Day 4 at worlds - roaring again today

Roaring 40s? Maybe? Day 4!

I'm wondering if NZ is located in, what's known in nautical circles, as the roaring 40s.

It's the part of the southern ocean where the wind and storms seem endless.  It's where sailors thank their lucky stars when the wind drops to ~only~ 50 mph.

We were greeted again this morning by alternating clear blue, and then black rainy skies, with a perpetual hurricane force wind.  I needed to get in a last ride before before the big race, so when it was blue above at around 9am, I took off hoping I could get in a quick 1 hour hammer, and get back before the next squall hit... HA!

Well, in the hour and 15 minutes I was riding, it cycled between blue sky and torrential downpour 4 times..!   Really?!  And the bleedin' gusty winds kept threatening to send me into traffic or a lamp standard at 40 kph.  I reaffirmed that it's a scary course, after trying to convince myself otherwise: wet crowned roads with off camber corners and lots of metal lids and such on the road surface.  Yeesh...  The other kicker is that I realised that combining the P4's crappy brakes with a wet carbon brake surface and my stopping power is suspect at best.  So I'm worried about other racers getting nervous and braking hard and me not being able to decelerate fast enough.  Hmmm....  One other fun thing: the rain intermittently got so hard the hammering noise it made on my TT helmet got deafening.

I finally rolled up to home sweet hotel just as the sun re-appeared, but with every part of my kit and shoes thoroughly soaked and squishing.  A hot shower kind of put things right, but knowing the afternoon plan was a recon of the swim course left me with a slight feeling of dread.  The whole of Auckland bay is solid whitecaps.

We chilled around the hotel for a couple hours - then when the course opened up at 1pm ish, we walked down to the blue carpet starting docks at queens wharf where we start the race from.  The weather was a little better, it only rained lightly and alternated with sun.  The wind howled as per the norm.  Swimming in whitecaps and very cold water isn't quite as freaky when you do it with thousands of other people, so it didn't seem as crazy as I'd first thought.  I stepped on a small shard of glass when donning my wetsuit, so I figured if the blood attracted any sharks there was a good chance they'd bite someone else, unsure of who exactly it was coming from.

Swimming out to first bouy, I noticed there was quite a strong offshore current.  I briefly stopped to look around, but with all the other challenging conditions you couldn't really tell, which was for the best.  After a couple loops and around 2 km of swimming I happily climbed up the ramp and jogged up to Dad who'd been keeping my bag.  Somehow he'd gotten some axle grease or something on it while I was swimming, (oh, dad...) but at least there was some dry clothes and towels ready to go.

Another long hot shower when we got home, and then lazying about the hotel for most of the rest of the afternoon suited me nicely.  In the evening Dad babysat while Sato and I nipped out to explore the harbour and we enjoyed some cups of tea while out on the town: par-tay!!  Living like a monk for a few more days before I can start testing the local craft beers...

rolling out the carpets...

DAY 3 at the tri worlds!

day 3 at the worlds...

A nothing day today, except it managed to be quite busy.

Woke to pouring rain and hammering winds... intentions of a morning workout were irrevocably revoked after seeing the weather.  We shuffled around the apartment a bit, and then, annoyed that the previous occupant had been a smoker, we went to the front desk and requested a room change.  Great new room, but it took till about noon to get that all settled and our crap moved.

Race registration for Canadians finished at 1pm so I hustled off to the 'Cloud' (a giant convention centre type building on a huge platform in the middle of the harbour) to get my race package, numbers and timing chip.  One catch: our hotel, while looking quite close to the venue on the map, turns out to be on top of a crazy steep hill with about 45 degree slopes, so coming and going from here to the waterfront is always an unintended workout.

The crazy steep hill!

Reg was easy, chatted with the friendly but hard to understand Kiwis who were volunteering.  They asked jokingly if there was any Canadians left in Canada, as so many had turned up here for the race.  The Cloud has a sports expo and some fun events on, I like the endless pool that people can race in - its like a big hot tub with a raging river in it, and you can swim full blast.  They dial up the speed until you can't keep up and get washed against the back wall, and then everyone watching cheers.  I think the speed goes up to about 1:10 per 100m speed, which if you know swimming, is pretty fast.

Came back to the room to meet Sato and Ame was burning up with a fever - up to 39.2.  So we got the front desk to call a hotel doctor to come have a look.  Like the bad dad that I am, I had to take off again promptly, since the Athlete meet and greet was starting and I was supposed to show up for the President's award.

