Today was the first Toronto Island tri & du and it ended up being a du only (except for the poor junior athletes that did a draft legal race that started an hour and a half prior to the regular tri). Seems that the extremely strong winds from Friday night caused some shakeup with Lake Ontario and the water that was in the low 70s all last week dropped to 56 degrees. During the junior race, 5 or 6 of the kids quit since they felt the water was too cold and the officials thought that there were not enough lifeguards to pull 20% of the field out of the water at once so everyone was doing the du.
It was my first duathlon in a decade and the format was 5k-30k-5k. John Salt and the rest of his crew did a good job reorganizing on the fly to add 400 triathletes to the 150 duathletes and come up with workable waves. The first run was hard since I have not done anything short in ages and the immediate jump into 5k mode without a swim and bike “warmup” felt strange. I didn’t feel like I was redlining it but couldn’t lock on a pace that felt fast. I ended up going 16:48 and was on the bike in 4th position.
The bike course was out and back the length of Toronto Island three times. It was flat but a little breezy in some sections. The first wave of the du included an option for the over 40 crowd like myself to get added in so that all of the faster bike riders would not have to weave through slower riders from waves that started earlier. This worked fairly well. For a pancake flat bike course, I saw the least amount of drafting ever. One reason was that the road is narrow so there was often only enough room for a few bikes and the bike traffic was going in both directions. This meant that if you passed someone (usually from a later wave) they were likely much slower than you. Anyone riding behind you had to hesitate a bit to check that the way was clear before making the same pass and it was not possible to ride side by side anywhere. I ended up passing a couple of racers on the bike and getting passed by one guy so I came of the bike in 3rd.
The second run went well and I caught the racer in second pretty quickly. Rich Pady was out of reach and kicked my butt so I cruised the run in 17:01 and ended up 2nd. The race really showed that I need speedwork in a big way after a few years of ironman focus … 16:48 first run which felt hard followed by a slowdown of only 13 seconds that felt like I was running easy must mean that I’m getting back in the groove for the Esprit half
I always try and find at least one new race to do each year to go along with some of my favourites and this was my choice this season. It is a neat venue and I would recommend it. John Salt is a RD that has the athletes interests as one of his top priorities and he was asking me for feedback within minutes of my completion of the race. There were a few minor hiccups in the race which is normal for any first year event and I’m sure that those will be fixed for next year (having a tri and a du separately instead of the both at once would help eliminate a lot of them so hopefully next year Mother Nature will cooperate!).
As for my wetsuit experiment. I know that all logic/tests indicate that a fullsuit is faster. I have a T1 fullsuit and have not felt like I have been swimming as fast as I did with my older sleeveless QR so I’m wondering if my swimming is strange enough that I am the exception to the rule (… or maybe I’m just getting old and slowing down). I got my old QR out of retirement and took it to the pool Friday morning and did 4 fast 100s and it felt great. I brought it to the race and was going to test it out in race mode but was foiled by the crazy temperature changes (maybe I jinxed everything by leaving the fullsuit at home) so my test will have to wait for a future date.
NO SPEEDWORK IN YEARS AND FAULDS RUNS 33:49 for 10K (split apart by a hard 30K ride)…insane…looks like you are ready to take the field apart at the Demi Esprit.
I’m getting in much better shape than I was in for the Peterborough 1/2 (dropping 11lbs in a month sure helps!) and felt pretty good in Cobourg last week and again today. Are you racing in Montreal again this year as part of your September slate of lots of long events?
My son was one of those lifeguards and he was glad they changed it becuase HE thought they didn’t have enough guards to pull out half the field and he wasn’t in any hurry to get in sans wetsuit! He is in Halifax for open water Lifeguarding Nationals next week though, so the cold might’ve been good practice.
J
Allan…today 1000 Islands Olympic was the C event, in 2 weeks Canadian Half Iron is the B event…and then 2 weeks after that is the season’s “A” event…that being the Demi Esprit…Ironman Lake Placid is just a good excuse to log a ton of base so that I can hit a 40 kph 90K bike split on that bullet fast Esprit course.
Congrats on a solid race in Brockville. I followed up yesterday’s race with a 20 mile run this morning (legs are feeling it now!) with my old running group since we’re staying in Mississauga for a few days. They are all in heavy duty marathon build up mode and I got out on the run and either had to finish the loop with them or turn back and run by myself … so much for an easy day after a race I’m looking forward to racing in Montreal (have to do another half this season after the total crap race in Peterborough) and my daughters are looking forward to shopping in Montreal that weekend.
…well your daughters will have plenty of opportunity to shop in Montreal that weekend…by the end of that weekend, it might cost you more than an Mdot weekend as the girls might make up for the lack of 5 day minimum stay with an equivalent shopping spree. Well, I think people should be expecting to see a sub 4:05 time from Mr. Faulds if we get a favourable wind day. Ideally we want a wind out of the south…preferably out of the South East. We don’t want North East or the times could be really slow. There is one half of the track that is exposed to wind and another that is sheltered…A NW wind would be tough and a SW wind would offer a “neutral time”.
You’ll enjoy this race. I am trying to get desertdude to make the trip up from Arizona.
…Well, I think people should be expecting to see a sub 4:05 time from Mr. Faulds if we get a favourable wind day. Ideally we want a wind out of the south…preferably out of the South East. We don’t want North East or the times could be really slow. There is one half of the track that is exposed to wind and another that is sheltered…A NW wind would be tough and a SW wind would offer a “neutral time”.
You’ll enjoy this race. I am trying to get desertdude to make the trip up from Arizona.
Dev
Flipping heck… I’ve just looked at the details… 40 laps on the bike IronMan course.!!
