Half Moon Lake Triathlon Race Report

Two weeks ago my coach Kevin challenged me to race the Half Moon Lake Triathlon. Basically I was dealing with some nagging issues surrounding my whole ankle breakage situation that happened in September, but also I was just being soft. I didn't feel like racing, was committed to not racing, and was just going through the motions, training like a real athlete without any benchmarks in sight. You can't suck if you don't race like shit right? Well I guess you can't start to build confidence until you step up to the plate and put it all on the line either.

So I reluctantly accepted his challenge and went about doing the proper things that would precede a race. I took care of my nagging problems, got a massage, dialed in my bike, made every session, ate properly and even avoided beers for a bit before the race. I started to get more focused towards the day and my attention narrowed and I got to be in a pretty decent place.

Tichelaar and I had some smack talk going into the race, as he said that he would politely "Not use race wheels in the race and also ride out to the race to give me a chance" to which I accepted. I personally pulled out every trick in the bag with some sweet tubular cosmic carbones from my shop PRW courtesy of Guri and my aero helmet. I even tapered for this race which was actually quite pleasant and left me kind of hyper in the days before.

Tichelaar was true to his word, he rode out to the race with no race wheels or tt helmet, gotta love the guy for that. I wouldn't be surprised if Kevin told him to do it just to fire me up a bit.

I had to remember what the hell i was supposed to do before a race, it has been a long time since I actually have raced a tri(a year exactly) and it has probably been 2 years since I raced one that i actually cared about (FYI i only did one race last year and bombed due to no training and my own problems with injury and a solid of year of being in a shitty state of mind, after which i decided not to race anymore, that all changed of course when i busted my ankle in September and was forced to sit on my ass and work through my life for two months, anyway I should write this whole story at some point, but there is just a few details for those who don't know) so it was kind of a big deal.

I had a bad swim, felt terrible, totally off, panicked, freaked out, and just cramped up. I felt like it was last year's Wasa Lake Triathlon all over again where I was out of my league and out of shape, i started questioning why i was there, what i was doing with my life when i realized that i was being a baby and needed to just hold it together. I was worried that Tich would take all three primes and annihilate me, and I was going to show everyone how shitty I really was once again. I thought this might be the dagger in the coffin for me, end my comeback before it starts. Then Kevin's Scottish voice creeped into my head and told me to let it go, finish the swim as best you can, control what you can control and focus on what's important. I have learned many lessons from this man, and i think he is actually making me tough again.

So I let it go, got out of the water in 3rd or so and was 40 seconds behind Tich. Had a bad transition (probably due to lack of practice) and headed out on the bike. I decided then and there that I was going to catch him, I didn't care how much pain it took, I was angry with my swim and wanted to show that I have the fire still, that i can push as hard as I want. So i threw it into my 53 x 12 and hammered, i didn't let off on the hills, I didn't even let off to take a drink, I was consumed by the thought of catching Paul. Every turn around I was closer, going by the main gate of the park I heard my dad yelling "you're catching him" and it fired me up. I was riding so hard I think I was going cross eyed at times. I have never ridden that hard or hurt that bad on a bike in my entire life, but with 2km to go I caught and passed Paul. Mission accomplished, I made up 40 seconds over 30km.

Then I remembered that there was a run after the bike...

We rolled into transition in a dead heat, i ran past my rack, rookie mistake. Paul had a brilliant transition and I had a very rookie one, he beat me out by 5 seconds and that was the last I saw of him all day. I hurt so bad the first lap that he gapped me by a huge amount, but then the last three laps I felt better, in the end he outran me by two minutes and took the race by the same margin, but I didn't care.

I had won my own sort of race, maybe against my mind I don't know, but i felt tapped out, satisfied and happy.

In the end what I care about is doing an honest effort, I probably could have had a better run if I had eased of the bike a bit, but I killed myself to make a race out of the thing and it was worth it to me.

Bike prime of $100 sounded like some sweet McDonalds money, breakfast is on me on Monday boys.

I know that my blog, my thoughts, sometimes confuse some people. Let me assure you, I love this sport, I love to suffer, I love to make other people suffer, and I love to let it go and not let it consume me. When I say that I don't care about being a triathlete, it doesn't mean that I don't care about triathlon. It means that I don't care about the "stuff" that people think makes a triathlete. I care about the pure athletic feat, and about the lifestyle that I live that surrounds it. I care about being an athlete, about being passionate about the effort, the suffering and the act of sport.

Thank you to Trevor Soll and Craig Murdoch for the organization of the race, and for supporting me and the sport, and for rewarding excellence in our sport!

Thanks for reading

Shack