Oliver Half Update

Time for a weekly update. My last update was outlining my weekend in Osoyoos/Oliver for Kevin and Winston's Half Ironman. 

We arrived in Osoyoos Friday evening and pretty much called it a night. Saturday, we had a lazy morning and headed out to Oliver around noon to check out the race course and do the mandatory meeting and bike check. Weather was fantastic (For a spectator). Just under 30*C. I spent the whole afternoon in my bathing suit and flip flops. I even got out into the lake without my wetsuit for a 1k swim. Water was amazing. Hopefully they would get the same weather the next day. The pre race meeting was painful, nearly an hour of describing where cones are going to be on the course.

We got back to the house and had dinner. I followed this with a nice run (12k) where I had a few lovely encounters with locals who yelled to me, RUN FORREST RUN! I wasn't too impressed. 

Sunday morning for the race, weather turned ugly. I'll remind you this area is referred to as Canada's desert. Well, IT RAINED! A lot. Sunday morning we woke up at 5AM to the start of the rain and it continued well into the morning. Arriving at transition, I gave up hiding under a tree and just instead accepted I was going to get wet.

I knew a few people racing, Kevin, Winston, Derek and I even ran into a former MTC'er Jeanette. This race had a little more added excitement with the appearance of Michellie Jones (Former Ironman World Champ) along with Lori Bowden (Two Time Ironman World Champ). I got signatures. Lori Bowden wasn't racing though, just making a guest appearance. 

The race started and second out of the water was Derek, fantastic swim, unfortunately his day went down from there. He had the misfortune of two flats by km 14 which was the end of his race.

Kevin and Winston and Jeannette all had solid races though. Kevin with a new PB of 4:52, Winston being very pleased with his first Half finish in 5:46, and Jeanette just missing the podium for her age by 20 seconds with a 5:26.

The sun finally came out in the afternoon and we went back to Osoyoos and rested up before returning on Monday morning.

A few photo's from the race

Derek dealing with his first flat.
About to leave unknowing that another flat was a few hundred meters down the road
Kevin Finishing up his bike
Jeanette heading out for her second 10k of the run
Winston finishing up his first Half Ironman