Training Log Archive: wilsmith

XTERRA Sleeping Giant

Decided to make the trek to Thunder Bay to check out the race. I knew it was not going to be a particularly technical course (the race director came to XTERRA Parry Sound and was blown away by how tough our course is compared to his), but figured I should at least do the race once.

No special preparation for it, other than craftily being too busy at work to train on Thursday and Friday. Call it "taper". Flew up late Friday evening, arriving at 11pm in heavy thunderstorms. Not ideal race prep, but this was never planned as a "main" race for me anyway.

Swim was interesting, two laps of 500m. The buoy line went straight out from shore for 250m, at which point you did a U-turn and swam straight back into shore. Hadn't ever seen a race course like that, but have to admit that it actually works - and always having a buoy line close to you meant that sighting was a bit easier.

Water quite cool, glad for wetsuit.

Didn't have a wonderful swim, still feeling like a full stomach. Normally I eat oatmeal at 4 hours before the race. Today I had a McD bacon'n'egg McMuffin meal less than 3 hours before the start, so I have only myself to blame... Felt somewhat sick and lethargic during the swim, and in fact only started to briefly feel "decent" after an hour of racing, during the bike course.

Just steady, no disasters, some drafting but nothing too helpful.

Was 19/53 on the swim, so definitely not one of my better results...

C • Sleeping Giant 9

Bike course - basically two loops of 12km each.

Totally uninspiring for a mountain biker. Essentially all of the course was passable by a car - it was pretty much all dirt road. But not a dirt road that necessarily saw a lot of use - there were tons of lumpy/bumpy sections (maybe that accounted for 20 of the 24 km), where I was just getting beat up. Never got into much of a real rhythm, and was definitely regretting having brought the hardtail after about 5 minutes. The Epic would definitely have been the way to go on this course. Live and learn. And for future reference, I would use lighter tires, very fast rolling, and lighter wheels (Maxxis Ikon front, Schwalbe Thunder Burt rear). Even after torrential downpour, there was nothing remotely technically challenging that required much tire traction.

As usual, I got to work picking off as many folks as I could. But the course just wasn't all that fun, and while I normally love the bike section of the race, I found myself already wanting it to be over early in the second loop.

I actually got passed by one guy (a rarity), but discovered after the race that he was a former pro/elite cyclist on the NorAm scene, so didn't feel too badly about that. He was moving hard, and eventually won the bike split. I had no chance to stay with him for long.

Was 5/53 on the bike, and had moved up to 7th place after the ride.

The run. Oh, the run.

I knew beforehand that this was not going to be an easy one. For starters, it is inexplicably about twice as long as it should be (in comparison to the swim and bike). So overall, this triathlon heavily favors the runners in the crowd. And in Thunder Bay, there are plenty of strong runners - especially from the NDC crowd. Lots and lots of XC skiers, and they all run a ton in the summer. They are great athletes, very powerful, and this race was right up their alley.

I, on the other hand, am not a strong runner any more. Coupled with being uninspired and pretty well out of shape, and facing a trail run that's nearly double what I usually expect, it was never going to be pretty.

The course, though billed as "technical", was also totally passable by a car for its entire length. I guess some of the climbs/descents were "steep", but for an orienteer or even a trail runner, there was zero technical about it. There was nothing on a trail. It was entirely on dirt road or gravel road.

It was supposed to turn around at a spot overlooking Lake Superior. But the turnaround was actually in a forested clearing about 50m from Lake Superior. After running 8km out and not even getting a view of the lake, I decided to add a little extra time onto my run and go all the way to the lake, dipping my foot into the water. I lost the guy I had been running with, and it took me a further 3km to catch him again, but I guess it was worth it to actually touch the lake... ???

I was run through by three guys, and never did catch the cyclist (was making time on him but not nearly enough). Basically just kept trudging along, and hoping to limit the damage and not give away too many places.

Overall, ended up in 10th, and was 2nd in my age group. Was a brutal 13th/53 on the run. Yikes.

Fast XC skiers (Scott Hill and Michael Somppi) killed me on the run. The guy who beat me in my age group was also another former high-level skier, Werner Schwar, who apparently coached some of these younger guys. There was a solid Ironman triathlete who won overall (Jonathan Balabuck), and the fast cyclist was Josh Gillingham. Presumably the other guys ahead of me were normal folks like me.

Anyway, good to have done that race once, I guess. I'll probably not go back unless they really change the course, or unless I'm totally desperate to get a Maui qualification slot. And definitely need to get into decent running shape. This was embarrassingly slow, even for me.

XTERRA bike loop at GNSCC, done at pretty close to race pace. I finally got around to getting the Garmin account connected to Strava, and wanted to put a decent time on this leaderboard. It's incredible how quickly Bechtel (who leads the standings with a 32:00) got around the course. I'm not sure I can even hope to get under 34 minutes, to be honest - getting just under 36 was tough enough. That boy is fast; nobody else was even close on race day.

On the hopeful side, conditions today were wet. And this was after a long day of standing up at work. Maybe I can find another minute or two in there somewhere. But 4 minutes? Wow.

Anyhow, something to chip away at, I guess...

And a crack at the XTERRA run loop, immediately following the bike loop.

