Montreal Esprit Triathlon (2012)
The Lead-up to the race
Well, Here goes, my whole experience, as promised. The week before the race I was watching the weather
very carefully dreading what it was saying.
Hoping that every day it would change, and I guess it kind of did. A week before the race, the forecast was for
22 C and rainy (20-30mm), later in the week that changed a bit to add in
thunderstorms on that day (up until the day prior to the race actually). Humidity was supposed to make it feel like about
28 C. I wasn’t happy with rain, not
having the greatest balance in the world I was worried about my bike tires
slipping since they are old, and I really didn’t want to wipe out on the
course, and worse, I didn’t want to take out anyone with me. Friday was the registration and pre race
pickup, but since I had the kids I couldn’t make it to that pick-up and the open
water swim practice that they allowed. I
wasn’t too worried about that though, since we could also pick up our stuff the
day of the race, 2 hours before.
Triathlon seminar for beginners
They offer a beginners seminar run by Anastasia Polito for first
timers free of charge, which I signed up for early (I think in May) because it
was a first come first serve basis thing.
This was held on the island Thursday afternoon. Having seen Anastasia Polito in the Ford
Ironman World Championship videos, it was pretty cool I thought that they were
offering a seminar lead by such an inspiring person. Thursday was a heck of a day. Not living in Montreal, I had to bring my
bike and my racing stuff with me into town, but to make everything that much
more interesting it also coincided with my first day of classes. My classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays at
Concordia and I wasn’t going to miss my first classes, so I packed the bike and
my stuff into the car at 6:30 am and dumped the responsibility of dropping the
kids off at daycare on the hubby. I then
experienced the reason that I would be taking the train into town for the rest
of the semester. I pulled away from the
house at 7:00 am after running around for about 20 minutes remembering stuff
that I had forgotten, like my helmet, my class schedule and where the heck was
my bike pump! My first class started at
8:45 and I arrived at the university and parked at 8:35, made it into class 2
minutes before it started (whew). I had
classes run from 8:45-14:30 and I had forgotten one of the more important
things (a lunch). I was ravenous by the
time my classes were over (I only had 15 minutes to go between classes, no time
to run out).
Classes ended and I rushed out to subway to grab a
lunch/dinner sub and ate it at the student parent’s center while checking
e-mail. Headed off to the triathlon
seminar and got there just in time (yay).
Took my bike out of the car, started pumping up my tires with my now
broken bike pump (ya, I need a new one very badly, it keeps falling apart),
clipped on my helmet and headed down to the bike racks they were setting up. I found the seminar quite helpful with info I
never would have though of (like counting the paces between the transition zone
entry to where my bike was racked, because when there are hundreds of bikes it’s
hard to find yours – more on that later), how to set up the gear for the
transition (more on that later) and other helpful tips, along with a
familiarization with the course and transition zone (very helpful). At the close of the seminar I thanked
Anastasia, asked her a few questions related to triathlon teams and the like and
then headed back to the car with my gear.
The nerves subsided a bit, but not enough to cure me of the horrible
indigestion that had been plaguing me for a few days – just glad it wasn’t the
cold that all 3 kids and the hubby had though.
Let’s just say Immodium was my friend.
Home I went. I was exhausted at
that point haven woken up at 5:30 that morning and been go go go since
then. I got home just before 9:00 pm and
went straight to bed when I got in.
Race day
As stated previously I had prepped all my gear on Friday
night, but still felt the need to go over everything I had packed like 3-4
times anyways in the morning. I was up before
the kids and the hubby came to see me off at the door after my (what I thought sufficient)
breakfast. No longer plagued by
indigestion (thanks Imodium), I got down to the island at 8:10. My start time was 10:50 and I knew I needed
to be there at 8:50 at the latest to pick up my race kit. I probably looked like the biggest newbie
there, I didn’t know where to go to pick up what and had general non-itchy hives on my legs and arms because
of nerves (ya, I kind of looked diseased) but at least they weren’t itching
(thanks to a last minute Reactine taken that AM). I got my race kit/t-shirt and swag bag and
timing chip and got marked (thanks for writing my age on my right leg of
course, so I can’t really hide it..). I
went to rack my bike and set up my spot as was shown in the seminar, made sure
my tire pressure was right and generally sat there nervously. 45 minutes before my start I went down to the
wetsuit rental tent and picked up my glorious wetsuit that was supposed to save
the day for beginners. It looked huge
but I proved otherwise as I tried to put it on and proceeded to curse and
struggle with it for about 10 minutes, much to the amusement of a few people
around me. All in good fun, I was
starting to doubt my decision to rent a wetsuit. I didn’t like the cold, I get hives in cold
water and I was told it would help make me more buoyant during the swim
portion, which is why I rented it. After
putting it on and having help doing it up in the back, I grabbed my fancy pants
orange bathing cap and goggles, remembered the hint to put the goggles on
before the cap just in case they came off they wouldn’t get lost. Before I knew it they were briefing the women
and we were given the go ahead to get into the water for a quick warm up before
the starter buzzer. HA! Buoyant all right, I swam out in crawl a bit
then turned back and attempted breaststroke, but couldn’t make my butt sink
enough for that to work – way to go! I’ve
called myself bubble butt but that just took it a bit too far. I was hoping for some photos of me exiting
the water but that didn’t happen and nobody gets to witness the “XL sausage
stuffed into a M sized casing” look of this wetsuit. At this point I guess I should mention that
weather, it was temperate about 25 degrees it felt like and pretty humid, NOT
raining, greyish skies and VERY windy..
