Coteau-Du-Lac Triathlon

Saturday was the Coteau-Du-Lac (Hill-on-the-Lake) Triathlon in Quebec, Canada.  This was 1 of 2 ITU races held in Canada this year.  The trip was a family affair for me as my grandparents live in Montreal.  I went there every Christmas when I was a lad and hadn’t forgotten my love of Shreddries cereal, Coffee Crisp, Aero Bars (the real aero bars, not the triathlon ones) and best of all, Ketchup chips (preferably produced by Humpty Dumpty).

I strategically delayed aformentioned nutrition until after the race and was feeling excellent going in.  I won the 5430 Sprint last week and put in a real taper for this race.

It was a pontoon dive-in start with over 70 male starters into a fairly narrow canal.  I had a good start and played the game of being aggressive in moving into openings while avoiding any aquatic wrestling matches.  This was the first time that I got to crawl back out onto the pontoon partway through and dive back in.  Dan Mackenzie’s wife Beth said I had an “unbelievably beautiful” dive back in which I’m quite proud of.  Ok, maybe she didn’t use those exact words but she had a positive remark.

I got out of the water in decent position, 1:40 behind the 1st pack and say :15 behind the 2nd pack.  With some work on the first lap of the bike I was comfortably riding in the 2nd pack.  4 laps later I was getting antsy.  The 1st pack of about 20 was 1:40 up on our pack (thanks Amy for the splits written every loop).  Our pack seemed either content or too big to make a push to close that.  I went to the front at the U-turn and pushed out of it, earning a little lead on the pack.  I worked it TT style for the last lap and a half.  I figured that a small depletion of the 1st group’s lead and movement away from my original 15 man pack were key for a top 10 final placing.  I was executing my plan at the finish of the bike.  I had gained 25 seconds on the 2nd group and had moved towards the 1st group by the same amount.

Onto the run and I was running well until 5k when the race went sour.  My achilles has been tight lately and within seconds it felt as though an alien ship had landed and implanted a golf ball sized tracking device at the bottom of my right calf.  I could still run but I certainly wasn’t going to win the “Best Stride” award.  I tried short strides, long strides, landing on the outside of my foot, even sending messages to the aliens to remove my tracking device.

I thought about just stopping but at that point I was in 15th, good enough for ITU points, and I didn’t feel like I was tearing anything.  I slugged on and finished in 19th, 2nd to last man to get points.  D Mac got 20th and the last points, his first in a bit so props to him.  Another 100m and he would have had me for sure!

This race did make me realized that I want to focus more on non-drafting races.  Even if I hadn’t slowed down on the run, I would have been fighting just to crack the top ten.  Unless I can make the 1st pack nearly every race, then ITU Continental Cup races will always be a come from behind for 10th battle.  I can better utilize my relatively strong bike-run in non drafting races.

With that I’m fairly certain that my leg will be better by the NYC Triathlon in 3 weeks.  Boulder Peak in 2 weeks will have to be wait and see.  It was horrifyingly tight when I woke up yesterday but it loosened up significantly so now I have hopes to race in the Peak.  Surely the vitamins from my Ketchup chips will help things heal.