This one was decent for me, pretty comparable times versus Bechtel, Rich Pady, and Mike Smith (the fastest guys on race day). Of course, they'd already done two bike loops instead of my one, plus a swim...

The trail is in reasonably good condition, though the wet sections were actually wet and muddy today, compared to fairly dry and firm on race day.

Incredibly, the GPS tracking "looks" decent, and lists the length at only 3.4 km. Can it be that pro level triathletes, guys who can run in the mid-30s for 10K at the end of a triathlon, took 18-19 minutes on only 3.4km? I guess the trail is a bit tougher than I thought.

Glad I didn't have it as an actual 5km loop on race day - folks would have been in rough shape. As it was, with winning times for the loop around 18-19 minutes, that's probably a pretty good distance...

Swim with Vic at Nine Mile Lake. No wetsuit, makes for a slower swim, but good training for her in Maui (and for me, period). Felt chilly getting in and just sitting around, but totally fine out swimming. A few moments of zig-zagging, but in general doing better than average for this year. Flat calm conditions certainly helped.

Semi-easy ride around XTERRA loop, stopping a number of times to clear fallen branches, etc... Rode the hardtail, which is actually a pretty snappy ride. Likely faster than the Epic on this course, actually - though it might not set one up for a good run off of the bike. Feeling decent overall, considering the race yesterday.

And a jog (with tons of stops to clear branches) around some more of the trails at GNSCC. Very slow going, but good to get out there I guess.

Parry Sound Triathlon - 2015 edition.

So, this has been an off summer for me. Not great training, not much racing, too much life going on. This is the first of 4 triathlons over a 5 week period - so the racing season begins now. If I can't train myself into shape, perhaps I can race myself into shape...

Not too pumped up about this race, but was definitely willing to go out there and lay it out and see what happened. Figured I would be at least 5 minutes behind Ian (he is in final taper mode for the Muskoka Ironman next weekend), with him chalking up big gains in the swim and run, and me maybe being able to keep pace on the bike.

The swim was reasonable - not stellar, but pretty relaxed nonetheless. Had a clean start, as opposed to last year when I got run over by a ton of folks in the beginning and felt that panicky drowning feeling. Not able to really get into a reliable draft until pretty late (and by then the optimal draft - a swimmer who can swim about 20-25% faster than you - would have been way ahead). Ended up 19th out of the water (unknown how many in the race, somewhere under 100), so that's probably reasonable for me. My time last year was 18:11, so despite hardly any training over the past month, I have clearly improved over last year. Apparently taking swimming lessons results in a real improvement - can be in much worse shape and still swim way faster. Who knew?

As usual, had a pretty decent bike. This year I raced on the Shiv with aero wheels, compared to the Cervelo last year. So, kind of an unfair comparison.

Slight headwind this year on the way out, and a bit of a tailwind on the way home (thankfully). Got to work right away passing everyone I could see. It was tough work out to the turnaround, but by then I had worked my way up to 7th place. I knew I was about 4 minutes down on the leader (presumably all of that due to the swim), but it was hard. Continued to press hard on the way home, and had a long flat stretch where I averaged around 45kph the whole time.

I rode only 6 seconds faster than last year, despite having a nicer bike this time around. So, clearly I'm in worse shape this year. Not a surprise. And last year this race was just one week before I hit the age-group podium at Ironman Muskoka 70.3, so I was in pretty decent shape then.

Was listed as the fastest bike split on the results list, by nearly 2 minutes. But the top two overall had chip malfunctions. I think I was faster than the overall winner (he's super strong in the swim and run), but was probably a shade behind Ian, based on his run and swim speed.

The run portion was a survival exercise. I had come off the bike in 4th place, but had passed some guys not far before the end of the bike so I knew they'd be chasing me down as hard as they could... Had a slight cramp in my right shin to start with, but thankfully it disappeared after the first km.

At the first turnaround I could see that the next guy ahead was slower than I was, but probably too far ahead to think of catching. And the next three guys behind me were closer behind than he was ahead, and all of them looked a bit dangerous...

I just didn't have much spring in my step, though, and it was tough to keep it under 4:10/km, let alone under 4 mins per km. The next guy got me just after the halfway mark, dropping me to 5th. I didn't have the toughness to hang with him, and instead focused on fending off the next guys, who were not too far behind. I managed to find a bit of cruise over the last couple of kms, and thankfully was able to hold on to 5th overall, 1st in the ever-crowded 40-49 age group.

I was 40 seconds slower than last year, and it sure felt like it. Kind of surprised that it wasn't even more. I really, really need to work on my run to have any hope of making decent results this season. Or any season.

Great prizes. In addition to the hand-painted rock (a Parry Sound Triathlon tradition for 23 years, apparently), I got a $100 pair of Bliz sunglasses. Nice! If only orienteering had so much kit and prizing...

I guess it has a lot to do with how little money orienteers spend on gear, compared to what triathletes, or adventure racers, or mountain bikers, or road cyclists, or skiers, or (insert sport here...) are willing to spend. Orienteers are so cheap, it's just not worthwhile for most sporting goods stores to do much sponsorship, presumably.

C • Congrats 10