OK, I finally committed to doing this race at 5:30 am this morning after fighting a fever the last day and a half. It was 50 min drive from home so I left the decision to the last moment. I made a dumb rookie mistake and did not tighten my seat post bolts adequately after lifting my seat to account for the ~2 mm difference between training shorts and paper thin tri shorts (pre race routine…).
Aside from that it was fun to go hard for 2+ hours after doing all this long stuff this year. What was amazing was the masters guys took top 5 spots. Splits include T1 in the swim and T2 in the run. I am always suspect about this run when a guy like Rick Hellard who is a 2:36 marathoner and sub 9 hour Ironman runs 37 min (with T2). My actual run time was just over 39 minutes and I was happy with my race, aside for riding the final 30K with a seat post sunk 1 cm !!!
1  Rick HELLARD Ottawa ON 118 2:00:09 Men 40-44 1/17 1/73 1 21:44 1:27 1 1:01:26 39.1 2 37:01 3:43 2  Eric ROY Gatineau ON 433 2:07:08 Men 30-34 1/6 2/73 3 22:37 1:31 3 1:02:28 38.4 11 42:04 4:13 3  Rob MCCULLOCH Ottawa ON 139 2:07:43 Men 45-49 1/8 3/73 7 24:25 1:38 4 1:03:43 37.7 4 39:36 3:58 4  Michael WOODFRD Ottawa ON 444 2:08:48 Men 40-44 2/17 4/73 13 25:32 1:43 6 1:04:56 37.0 3 38:20 3:50 5  Paul DEVASHISH Ottawa ON 443 2:09:02 Men 40-44 3/17 5/73 6 24:18 1:38 5 1:04:38 37.1 6 40:07 4:01 6  Peter HAMILTON Ottawa ON 113 2:09:19 Men 40-44 4/17 6/73 10 25:00 1:40 2 1:02:20 38.5 9 42:00 4:12 7  Marc LENNOX Ottawa ON 128 2:11:20 Men 35-39 1/10 7/73 18 27:16 1:50 9 1:07:19 35.7 1 36:45 3:41 8  Michael ADAMCRYCK North Bay ON 80 2:15:28 Men 35-39 2/10 8/73 11 25:08 1:41 15 1:09:35 34.5 7 40:46 4:05 9  Neil ROSENTHAL Ottawa ON 163 2:15:50 Men 25-29 1/2 9/73 27 28:47 1:56 7 1:05:52 36.4 8 41:11 4:08 10  Christian DEL VALLE Ottawa ON 391 2:18:36 Men 30-34 2/6 10/73 29 28:53 1:56 17 1:10:02 34.3 5 39:42 3:59
I never wear socks, biking or running (unless it is really cold), so it is not an issue. But there is a big diff between my training shorts and paper thin race shorts, thus the minor saddle adjustment routine before races! Anyway dumb move to not tighten the bolts properly…the price I pay for deciding to do a race at 5:30 am and then having to scramble to get my equipment sorted out.
It was nice to see my friend Rob McCulloch back in full force. He nearly died this winter from a blood clot in his calf from Deep Vein Thrombosis and was on beta blockers etc for several months. He is a former Canadian Age group National Champion and has only slowed down a few microsteps since we were in our early thirties!
I thought there were 115 racers in the Olympic tri. I was thinking about racing starting mid week then by Thu I was 95% in and then I came down with a bit of a bug on Friday evening after my son asked me to take him to the outdoor pool when the ambiant temps were 12C (pool was heated to mid 70’s). Anyway, when I work up I no longer had a fever and my buddies Mike Woodford and Rob McCulloch (who both beat me) were racing and we had just done a 42K TTT with 2400 ft of climbing on Wednesday, so I knew that if I did not show my face, I’d get lots of smack at this coming week’s Wed morning ride…so nothing like peer pressure to elevate you out bed and to the race course! But yes, it was a C race with no taper and no pressure (sometimes I think I do better with no taper).
Hey, sportstats just added this cool feature whereby they link the event photos to your results. So as it turns out, I got into this silly sprint finish at the end of the Olympic tri against a guy doing the sprint and the entire sequence was captured by race photography.
I’m glad to see that all form from my high school track days has not totally dissappeared into a perpetual Ironman shuffle…sadly, I got nipped at the line by the young buck:
This is around where I had a slight quad cramp in the uphill finish
And now my leg is uncontrollably cramping and I am off symmetry and beaten and laughing at my pathetic 41 year old self paying the price for engaging in a young boy’s game (not sure exactly what my hands are doing completely open and flapping around)…
That’s pretty funny - you go for a sprint finish against someone you weren’t even racing against!! You’re just a bit competitive, eh? Did you know he was in the sprint when you started racing with him?
Well, I knew where all my competition was based on the bike and run turnarounds and I knew that Woodford was >10 seconds up front and running away from me and Peter was passed solidly and well behind.
When I heard someone coming up, I thought Peter perhaps had a resurgance as he was the only one remotely in reach, but then realized from the corner of my eye that it was not him and had to be a sprint dude…which is why in the last frame you see me laughing because I realize that I racing someone in another race for a meaningless finish and cramping up!!!
