didn’t like about the swim was the ordering. I seem to recall, but could be wrong, that the high schoolers started before the women last year. This year they definitely started after us, and for me, that pretty much guaranteed getting run over. It wasn’t too bad. I did better at placing myself within my own group this year, and so avoided most of the start-line issues. A few high schoolers went past/over me sometime after the first turn, but not as many as I anticipated. It helped that I expected it I think.

T1 went fine. Had a little difficulty getting going on my bike. There was someone taking her time getting on hers right in the middle of the lane just after the mount line and there were standard distance athletes just to the left of the start lane so I couldn’t really go around her easily. This got me a bit flustered so I had trouble clipping in once I was in the saddle. But this cost me a few seconds at most. As someone who’s not vying for a podium spot, I see no reason to get upset about people’s inexperience costing me a few seconds. I hope she got on and had a good ride. (Not saying being more competitive is a good reason to be a jerk, just that it puts people in a different frame of mind.)

The bike course is tough, mostly  because it’s constantly up and down, with no relief. You're always shifting. You really have to be on your game mentally. The hills are mostly small, it's just that it's relentless. I passed a few people, not too many, and didn’t get passed by too many either. I tended to pass people on the uphills, and get passed by them on the downhill/flats, even though I was going downhill much better than in the past. I’ve gained a lot of confidence on the bike recently, which is nice. I still have saddle issues that I hope to sort out soon, but all in all, I’ve been having fun riding. I forgot my cyclocomputer at home, and didn’t realize it until we were on the ferry – too late to do anything about it. So I had to ride by feel. Or rather, go as hard as I could muster while at the same time trying to not do too much and ruin my legs for the run. I probably could have gone a little harder, but it was a good ride all in all, and I’m feeling positive about the bike leg for my big tri in July for the first time ever. The one big hill was shorter (and easier) than I remembered it being – I was half way up before I realized that this was ‘the hill’ I was dreading. Didn’t drink too much (I have a habit of over hydrating), and sucked on a Clif Shot Blok for much of the ride.

Transition action shots courtesy of my husband. Also a way to show off my fancy wheel set.

 T2 went fine. Started the run with the legs feeling better than they had the year before. That said, it’s still really mean to pretty much start a triathlon run with an uphill trail portion! Uphill’s bad enough, but you have to be careful in a trail, there’s roots and things that have to be avoided. It’s hard when your legs are like lead. That section didn’t last long, but there is more up than down on the out part of the out and back course. It’s not clear whether it’s really slightly uphill or just one’s post-bike legs talking until you head back and benefit from the downhill. My legs started to loosen up at about 3 km, which is too long to run really well in a sprint, but was good enough to fly (or at least, feel like I was flying) for the last km. I knew that I had been running much too slow for the first 2 kms. I took the pre-pre-race-meeting talk a little too literally I think. The speaker told/reminded people to worry more about their cadence than their stride at the beginning of the run. I’m good with cadence, I need to push my stride at that point, but I didn’t. Oh well, next race I’ll implement my plan not someone else’s. But I did pick up the pace at the end. I ran down the chute, collected my finisher’s medal, and realized I’d forgotten to stop my watch, so I had no idea how long the run had taken me.

I didn’t really have the usual ‘why am I doing this?’ feeling at any point during the race. I felt really good when it ended, which suggests to me I could have pushed harder – I left gas in the tank. I’ll know better for my next race, which is the one I really care about. This was a way to get out the kinks, and luckily, I had fun doing so. I hadn't done as much training prior to the race as I had planned due to a toe injury I sustained in late December that had me pretty much laid up for 2 months. So I had low expectations, which means, no pressure. I think I need to race this way more often, because as you can see in this photo, I really enjoyed the race.

See how much fun I was having!

The only real hitch (other than forgetting my cyclocomputer) was a strange finger thing that happened while I was on the run. About 3.5 km in I felt a sharp sudden pain in my pinky finger and it started to swell. I hadn’t hit it or bumped it, and I hadn’t been stung. It eventually looked like I’d popped some blood vessels. My knuckles turned purplish and I couldn’t really use the finger. I got some ice from the med tent and iced it for about 20 minutes. By the next day it looked even worse, but hurt less. There was no real reason as far as I could tell, but I wasn’t concerned about it at all. After speaking (well, facebooking) with a wise and talented doctor I know well I am satisfied that I am right not to be concerned (as in, it’s nothing to worry about).

But I kind of forgot about my finger when I checked the results one last time to see if they had finally posted my time. I had placed 3^rd in my age group! (So what if there were only 5 of us.) I was 3^rd! Aging up this year wasn’t so bad after all. My times and places by category are below. Note that I’m reporting numbers based on total finishers, so the official web page with results lists the ‘out of’ as a higher number than I do (e.g., they list 9 women in my AG, but only 5 actually finished, so that’s what I list).

Total Time:1:39:13     Swim: 18:45    T1: 2:34    Bike: 48:17    T2: 1:39   Run: 27:58

AG place      3/5                  3/5                                  3/5                                    2/5

Gender place 30/56          41/56                            32/56                                  30/56

Overall place 70/113        84/113                           76/113                                 68/113

Yes, my AG was small. But my time would have put me in 5^th in the younger age group (out of 12, or rather, 13, since I would have been one more) which is way better than I did in that age group last year (7/10). My swim was a little slower (pace wise, it was always going to take me longer than last year because it was 50% longer in distance than last year), my bike was just over 2 mins faster, and my run was 27 secs slower. My transitions were clearly a lot faster than last year. (An advert for working on transitions, except that I don’t.) My swim and run together added up to 7:10 more than last year. My bike was 2:02 faster, so all in all, I should have been 5:08 slower than last year. But I was only 3:17 slower, so I shaved 3:26 off of my transition times! I can easily improve my swim time (by just doing some actual swimming...) my run will get better as I do more intervals and hills, and my cycling will get better too, now that I actually enjoy it. So even though I don't expect I'll be lucky enough to place again, I'm feeling like this bodes well for a good summer of racing for me.

Proof!

 

Odds and ends: My husband was there to support me. It’s not a good race for spectators, so I didn’t see him until I was running towards the finish line. But he was there, with his phone out getting some photos. And smiling. He hates crowds, doesn’t like the loud music, and generally is not much of a fan of triathlons. But he is super supportive of my efforts, even though on this day it meant getting up super early with me, and I appreciate that. I couldn’t train as much as I do without him. And of course there’s my fancy shmancy wheel set he got me for Christmas. It was the first time I’d raced on them and I love them!

It was nice to see some ‘designer gear’ up north. There were two other people wearing Smashfest Queen gear that I could see, another woman in the sprint and a man racing the standard. There were also several people wearing Betty Designs gear, including two women on Team Betty, one of whom was racked right next to me and came in second in my age group. Friendly competition. (Full disclosure, although I love my Smashfest Queen tri suits, I have a Betty Designs swim suit.)

I also got to meet two women from the SBM facebook group Tri-fecta. This picture of us is my favorite one from the whole day. We’re just three women who love triathlon, who don't race for the glory, just for the fun and the personal triumph, and it shows in our smiles. This was taken before I’d found out about placing in my AG, so the smile is just about having a great morning. Which, as it happens, got even better.

Me and the other SBMers.

One last thing. I got my hands on a few 5Q tattoos and proudly wore one at the race. As I was removing my bike from transition at the end of the day the transition captain saw it and asked what 5Q meant.  I replied "50 women to Kona" and he chuckled a little (this was an Ironman owned race after all) and said something like 'clever' in an approving way. I didn't have to explain to him what '50 women to Kona" meant, but the tattoo made him think about it. Job done.

#50womentokona