Training Log Archive: Relentless

2hr ski with the XC Zone crew in the morning and a 3hr ski with NL (my gf) in the afternoon - beautiful day and the classic skiing was excellent - however the skate skiing track was quite soft and made for a very long day for NL, but she persevered.

The Endurance Aventure Winter Triathlon in St. Donat, QC. Was about -21C to start the morning. We began with a 4.2km snowshoe that started on a lake for about 300m and then into single track for about 2km slowly winding up a hill and then downhill to the first transition. I think I was sitting in about 16th or 17th spot going into the single track and then settled in behind Active Steve for the long climb up. We passed a couple people on the course, and both of us bailed at different points trying to pass on very soft and deep snow. The trail itself was just about perfect, with a hard packed and about 5cm of softer snow to make the snowshoes useful/necessary. Headed into the transition in about 13th spot. Had a fairly good/fast transition and jumped onto the ice right behind Active Steve.

The next discipline was a 12km skating section on the coolest ice surface I've ever skated. picture an 800m loop that is basically about 4m wide and perfectly groomed (with a zamboni) but meanders through a wooded area and has a gradual climb (probably 5-10m of elevation) near the start and a descent coming into the finish area (complete with a right hand/left hand turn combination in the last 50m to the finish. Really amazing skate course (which is open to the public during the winter). We had to do 14 laps - and even harder than that, we had to keep track of our own laps! If we messed it up (the timing chip was tracking our laps) we wouldn't know until the end of the race and then we would get a penalty. I had a pretty good skate and got into the rhythm of making the crossover turns. Even though the hill was not super steep, it was still pretty tough, having zero experience of climbing on skates. It was humbling getting lapped 3 times by the lead pack of 3 or 4 skaters... But I managed to get off the ice in 10th position and after another pretty smooth transition, headed out on the ski.

The final leg was a 6km ski which started with some pretty decent long steady climbs - the kind where you can see the top of the climb way up ahead of you (I hate those!!!). I hadn't really looked at the race elevation profile so at this point I was getting pretty worried that I was not going to be able to keep up any kind of race-like tempo for very long, given my poor skate skiing technique and some VERY SLOW skiing conditions (because of the cold temps). So boy was I happy when I saw the trail veer onto a golf course at about the 3km mark. The rest of the ski was mainly rolling hills. I got passed by one person and I managed to pass the lead female with about 2km to go, and then catch the guy ahead of me with about 500m before the end of the race. I was super happy with my 9th place finish and super happy that the suffer-fest was over.

There was a great post-race meal at a local hotel/restaurant followed by awards for all of the races (long and short course tri's, 5km and 10km runs). We all also got a really nice souvenir toque (or t-shirt) for participating. All in all this was a really fun and really well-organized event and I surely will go back. They even had a helicopter flying overhead filming us! Not sure there's anywhere else where you can skate on a course like this one through the woods either. Highly recommended for any winter lovers out there that are looking for a real winter race on a very well maintained course.