There was about 3 or 400 hundred of us in our slightly nerdish team Canada track suits milling about at the Marvel Grill, the restaurant the gathering was held at.  The several tourists and locals quickly abandoned the area as maple leaf track suits swarmed the restaurant.   The awards didn't quite go as well as I'd hoped, the speaker had kind of a quiet voice and all the loud triathletes drowned out his announcements.  I listened carefully and went up to get the award (for being age group national champ) but I doubt if more than 10 of the 400 people heard anything.  I guess that it won't count toward my 15 minutes of fame.

We finished up with the athlete parade into town, with all the other nations.  Chinese Taipei (?) was behind Canada, but there was only a flag bearer with no athletes.  He looked kind of sad following the tremendous herd of Canadians.  I guess he drew that short straw.  Also noted the cook islands were really popular with their  hawaiin shirts, straw hats - and bikini girl flag bearer!  That always helps to boost interest in your country.  Also tons of yanks, ozzies, brits, french, mexicans, brazils, etc...  even a few Japanese.  Big parade.  Walked past tons of confused looking kiwis in town and various supporting family members on our march toward the Cloud and pasta party.

a horde of canucks

Dad and I skipped the pasta party and went back to hotel to meet with Sato who'd been locked up inside all day with a sick Ame-chan.  Hope she's better tomorrow.  I've gotta get out for a couple workouts and would like to hit up something touristy, 'one tree hill' sounds like a cool place to go.

city of sails ... Day 2...!

Another day down!

Don't feel obligated to respond to these mailers, they are kind of just for my keeping a log of what's going on anyway.

First open water swim today with team canada.  We rode about 6km out of Aukland to a beach at 8 this morning.  Nicely organized, they had bouys set up off-shore and bike racks monitored by volunteers.  Everyone had to sign in the book before heading out since they wanted to know if somebody was missing.  First impression: holy crap its cold!!  Hard to get your face wet, it's quite a shock.

Swam out about 500m before turning right and swimming parallel to the beach.  It was difficult to see the shore and thus felt kinda weird to be swimming by oneself.  Finally found a small group to finish the swim with.  Waves maybe 1.5 feet and blowing about 15 knots. 

I realize why sailing is popular here, its always windy.  Great for sailing but a little scary if you are swimming or riding a bike.  Swam maybe 1k or so and headed back for shore, swallowed a huge gulp when the odd wave got me - and almost retched everytime - holy crap its salty!  Water is a weird light green color - kind of like some glacier lakes you see in the Rockies.

Had intentions of another loop when I got back, but only made it 20m offshore before deciding that was a dumb idea and returning to the beach.  Nice ride home chatting with Dave Taylor, a hospital friend (vascular surgeon) from VGH.  Gotta watch the sewer grates, they are about 10cm below street level and really jagged, would flip you end over end if you hit one while your head was down.

Afternoon was the team canada bike practice, just a casual loop of the course so we could see it once before the race.  Big group, maybe 70 riders from team canada came, we noodled along the course checking the corners and hills.  Impression: holy crap it's scary.

Hill descents with sharp corners at the bottom, crazy deep sewer grates, manholes and assorted traffic islands all over the place...  Add a thousand or so fast age groupers racing each other seems a recipe for disaster. Our heats are about 3 min apart and there are about 100 people per heat, so there will be a lot of bodies on the course at once.  Add to that freakish, random direction, strong winds.  Its very sketchy and my goal has changed from 'making time on bike' to 'please, please don't crash' on the bike.  So far race stratedgy is survive swim, survive bike, then race the run.  Hmmm...

There was a team run in the afternoon, but I was sick of 'team' stuff by then and figured a run course is a run course, no advantage if I've seen it or not, so I bailed.

Dave T also invited me and my possee to the leading edge team dinner, but Ame-pooh often makes dinner out challenging and I don't know many of those guys, so we bailed and made spagetti in the room.

team VGH

Also watched the aquathlon chapionships today - basically a 750m swim and a 5k run (I think).  Varga - a pro triathlete who is one of the worlds best open water swimmers handily won the race.  He won't do as well on Sunday when faced by the complete field of pro triathletes.  It was quite a nice buzz watching the race, tons of people, loud cheering, huge grandstand and music etc... should be really something for our race if the weather cooperates... (fingers crossed).

Rolled into Aukland...

Sato Ame Dad and me all good so far.  Good flight for the most part, just got in this morning.

here is the link to the main site for the worlds stuff:

http://auckland.triathlon.org/

I believe they'll have all sorts of updates, and even live video feed of the many races going on.  Mine isn't till Monday the 22nd, and we are a day ahead here.

Will find out more as we get settled in.

First day in Auk...

Dang its cold!  Cold winds, cold water, cold air...  Hmmm.  This is gonna be a test.