The weather reports said gusts up to 20 km/hr which is a lot but
according to the guy running the briefing on the island they were gusting to
the 50 km/hr range. The rowing basin we
were dong our swim in had white caps – waves – NOT cool. All the women lined up at the start and
before I knew it they were calling out 30 seconds to start, I wished a few
women around me good luck (a lot of us were first/second timers) and then the
buzzer went.
THE RACE
Swim
I had expected it to be hard, it being open water and then
with the added challenge of white caps, but what I wasn’t expecting was the fact
that the swim became a FULL contact sport.
No holds barred on that one, also being used to doing my swims in a pool
with lane markers and a nice line on the bottom to follow I was disconcerted by
the murky water where you couldn’t see a foot until it kicked you in the face
and the icky lake weed all over (I guess I knew in principle that it would be
there, but I still think it’s gross). It
must have been trimmed though, because it was out of reach for the most part
except for one or two longer sprouts. I
was kicked in the face 3 times, kicked elsewhere too many times to count and
pushed and scraped. I couldn’t sight the
buoys because of the wave sin the water so I was forced to follow blindly and
hope the person in front of me was going the right way. The few times I tried to sight I got a mouth
full of water and ended up coughing a sputtering. I found that as much as the wetsuit helped
keep me nice and warm and helped me float it restricted my shoulder movement
and found it harder to get my arm out of the water so I was using much more
energy. We turned at the first buoy and
one of things that was mentioned in the seminar finally crystallized in my mind
– they said NEVER use the turn to do breaststroke and that’s exactly what the
person in front of me decided to do.
Because everyone crams together to take the corner tight, you piss off
everybody behind you. I finally got
around her, after being kicked in the face once (because of course breaststroke
means you open your legs even wider to kick that many more people in the
face). Swam across the basin and turned
around the other buoy to head back to shore.
This is where of course the field has thinned out a bit, so there was
really nobody to follow, and I slowed my pace a bit to catch my breath from the
few times I got a mouthful of water trying to sight the buoys. Now the waves were coming from behind us, so
it SHOULD have been easier to swim and sight the buoys expect that because of
the tightness of the wetsuit, I couldn’t get my head up enough in the waves to
do this. I ended up what I consider WAY
off course, because at one point I stopped to sight (which I had to do in
breaststroke to get my head high enough up) and I saw a dock in front of me,
not the shore. I wasn’t that far off the
line, maybe about 50 m away from where I was supposed to be, but had to swim
back before continuing in to the shore line, afraid of being DQ ed.. That was a waste of time of course, and a
waste of energy. I took to heart the
suggestion that when you get to the end of the swim to stand up slowly (mentioned
in the seminar) because your HR increases about 25 bpm in that moment and you
can get pretty lightheaded if you stand up and dash out of the water right
away. I stood up, paused for maybe 5-7 seconds
and started walking quickly towards the stairs, feeling a bit weak, not used to
that transition.
Transition (swim to bike)
Having found my legs, I dragged my wet self out of the water
and up and over the stairs towards the zone.
Not being used to not wearing glasses and my heart rate increasing, I
was a bit unsure of depth and I was very careful on the stairs (they aren’t all
even either, just to piss us off). Even
though I had counted the light jog paces from the entry of the transition zone
to my bike rack, I was all off, my legs weren’t cooperating so I wasn’t taking
strides like I was supposed to I guess and ended up standing 2 racks away from
my bike saying to myself (crap – where’s my bike). Luckily the woman beside me called me over, she
happened to be there at that time prepping (thank goodness). Got to my bike to find someone had moved my
stuff over, causing everything I had carefully prepped to be lying everywhere. Under the wetsuit I was wearing my sports bra
and my running shorts, so I started to strip off the wetsuit beyond just the
down to the waist I had gotten it off while running. Dumped my cap and goggles on my towel and
tried to take off the wetsuit as we were shown.
