I came home yesterday from Montreal, and was so pooped out that I had to take a nap before I could even take a shower or do laundry! We managed to cram in a lot of excitement and activity over the weekend.
We arrived in Magog on Saturday afternoon and had the chance to do a mini bike, run, and then swim (yes, in that order!) before picking up race packets. The water was warm enough to make it no wet suit for all athletes, so I make the decision then and there that I would just race in a swim suit again!
On race morning, I learned that the elite women race was in fact, NOT draft legal, since there were so many events going on that day. Instead, the elite women started with all women 30 and under doing the Olympic tri, and all athletes doing a relay. It was a beach start, which is always fun, but there was a strict ruling that you were to do NO dolphin dives at any time in the shallow water. You either ran it or swam it! The water was quite choppy race morning, but I just put my head down and tried to get in a draft pack with the girls who were in the pack ahead of me at Coteau du lac. It worked very well for the most part, except that I got kicked in the mouth hard enough to draw blood and leave me with a puffy, bruised looking lip! I ended up cutting the gap down significantly between some of the top women who came out of the water at Coteau du lac in the first pack and myself, so I was very pleased with my swim. As I was running into transition, I had a little repeat performance of my gracious "slide into home base" wipe out in Peterborough, just as I was rounding a transition rack. No worries though, I was up and running in no time.
Where do I even begin with the bike course in Magog? Well, I can say that it might just have taken over being the hardest/slowest bike courses that I have ever done in my life! The bike course in Barry's Bay has held that number one spot for the past year, but after Sunday's race, Magog takes the cake! Who knew that there were mountains in Magog? The whole bike course was hilly, and there was a head wind on the way home too! I could go down some of those hills at almost 80km an hour, so that means I was probably going 6km an hour on the way up! It was a tough day for everyone out there, so I can't really complain. However, as I came to dismount my bike, I totally lost control of it, and couldn't control my speed, so I ended up crashing to the ground intertwined with my bike. I felt some pain shoot through my right thigh immediately, and my instincts were to get up right away, but it took my brain much longer to come to terms with what happened so it took me some time to scrape myself off the ground. I had a big nasty bruise on my thigh, knee, and arm, as well as a nice bloody cut that most likely came from my chain. To top it all off, once I got up and started moving towards transition, I had an official chase me down brandishing my bike shoe that had flown off during the crash. He gave me a penalty for not picking up all of my belongings before heading into transition! Needless to say, with the challenging bike course, my fall, and my penalty, my bike split is atrocious yet almost humourous at the same time!
Once I finally headed out onto the run course, I was relieved to say the least! I enjoyed the run course for the most part, because we ran on a trail for a little bit and on some grass, but there was one significant climb that slowed you right down on each of the two loops. I had my best run split so far this year, which I was happy with considering my battle wounds and previous hamstring problems. In fact, I was able to run one of my competitors down to finish in 5th place! Apparently that means I should be getting a check in the mail very soon with a little bit of prize money! I'm certainly not entering any of these races looking to win big money, but the novelty of the scenario is still very cool to me!
Soon after the race was over, we trekked to Montreal and happened to catch the closing night of the Just for Laughs festival. The fireworks display was an awesome way to end the day.
Up next for me is 1) get the swelling down on my leg and 2) getting ready for the OAT draft legal championships on Saturday!
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