Got in at 6am after 14hrs aloft.  Dad sat elsewhere on the plane, lucky him.  Ame was pretty good but had a meltdown when she was sleepy and the steward said she had to be sitting a certain way on my lap.  Try that with a freaking out 8 month old, it's like clutching a greased pig.

Had a walkabout today - fun city - but pricey - 20 bucks for a burger?  Yikes.  Lots of Americas cup 12 meter boats around here, its the city of sails!

Built my bike and went for a spin, very close to crashing when getting hammered by the crazy winds here.  I missed crashing into a parked truck by millimeters while going about 50 kph.  Crickey!  Cycling is dangerous...

Our hotel - the Quadrant - is nice, but we got a smokey room that faces the building about 10 feet away from our window.  Hmmm...  They sprayed some febreez on the carpet but it still stinks of smoke.  We are both feeling slightly ill from that.

Its 9pm here and we haven't had dinner yet.  Busy evening with shopping and stuff.  Groceries are a little weird - figuring out the kiwi names for familiar products...

Pavilion Lake Race Report

Pavilion Lake Race Report!

Morning started at 6am in Squamish after staying at my aunts.  Thank goodness she could put us up, since it lopped an hour off the long morning commute to Pavilion lake.

I did a last minute entry - sorry Wayne - since new house and baby keep the schedule quite busy.

The drive up to Lillooet (via Whistler) was gorgeous, maybe more fun on a motorbike, but that would have made taking the race kit more difficult.  Took a wrong turn along the way and showed up a touch late.  Would recommend a sign on the highway as well since the small road to the start is pretty subtle!  Luckily we saw some racers and new it was the spot.

A little frantic getting organized in the 35 or so minutes before the start, but managed to get all the important stuff taken care of.  First time in the lake - Wow, Brisk!  Chatted with some fellow competitors then it was the countdown to the start...3, 2, 1, .. horn goes, off we go!

Triangle course with 3 legs.  First swim leg - fairly smooth, small waves not very bothersome, easy sighting, though my usual habit of arcing to the right was at it again.  Rounded the first mark first, and then, pause - where the hell..? .. no second mark visible!  Swam a little more, then stopped completely, no mark?!  Got passed by Maurice, who also can't see it, but wisely suggests we continue along and hope that we find it eventually.  About 1/2 way along it suddenly got quite shallow, and after hitting an arm on the bottom, I switched to a few dolphin dives.

Finally!  Mark 2 comes into sight (it was blocked by an outcrop of the shoreline, in addition to being right into the sun) and the 3 of us in the front group go around it.  3rd leg is a swim back to the beach - ugg - can't really see or breathe due to the constant waves.  Water is shockingly clear and pristine, so at least I could sight on the legs about 20 or so feet in front of me.  Swallowed gallons of water due to the waves, at least it was nice clean for drinking!

Out of the water with one in front and one close behind - ouch - running in the shallows and up the rocky path to transition was a little painful, but it helped that my feet were numb.  At least feeling happy the nasty swim was done with and I could enjoy the rest of the race in glorious air.  As always, had a major challenge getting out of my wetsuit, almost falling over in the vigorous struggle.  Run with bike to mount line - rocks and dirt clinging tenaciously to my wet feet -  but, it is a race, so I jammed those suckers into my cycling shoes, little rocks and all.

Off on the 20k ride!  Caught the lead rider fairly quickly.  Noted he was on an impressive looking rig (a monocoque Giant TT bike I think).  I thought I'd better hit it hard to get a gap so there was no carrot for him to chase.  Head down, imagining Wiggo crushing the field at the tour, I vowed not to look back till the first turn around.  The 10km out felt long, the hills felt slow, the wind felt like it was on the nose... all of which was probably wrong.  Rounded the turn to head home - and nobody was there.. rode a while.. still nobody... wow!  Got the gap!  Finished the last 10km going quite hard but feeling pretty good that this race was going well.

Bombed into transition, racked the bike and struggled to get on the running shoes.  The race announcer sounded surprised to have a rider back this soon, which was pretty cool to hear!  Had to really fight with one of my shoes, felt like the insole was bunching up at the toe.  Finally, annoyed, I assumed my foot must still be numb from the swim and that's why it felt so wrong.  So I took off on the run with a nice cheer from the gang around the start/finish area.

Now, I've led races before, only be be passed (in dominating fashion) on the run, so I don't take anything for granted.  I set a good pace until the turn around when I could judge how far back and how fast my competitors were going.  The unhappy foot was getting more and more unhappy, so when I finally hit the turn around, and saw nobody behind me, I sat down properly and took the shoe off to figure out what the deal was.

