ITU Edmonton Sprint Provincial Champs Race Report

Well the ETA and myself included had a good week of getting to train with athletes from around the world such as Gavin Noble, Bryan Keane, Hollie Avil and Barrett Brandon. They and many others were in town for the World Cup triathlon and Kevin managed to get them out for a few sessions.

I missed a bunch of them due to having to work during the day, but Gavin and Bryan along with Todd Lecke beat me up in the pool during a 5 x 400m drafting set on the wednesday. I was just amazed at how easily these guys can accelerate in the pool and then settle back in. I realized that I definitely have some work to do before i am at that level, but also realized that these guys are no different than myself, just a few more years of training and racing is all that separates me from these great world class athletes and that is motivating in itself.

So after the big week we got down to business in the Sprint tri which was also the Alberta provincial champs. Since I knew i could not get into the world cup as i am not quite there yet Kevin figured this was the most worthwhile race to do.

So we started at ten am and representing the ETA on the mens side was Jama, Max, Guillaume, Brendan and myself. The horn went off and Bo Simpson (who bragged to me before the race that he had already swam a 17:20 mile earlier this year) took it out hard on the right side while i took it out hard on the left. at the first buoy i surged to get onto his feet, and from then on it was smooth sailing. We hit the beach in 9:00 for the 750m. Definitely my best swim so far this year. I had a good run to transition and headed out on the bike. I decided to use my road bike with no aero bars and no race wheels (Guri calls this "eddy merckx style") to see if i could still get the best bike split. It felt a little ridiculous blowing by guys with a full aero set up, but i am a good bike handler and used the corners and downhills to my advantage. I rode the first lap of 10km in around 16:40 including the super long run into transition and the transition itself. Then on the second lap i felt better and hammered a bit harder to extend my lead.

I got off the bike with a very large gap and really had nothing to worry about but i wanted to put down a solid run time and a good overall time so i had a fantastic 2nd transition where everything went smoothly and headed out onto the run.

I ran past my dad who was calling out splits for me the entire race and he told me i was on pace to go under an hour for the whole race. I ran a good solid pace for the first 2.5km lap and then kicked it up a bit for the second lap, I ended up finishing in 59:34 with a sub 17 min run split. That is by far the fastest i have run since i broke my ankle.

In second and third were my team-mates Max and Jama and i was happy to meet them at the finish line.

I have to say that this was a totally complete race for me, i had a great swim, bike and run and perfect transitions, was totally motivated and ready to race and did exactly what i wanted to do. It seems like things are on the right track for nationals only 5 weeks away. If i tune up my swim and run just another 5-10% of what i can do, then i really think i can do a great race in my final year of racing as a U23.

Thanks to Isa, Dave, My dad, Kevin, Hack, and all the other guys out there watching and cheering in the pouring rain. You guys give me a lot of confidence on the course, especially Isa with his constant talk of things to come! All in good time my friend.

So I was pretty fired up about my race and then I watched the elite men compete and the first swimmer came out in 16:40... Then the whole pack at around 17:00... Thats when i realized that if i held my 9:00 pace I would have been one of the last guys out... So needless to say I am going to have to bust my ass over the next 364 days until next years race in order to hopefully race in front of my home town in the elite race.

I'm game for it.

Kris