It seems that Wasaga Beach has never been kind to me. Every time I go up to the longest stretch of sandy, freshwater beach here in Ontario, Canada, mother nature unleashes her wrath upon all the racers who dared ventured out for the challenge. The last time I went up to race this course there was a monsoon weather force that cancelled the swim and forced us to do a duathlon, and this year was no exception.
The night before the race a severe thunder and lightening storm swept through the area, complete with high winds and intense downpours. Even though the rain, thunder and lightening had all passed through by the morning, the gusty winds (45km/hr) still prevailed and wrecked havoc on the course. There were high swells of 5-7ft on the lake making the swim course too dangerous, and even the backup swim location, the Nottawasaga River, had too high E. coli levels from the rainfall, forcing race organizers to cancel the swim altogether. The only option left was to modify the triathlon to a duathlon. So what was supposed to be an olympic distance triathlon (1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run) was changed to an international distance duathlon (10km run, 40km bike, 5km run).
I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be getting to swim. I had really been looking forward to challenging myself with this course in particular, as I had been focussed on training for the 1.5 km olympic swim that was longer than my usual 750m sprint swim distance.
Besides that, I had only been expecting to run 10km that morning, and not 15km. I knew I could do it, but was a little concerned how my legs would hold up going into the 40km bike after doing a 10km run instead of a 1.5km swim. Fatigue was definitely going to be a bigger factor for my legs than I had anticipated. But there was no time to complain or worry, I just had to suck it up and do the course.
The first 10km run went well, I did it in a time of 48:46 (pace of 4:53), which is what I had expected, and was happy with. However, the discomfort really hit when I got into the bike course. I had done some brick training this summer, but it was usually bike then run, not run then bike, so I found it difficult to get my legs into a comfortable cycling rhythm. Besides the leg fatigue, the wind was gusting to 45km/hr and I had to fight it either head-on or side-on for the majority of the course. In the end, it took me 1:42:35 to complete the 40km cycle, which was 17min longer than I had expected. Not my best showing on the bike this year. I kept my second transition time under a minute though (0:59) and finished with a decent second run, 5km in 28:23 (pace of 5:41). I completed the course in 3:02:17, which was still good enough for a top ten finish in my age group (9th place).
While it wasn’t as strong a finish as I would have liked (considering my last 2 races, Belwood & OWT, were top 5 finishes), I have to consider that the racing conditions were not ideal, weather-wise, and that I had not trained for this specific distance duathlon in particular, so I did well under the circumstances I suppose.
Even though I inadvertently end up doing a couple duathlons each season (when swims are cancelled) I can’t say they’ve grown on me much over time. I definitely prefer racing triathlon. There’s just something so great about the swim portion. For me, personally, part of it is the physical aspect (where I can take the pressure off my legs and onto my upper body for a portion of the race), and the other part of it is psychological (the superhero feeling you get when you slip into your wetsuit and into a whole different element). I must admit, I'm already looking forward to the next season of triathlon. Its hard to believe its September and the end of racing season already. Canada has such a short triathlon season, we really must make the most of each opportunity we get, and have no regrets!!
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