Sunday June 5th saw a perfect day for racing! Sunny and warm with winds not too bad at all. The water temp seemed a little chilly when we got in to do our warm up but after that it is fine and was not a factor at all. I felt good coming out of the water as I got into a nice pace after a bit of a bumpy start. One fellow decide to keep swimming on top of me until I politely pushed him off of me. I'm ok with a little bit of contact but when it goes on and on and on, well, you have to do something. I mean it is a big lake and there is lots of room, a lot more room than people sometimes realize. My sighting seemed a bit off as my goggles filled up with water past the first turn. I tried to just keep going but I finally stopped quickly to empty them and that was much better. Better to stop and loose a few seconds than to keep going almost blind and loose a lot of time. Out of the water in good time and into transition to the bike and now to get the wetsuit off. I got the suit off quickly and out unto the bike and still felt good.
The bike is 30km long with a nasty climb about 3kms in up the 6th line hill. It goes for about 1.5km straight up the Niagara escarpment. Thing is, there are many little hills after this climb along the false flat that make it a challenging portion of the bike. It is a fast course and flattens out the back portion and then you get to go down the 6th line hill at over 70km/h! But at the bottom of the hill is a sharp left hand turn leading back towards the park.
I did start to fade a little bit after the 20km mark. I had trouble keeping up my top speed as my back started to tighten up so I backed off the pace a little bit knowing I still had a tough 7.5km run ahead.
Into T2 feeling a little tight in the back and off to run. I know from past races here that this is a tough run along a mix of trails and roads, flats and hills and down hills with ruts and rocks. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other to not stop! I did fast walk the steep little hill in Halton Hills as I would not of been any faster running up. From that point until the 4km mark is all uphill inside the park on trails. I then drops down back towards the entrance with this nasty little downhill that you had to really watch your footing with the rocks and ruts. After that it was out unto the road for a bit then back into Kelso to the finish. Felt good to finish the race and to be racing again. This is the first time since 2005 that I have done the Milton triathlon and only the second triathlon in the last two years due to injuries, work commitments and life! This race is going to set up the rest of the season nicely for me to do more sprint distance racing. Up next is Guelph Lake 1 - 750m swim/20km bike/5km run. I may then do Muskoka sprint, same distance and then Peterborough sprint at the same distance. After that is back to the longer sprint races with 30km bikes and 7km runs, which I should hopefully be in better all around triathlon fitness for!
Here is my post race analysis for Milton in a graph. First I will explain it all.
Overall time 1:53:20. Overall placing 196/510 = 61.57%, Agegroup placing 26/61 = 57.38%
Swim time 13:08 (1:46) OA 100/510 = 80.39%, AG 11/61 = 81.97%
Bike time 53:38 (33.6) OA 124/510 = 75.69%, AG 17/61 = 72.13%
Run time 44:23 (5:55) OA 348 = 31.77%, AG 46/61 = 24.59% -UGLY!!
What the graph shows is the need to improvement off the bike and unto the run. Or to ease up a bit on the bike but I like the idea of getting better at running off the bike. I think I can still get faster on the bike as well with my new bike, a Trek Speed Concept 7.0. It felt very fast and light and climbing the 6
th line hill I was seated pretty much the entire climb other than 2-3 quick jumps off the seat! I could not do this with my old bike as it was an out of the saddle grind up the hill. Two weeks til Guelph to work on improving the run off the bike!
