Saturday Kelly and I headed out in the morning for a drive up to the cottage. The weather was beautiful and the trees were in full fall colours. We got the chance to visit with some close friends at the cottage spending the afternoon with them. It also gave us the opportunity to visit with dad and spend a few minutes with him. Kelly never had the opportunity to him so it was pretty special to show her where he is buried and to share that time together.
After a short ride on the boat we headed out and got into Orillia around 9:30pm. That put us close enough that we would only have a short drive in the morning to get to Borden for the race and with a 10am start time we had plenty of time. I wasn't overly excited about the start time for a couple of reasons. One with the forecasted temperature I knew it was going to be hot and with the majority of my running for the past month or more being between 0C-10C. Second I know I couldn't eat before I run so the later the start time the longer I had to go without any fuel.
My warm up went good. I felt good and ready to go...I could tell it was going to be hot as I got a good sweat on just in my warm up. I had a good start and took it out pretty hard but I didn't feel like it was too hard that I would blow up from it later in the race. I ran side by side one other guy for the first 2km's at which point one other guy bridged up to us and the 3 of us ran side by side for the next few km's. At about 6km's I could start to feel the heat getting to me but was still running strong. At that point just figured I was going to have to digger a little deeper on the back end of the race. At about 8km's is when I saw a significant drop in my pace and I fell back of the leaders. By 10km's I was in a lot of pain and more people were passing me. The middle 10km's we ran around a big grass field with not a tree in sight and this completely sucked any energy I had left in right out. It was over 30C and I was in pure survival mode. Did the whole battle about just calling it a day so I didn't have to deal with the end result and minimize the damages but there was someone special waiting for me at the finish line so I shuffled on. It was during this time though I noticed something very different than what I'm used to in triathlon. In triathlon on the run I'm always encouraging others with just a good job or a high five if I know the person as we pass each other going in opposite directions and they almost always respond back with a few words. Yesterday even though I was in a lot of pain I knew there was nothing I could do to go any faster and I just needed to get to the finish line and I was alright with being passed so as I would get passed I would say good job to everyone and not one person answered me. I think triathlons are very unique in that way. Anyways I did end up walking 3 times in the last couple of km's as I felt something go in my foot and having delt with several stress fractures in the past I was pretty worried. I finished exactly 20minutes slower than what I had wanted. That was a bit of a tough pill to swallow but all things considered I am happy I didn't need an ambulance ride off the course like some others and I had someone there to pick up my spirits after the race.
This week has been mainly just trying to recover the legs with a couple easy rides and of course swimming with the Masters. I had a good set this morning with 15x100 @1:15 so I am happy with where things are going there. Last night I did a 10km TT at delki. It was raining a bit and the track was pretty wet so everyone took it pretty easy on the corners so again I'm pretty happy with 14:32. As far as what's up next I have an 8km run on Thanksgiving Monday. It's the last of 6 events in the Sudbury Fitness Challenge and after the first 5 events I'm leading the points race with 4978 but very close behind me is Kerry Abols with 4845. Kerry is a strong runner so it will all come down to where we place in this final race.
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