Aha!  I had put a pair of socks into that one shoe, after a previous race and totally forgotten about it.  Rushing around at the pre race, without time to check things properly, results in mishaps like this!

With that issue resolved, I could finally enjoy the run back the finish line, high five-ing the other racers and taking in a great view of the lake.  At the finish, I must have been a little dazed, as I missed the line and was looking to run back up the hill back into transition.

First overall!  Super happy with the result and got the prize of a high quality Cyclops mag trainer - the biggest race prize to date!

A fun day on a very pretty course with lots of great people.  Thanks to Wayne, volunteers and sponsors for putting it on!  One last note, my vote is to keep it a sprint for next year!

Vancouver Triathlon 2012 - Sprint Distance

This race was my late season motivation to stay on form.  Laziness meant didn't do a post race write up for it, but it ended up being one of my favorite races of the season, with arguably my best result!

Highlights were: sunny warm and dry, gorgeous Stanley Park course, mistaking a lifeguard in a boat (red sweater) for a red turn bouy and going off course in the swim, seeing lots of VEC teammates out to race and have fun...  and getting arguably my best result of the season with a second overall and 1st AG at a moderately big race.  Super fun day racing and hanging with friends!

Gotta track down some pics for this race...

 http://www.sportstats.ca/displayResults.xhtml?racecode=103208

Turner Valley Triathlon - First race of 2012!

Turner Valley Triathlon - race review and report

500m, 20km, 5km
Organization:  Nicely organized, happy volunteers and on-time starts
Course: Clear, well marked, beautiful terrain, awesome bike course, rolling trail run course BUT that 25m pool sure feels small!
Extras: Pretty nice tech shirt included, BUT post race food minimal and no prizes and no awards given, boo!

Full Report:

Ominous weather reports had me a little nervous about this one.  As it turned out: sunny and 20 ish degrees - perfect tri weather!  We made it a family affair with my Dad, Sister, nieces Kaitlyn and Robyn and brother in law Keith all competing at this same race.  It started in a 25m outdoor pool, which was probably the lowlight of the course.  When you are used to a 50m pool at VAC, or 137m at Kits pool, or open water swims - 25m seems really short.  It was a continual start type scenario, with racers standing in a long line of decreasing estimated swim times.  Each was called in turn when a swimmer in one of the lanes finished their 500m.  Standing around waiting for my start I got lots of questions from several fast looking guys wondering my about my estimated swimtime (something like 7:30?) or my estimated overall time (shooting for under 1 hour).  Nice to meet some of the local racers.

It took a while, and I had the honor of starting dead last as I had figured about 7 min 30 seconds for the swim.  As usual, my lap counting got mixed up somewhere in the teens, so I depended on the volunteer counters to whack me with a kickboard when I was done.  

When 20 laps were done, it was off to transition: a pavement run to the nearby parking lot.  No issues except the strange demand that we WALK our bikes across the crosswalk before getting to the bike mount line (run from transition to crosswalk, walk across crosswalk, then run to mount line).  I kind of jog/walked to not arouse the ire of the volunteers staffing the crosswalk.  The 45 degree angle between the crosswalk and mount line meant the bike was on a funny angle, so when I tried a flying mount my bum missed the seat and I landed on the back wheel, OW!!  Not so cool looking when you almost wipe out at the mount line.

Bike course - 20km of gorgeous fast rollers, great scenery.  Caught a few riders on the bike, but racers were quite spaced out so mostly it felt like a solo ride in the foothills of the Rockies.  The highway deadends further along so essentially no vehicle traffic either!  One rider was just behind me near the start, but I dropped him fairly promptly and never saw again.

Run: rolling gravel train out and back.  HOT!  Water only on course, could've gone for something with a little sugar.  As usual felt awful and slow for the first couple of km.  Passed a couple more people and noted one guy running the opposite way (toward the finish) who looked freaking fast.  With the staggered start, you don't really know where you are relative to anyone else, so I thought I'd better pick it up a little.

I was passing a guy late in the run and said some brief word of encouragement to him on the way by.  He wanted to chat a bit and then asked me if "I'm the guy who thinks he's going to go under an hour" which was weird, since I hadn't actually spoken with him before.  He went on to tell me that it seemed unlikely, so on that somewhat pessimistic note I passed him and finished the run, passing my Dad (who started quite a bit earlier) along the way.

All in all, the Fieldwalkers and Lumbys (my sisters family) did awesome.  Dad took the 70+ AG, my niece Kaitlyn got the first female kids of steel, my niece Robyn had an awesome first race, and I got the overall win!

Under an hour as well, mission accomplished!
http://www.winningtime.ca/12/12tvt/oall.txt