Subaru Sooke International

It has been a rather lonely month in Victoria with my regular training group out of town. But I have had the pleasure of training with the Development group. I have been mainly joining them for their swims only. Running against the statistics of my GPS watch and racing at least once a week in either the Sidney Velo Time Trial series or the Victoria Cycling league Criteriums. I feel these are so valuable. They are timed official organized races. I am training to race and racing to train. 

My latest Triathlon result would be the Subaru Sooke International Triathlon. I originally saw this as a C level race that I would use as a tune up for August 21st National Championships but when the races format was changed to a ‘Chase’ and prize money was announced the quality of competition increased. Chase, means guys against girls. The girls left 15minutes ahead of the guys. There was prize money for the top 5 guys/girls and top 3 overall.  This was such a fun event. Here is how it went.

It was a misty morning, so we watched as the girls disappeared off to the far end of the lake 15minutes before the mens start. With a strong ranking I picked the far left, so I would have open water from the gun. Aaron Thomas took the swim out hard. I did take over the lead about 500m into the swim and pushed the pace. I exited the water with both Brent McMahn and Aaron close behind.

On to the bike, I realized early that a TT frame would be quite beneficial as Brent left Aaron and I pulled away on the early flats. I did get into the flow. I worked the hills hard and tried to limit my losses on the flats. About 25km into the 40km ride I was caught by Jeff Symonds and Stephen Kilshaw. We stayed pretty close together for the remainder of the ride.

On to the Run I had a real scare as about 100m into the run I began cramping badly. I stopped to stretch quickly and that seemed to calm it down. I then began to put everything I could into it. The course was mainly downhill out and uphill back so I focused on limiting the jarring effects of the descent. Climbing back out, I pushed myself to a strong 4th place finish amongst the men.

Overall, I am pleased with the result. I am excited about doing more of the Time Trial racing. Perhaps some 5150 racing and eventually HyVee next year. Results can be found HERE.

Well that is all for now,

Ciao for now,

Andrew