Place 3rd Overall and 3rd in Age Group (20-29)
So Second Race in 2 weeks, first time I have done this in my life so was an interesting challenge. This once again was a "c" race but the aim was to break 35 so still looking for an aggressive run. Previous day ran 27km and swam 2km but all in all felt good come race day.
Pre Race
Fog has enveloped Vancovuer at the moment but the race site had clear skies, temperature was around negative 4 degrees Celsius by all reports so race definitely lived up to its name. 9am starts still require an early start and was running a bit late so just grabbed some lara bars for breakfast and headed out to the race with Nick and his folks.
With it being so cold and a long line up for the washroom only did a 15 minute warm up but felt good. Did normal combination of activities and a few more dynamic drills than normal. At start saw a familiar face in drew Nicholson who I finished behind at fall classic and turkey Trot and nick recognized Nathan Killam who has evidently run 34:30 in an olympic tri.
Race
Startto 3km
So race begun, super narrow start chute but not a big deal, started out trying to go easy then dropeed onto Nicks shoulder for the first couple km's. Turned into a group of 4 heading out with a huge gap developing to the next group so looke dlike a race in four. Nathan had an early break of about 20m but everything seemed to be holding steady. Was trying to find a rythm and hands were freezing (need to pick up a few pairs of dispoable gloves for these early season races) and sat in 4th place until about 3km.
Taking the lead
Was feeling good and based on the km splits (Which soon discovered were way out in spots) thought sub 35 was slipping so made a move on the hilly section of the course. Picked up cadence and attacked the hill, kind of caught me by surprise how much ground I picked up on the field as before i knew it had gained the 25m on Nathan and was in the lead, kept on pushing through the hill section.
Lost the lead and had a gap form
At this point I kind of went from time trialing to racing and tried to hold the gap, was caught on the next flat section so just decidied to try and hang on a shoulder for a bit but lost a gap in the retake and dropped down to 4th and off the back of the pack by about 100m. This was at about the 4.5km mark and then started to try and hold the back of the pack to about 75m.
Nick takes the Lead
Pretty much this is where the race stood for the to 9km . Nick took a good lead around 5km or so and built a lead of about 100m from Drew and Nathan. Nathan was looking back at the gap a lot which kept me working but couldn't seem to pick up speed to close the gap from 75m.
Felt good throughout the race and was working hard but not as hard as in last weeks 8km as think I was running a bit more efficiently. Nick kept on building his lead and with 2km to go look like he had it in the bag
Last km
Kept on working to close the gap on Nathan but could only maintain, gained a little but minimal and ended up 8 seconds back of Nathan. Drew was doing the 15km so gained a place by default as he was not in our race. Nick finished in 33:75 which is awesme and took the win by about 300m and 45 seconds. Awesome reuslt for Nick and bodes well for Boston.
I had to keep on working to ensure sub 35 and came in at 34:51 so mission accomplished.
Post Race Thoughts
- Pushed that hill too hard and that led me to losing the pack. Need to be a lttle bit more patient in this respect and keep to the plan.
- Wish races would not put out km markers if they are so far out of true.
- Downhill running still needs some work so need to focus on this in training
- Need to work harder to hold the pack as once its gone it is very hard to regain
- Very happy with going sub 35 min, though may be out of reach for today but all turned out, good pacing plan showed it was possible.
- More speed work should bring good results and need to look at my goals for upcoming races and make sure A goal is aggressive enough
- Awesome for Nick to take the win.
- Big week of training around non training events I have to attend. Target 70 to 90km of running, 4 days of biking (one big one outside post swim and many days in the pool)
- First Track session for the new year!!!!!
- Icebreaker 8km on Feb 1....this is in richmond and part of timex series. Will ahve a couple day taper for this one and really watch food intake. Aim for this is to go sub 27:30 with a strech goal of sub 27
- San Diego in 3 weeks...1 week of riding
- Sun Run/Times Colonist Goal (Both in April) was originally sub 34..may revise this to 33:30
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