Got the arm off – great.. Got it
past the center of my calves and then did what were shown, step on one leg of
the suit and pull up with your leg. BAD
move. I ended up with that pre-cramp Charlie
horse twinge in my calf and swore like crazy, dropped down on the ground and
started to stretch it out, ended up struggling with taking it off the slow way
while massaging my calf and cursing like a sailor yet again (nice to not have
the kids around for that of course). My
socks had fallen out of the shoes when the towel was moved and I couldn’t find
one. I took s a swig of Gatorade, dried
my feet, put on my socks and shoes and headed off slowly to the bike portion of
the run with my cycling gloves, helmet on and clipped (I remembered!) and my
sunglasses on (wasn’t very sunny but I was worried the sun would breakthrough
just to annoy me if I didn’t put them on) and rallied my legs to start
moving. Ran to the end of my row and
over to the bike start line. SLOWLY got
on my bike (didn’t want to look like an idiot falling all over myself) and
headed off (in the lowest gear of course – I remembered that too).
The Bike
Quickly got up to speed and headed towards the course,
perhaps a tad overzealous and over-excited at having avoided the calf
cramp. Turned onto the course and
experienced the most dreadful feeling.
The same wind that was crating the “waves” and white caps I the swimming
basin now became a 50km/hr headwind. I
couldn’t get out of 2-3rd gear, and if my heart hadn’t dropped
enough, it dropped even further when I realised getting to the western end of
the course that there was a slight uphill (I hate hills – hills hate me) and it
was relatively long, which in my mind is even worse. Pushed up the hill with the 50 km/hr headwind
and breathed a sigh of relief when we came to the downhill portion. This being a 5 km loop, I had to do it four
times. At the eastern end there is a
nice hairpin turn which is awesome because we’d gained the speed from the
downhill and that’s where everybody sits and cheers. I complete my first lap, the lap counter
beeps once, I do my hairpin turn (feeling like crap) and keep going. Not even 1 km later, I’m pulling over to the
side of the track and stopping. That
swig of Gatorade is NOT doing what it’s supposed to and feels like it’s about
to come out, and I’m feeling slightly dizzy. A volunteer came over to ma, asked if I was
okay, “fine” I say “just need a minute”.
It should be mentioned also that because of my balance issues, drinking
on the bike is much harder for me, so I had serious hydration issues on the bike. The time I had to stop was longer than a
minute, about 10 if I had to guess (I had no watch) for the lightheaded/nauseous
feeling to pass. As I got back on my
bike my body went through its internal battle of “STOP” “Hell no! Keep going!”
That lasted the next 15 km of the bike course, though on the last loop
at least I could say to my body “Shut up, it’s the last one..” After the uphill (I’m sure most people could
have walked it faster than I biked up it) I let my legs coast on the way down
ins6tead of gaining speed, went around the hairpin and cut across (I signalled)
to my exit point. Cycled to the line
where I had to get off my bike and stopped and SLOWLY got off my bike (thanks
to my balance issues, that is pretty slow) and set off back to my bike rack.
Transition (bike to run)
Running was yet again not easy, it probably looked like a
slightly pained saunter. Not much
changing was required here, since I don’t have fancy bike shoes or anything,
just my running shoes so I racked my bike, took off my helmet, bike gloves and
grabbed my running cap. At the start as
a part of the swag bag they had given us one of those energy gels and at this
point I figured I could use all the help I could get and ripped open the packet
and sucked it in preparing for a gross taste (I’d heard rumors) but nOTHING
like I experienced.. I guess you are supposed to “shake” it first or massage
the package or something because the sugar was still kind of crystallized and I
probably got about 2/3 of the packet in my mouth, swallowed, followed it with a
swig of Gatorade and surprisingly managed to keep it down. Quick inventory of my body told me that my
short were still wet, so was my bra and so heat wasn’t an issue and I headed
off to the “run” portion.
Run
I got out of transition zone barely managing a light
jog. I knew I was done, I wasn’t
expecting to have THAT hard of a time on the bike thanks to the stupid
headwinds I had, and the cramp in my calf was periodically reminding me that it
was still waiting to happen. My tank was
empty, I was hurting, I felt my sock chaffing against the back of my foot
because I guess I hadn’t dried off as well as I should have. I knew my race was “done”. Knowing I was going into this as a newbie, I
didn’t expect to place high or anything, but was let down from the get go at
the beginning of the swim when it was so violent and my breathing was impacted
by the waves. I was thankful at this
point I hadn’t had to break out my asthma inhaler at any point so far, and had
it in my shirt pocket “just in case”. My
5 km run was destined to be a walk/jog.
