Victoria Half Iron Pre Race Report

First of all, I would like to say I love Yaletown.Turns out in Yaletown, FREE WIRELESS EVERYWHERE! No one has a password, its great. We are leaving for Victoria tonight, however, before we leave Choppy needed to teach (coach?) a bootcamp class which is in Yaletown. Choppy is a personal trainer for Survivor Bootcamp and by the looks of things a pretty good one too. Since we will be rushed making the last ferry, we met up before the class and I'm just chilling out waiting for it to end.

I never knew this, but its pretty funny, there are bootcamps all over the place here all over the grass.

Anyways, on to the pre race thoughts.

Since I will be riding my new bike, I have a lot of concerns about the potential for injury. I'm sure I will be able to push out a lot of power, but I don't know if my stabilizer muscles will be able to handle it. That being said, I am putting my main focus of this race into having a great Swim/Run combo and whatever happens on the bike happens.

For the swim, I'm really going to give it that little extra, I usually push fairly hard on the swim, but if I find myself in a good pack, typically I will just sit back, enjoy the draft and save energy. Sunday I'm going to try and not let that happen. I'll really have to motivate myself to push through the gaps in the water, but I think I should be able to do that.

For the bike, like I said, I'm going to go out pushing, but if anything hurts while out there I will ease up. There is no point getting injured out of pride when I could just use this as a build race and really put in a strong showing in Vancouver.

That being said, I could have a very interesting run. If my bike ends up being a flop and I have to "cruise" it, I'm going to go all out on the run. I know that on fresh legs I can run 4 minute pace. So if the bike doesn't crush me, this will be my goal. If the bike goes off without a hitch, then I will aim for a more conservative run pace of 4:15, same time goals as Shawnigan.

Now for the splits.

Swim 28:00

If the swim goes well, I'll have a time in the 28:00 range. In reviewing my Kits beach Aquathon swim I did last week, I was able to hold 1:32/100m pace, this works out to 29:08. Considering that was without a wetsuit and pretty much no drafting, I figure I could cut that down a little bit. My swimming has been feeling strong and as a result I am hoping for something big.

Bike 2:28:00

I originally was going to have my bike split be 2:24:## which would mean 36kph. An improvement on the last race from 35.2kph. I remember really liking the Victoria course last year, and it was my fastest bike split. But not I've changed my goal and just want to match my last pace. In reality anything under 2:30:00 will make me happy. The big change from the last race will be I am consciously going to force feed myself liquids. In the last race I only went through 1.75 bottles of water. I really want to drink at least 3 this time. I stop to pee after the bike everytime anyways, so I might as well fill up first.

Run A) 1:20:00 B 1:25:00

Depending on the bike, this will determine what I can do on the run. The run course in Victoria is amazing. Mostly sheltered by tree's and flat packed dirt to run on. Last year my run time was 1:27 and change and I figure I should be able to go faster than that because I still had a lot in the tank left to sprint with Doug. Hopefully I can get more even splits this year. I obviously had a lot of punch left at the end of Shawnigan, the main thing slowing me down there was the upset stomach. I hope that more liquids on the bike will work those problems out allowing me to really push my body instead of simply running controlled.

Add all these up along with 2:30 for transitions gives me a total time of 4:18:30 - 4:23:30. My new watch leaks water and sometimes choses not to work, so I may be racing this blind. Already I know I will be doing that on the bike as I don't have a speedometer set up yet.

FUN

Very ambitious once again. But hey, reach for the stars.

I decided to make a few changes to my diet after the last race. I got to Triathlete for my own good, going with Cliff Bars and Gatoraide for breakfast. This weekend I will kick it oldschool with bagels, peanut butter and juice.

I'm really excited about this race regardless of how well it goes. There are a whole bunch of us racing which should make it a LOT of fun.

From UBCTC we have

ME!

Andrew

Winston

Derek

Amy

Claire T.

Then there is Nick, Jeremy, Choppy, Sheldon, Erich and loads others racing. Should be a great time.

Hopefully the weather will hold out. Keep your fingers crossed for no rain.

Choppy is still giving his boot camp students a workout, I can hear him grilling them through a tough core workout. He asked if I wanted to take part, I quickly politely declined. I could just imagine the ridicule. I still remember what the first core workout was like.

Wish me luck