SWIM-RUN Tri

We were in Bracebridge this weekend.  Doing the tri races for kids and adults.  The adults race was at 8:30am in the river at Annie Williams Park.

We drove up to the cottage on Fri in the middle of severe thunderstorms.  It was beautiful the weekend before.  Why couldn't it be like last weekend.  I don't understand why whenever I do a triathlon, which is already stressful for me with the swim, Mother Nature seems to think I am not stressed enough.

Severe thundershowers flooded the roads, and were delaying the start of the race. I was soaked.  I didn't even take my bike down from my roof rack.  I didn't bother until I knew what was going on.  Even the race organizers weren't sure.  There were dark clouds coming in and out of the area that would dump globs of water.  I felt pretty calm.  Watching the waterfall coming down around the gazebo with all the other competitors.  The info was coming over the loudspeaker on the race.  The bike segment was cancelled, due to the flooded roads.  It was unsafe.  So it was now a Swim-Run race.   They still hadn't setup the swim, because of lightning.  So it could come down to a Run race.  But then the rains let up.  Enough to setup the course and get people out racing.  There weren't any refunds due to weather.  This is what outdoor racing is about.  Weather plays a factor.

I was seeing people walking back from the transition area with their bikes.  Was the race cancelled?  No.  They were giving people the option to come back Sunday to do the Olympic distance.  Which is double the Sprint distance.  Some people left, not wanting to race in the rain and not wanting to do the Olympic distance.

The SWIM-BIKE-RUN turned into a SWIM-RUN.  I had come all this way to race.  So whatever it was going to be, I was going to do it.  I wanted to do the SWIM.  I wanted another swim race under my belt to get used to it, to know what to expect, to prepare for it.

The swim distance of 750m is not difficult for me to swim continuously.  I've done it many times in the pool (without touching the ends), and in the lake.  But race conditions are always more nervous.  I was trying to think about it as a regular cottage swim.  I was looking forward to it, I wanted to beat it.  It looked easy from the dock as I was waiting for my turn to go.

I began my swim, I was a bit nervous, but ok.  I was not breathing right.  And struggled right away.  But after I got past the first buoys and turning upstream I felt a little better.  But I just felt slow.  I also saw a lot of swimmers pass by.  I was even swimming off line a bit.  I saw I was close to weeds.  But I rounded the last buoy and heading to T1.  I had made it.  Slow, but hey, the race isn't won in the swim. I'll do better next time.

I felt a little light headed and I'm thinking that it was because my breathing was not very calm in the swim.  I did manage to get my wetsuit off quicker than I had done in previous races.  I practiced that.  Getting out on the run after the swim was tough.  It took a long time to get my legs.  By the time I had picked up my pace I was already more than half way.

I was able to check my results after I got home from the cottage.  Not sure why they put 715m, because they didn't say they shortened it. And surprisingly, I wasn't last out of the water.  I beat 1 guy by 2 mins.  But he was much faster than me on the run.  But it doesn't matter, I wasn't the slowest in the swim.  There was someone worse than me. HA HA!  Made my day.

I'll try again next year, and do better.  I did my ONE race for the year.  And I did it in brutal weather conditions.  I'll have to make sure that guy is in the swim again.  Gonna have to do more running to get my time to where it should be.  That time is slow as mud.

This was like the best photo of me. LOL.  All the other ones just showed me grimacing.  I should have worn my glasses and hat.  But it was wet.  So I didn't bother.  I forgot about the photographers.

Good thing Lou wore his hat, he was starting to look like one of those Orc things from Lord of the Rings. It was much easier to find Lou's photo, since he was on page 6, I was way at the back in the 34 or 36 or something.