I missed my music a bit as motivation and was surprised at the amount of
times that insidious “I’m sexy and I know it” song came into my head. I kept saying “why the hell did I do this,
this sucks..” I never thought that this
could be that hard – It didn’t sound it at the beginning. I had experienced this a few times on the
bike, but this is what rallied me and made my LOVE what I was doing. The other racers, other age groupers like me
(mostly the later male heats because I had been passed by most of the women at
this point) and even a few of the Pros (you can tell by the Triathlon suits
with CAN and their names posted on the back) shouting encouragement as they
passed me on the track. Periodic “Lachez-pas,
t’est capable” (Don’t give up, you can do it) and “Go go go, t’est la
meilleure!”(Go go go, you’re the best!) warmed my heart. One of the things I loved about the idea of
triathlons is that everyone runs the same course, Pro or beginner and everyone
is encouraging, there is no malicious intent (mostly) that I can tell. I jogged less than half of that 5km, and it
was barely what you’d call a jog (I can walk faster on a regular day), my quads
were calling it quits and periodically sending the I’m about to cramp signal to
my brain. At one point on the home
stretch I gave my legs a talking to and sped up a bit, but one of my quads sent
the “what the hell are you doing” signal to my brain causing me to pull up on
that leg, hop about two paces and limp for a few more. The racer passing me turned around and yelled
to me if I needed his to get me help.
Hell no, I was finishing this if it killed me. Close to the finish line, there are LOTS of
people waiting for their loved one/friend to come close, but the great thing is
they cheer everybody on, and it pumped me a bit, got me moving a bit
faster. I saw the finish line in sight
and a stupid grin plastered itself on my face (though in the photos it’s more
like a wince) and I crossed, tried to slow down and my quad was like “what?”
and almost sent me flying face first into the pavement. Hopping yet again a bit, I stopped so they
could take off my timing chip and headed off to find MY loved ones.
The finish
I was sweaty, I had lake weed in my bra, my legs were barely
listening to me, my face was beet red and I was hurting but I was so
proud. I spotted the hubby and 3 kids a
way away from the finish (it was too crowded for him to get the stroller close
to the finish line) and he greeted me with a huge smile and a “you did it” and
all I could say was “I didn’t die! I don’t
think..” Here is the funny thing. Right about until the last 500m, I pretty
much hated it, except for some really nice people that were encouraging and
made me want to go faster. If you had
asked me at any point during the race except those last 500m I would have said
there is NO way I’m doing that again, but after crossing the finish line,
tired, hurting and sweating – I wanted to sign up for another one next week
(well, I know it’s a bad idea, don’t plan on actually doing it). The kids were happy to see me, but they have
no idea what I just did, they don’t get it yet.
I came in last in my age category, but I don’t really care about that
because I don’t feel like I measure up to other people in my category, after
all, how many 25-29 year olds have 3 kids and are full time students are doing
the race? I guess none. The baby wasn’t even 11 months old, I pushed
my body really hard and got it to this point, now my quest is to improve on
that. I know what I need to work on now,
I have a good idea of what it takes to do this, and respect anyone that does
it. Overall there were 4 people in all
age groups that came in after me, but I’m still happy, because when I went into
this all I wanted to do was finish.. It
wasn’t pretty, but I did it, and plan on doing it again.
The day after
I went to bed the night of, exhausted. I ate only a light dinner because I wasn’t
hungry at all, was in bed before 9pm and slept until about 8 am (well, the baby
was up every 2 hours, so that didn’t help) and woke up with only my calf
hurting like hell. I had issues straightening
my leg, it took me a bit to get out of bed.
A hot bath was had before breakfast, so Advil was taken, and it felt
better. I figured I was pretty lucky to
abuse my body that much and just end up with that as an ache forgetting it
usually takes 24-30 hours for the pain to start. Around midday, the muscles around my ribs and
my lower abs were killing me, more advil was taken, a mid day nap was had with
kids. I’m SO tired now, I have a lot of
energy to replenish from what I burned.
Overall no injuries, just aches and pains, the worst is the calf that
takes me 30 seconds or so to straighten my leg when I stand up, but once I get
going it’s fine. I’m stretching it
gently several times a day. Laughing
hurts thanks to the abs and muscles around my ribs. I wore my event shirt all afternoon Saturday,
Sunday and even this morning when I smelled it and tossed it in the wash. I’ll probably be wearing it for a while. I’m overall very happy with the experience,
and will do it again, I’ll train for more next year, either more than 1 sprint
or maybe an Olympic, but I WON’T underestimate how hard it is to just do the
sprint. After 3 kids, my body isn’t the
same as it used to be, and not getting a full nights sleep doesn’t help, but it’s
what I can do to encourage my kids to get up and be active WITH me, so I don’t
have to sit by the sidelines eating a snickers bar.
Army run
Now this week I’m in recovery and next week I’m in prep for
the Army Run in Ottawa, which should be fun.
It’s only a 5 km run, so I’m going to prove to my body that it CAN run
that 5 km.. Even if it is slow, this
season has been a good one, and only PBs have been set.
