Race Day at Worlds

So I haven’t updated since the race mainly because I was pretty disappointed with everything that happened and I also was pretty busy with only one day in Vancouver after the race to enjoy.
I was not very happy with this years whole World Championships here in Vancouver. They seemed even more unorganized than ever! Triathlon Canada promised everyone the biggest opening ceremonies every since it was the 20th Anniversary of the Triathlon World Championships and when they were supposed to happen on Thursday it was raining so they just cancelled them. You would think that they would have a back up plan for a different venue in case of rain because this is Vancouver we’re talking about.
Then I was really worried about the swim since I got here because the water temperature got down to 11.3degrees but I knew being a swimmer I would just have to be tough because everyone was in the same boat come race day.
So come Saturday more I got up about 3 ½ hours before the start of my race and have my usual breakfast and went on to get my stuff ready for the race as I usually do. I was nervous like I usually am before any race but I knew I was ready. On the way over to the race I noticed it was windy out. Getting to the race I noticed the water was fairly rough but again I told myself I am a swimmer and this will only benefit me more. We were notified that the swim had been shortened to 1km instead of the usual 1.5km. This was kind of bad news because by shortening the swim means less time in the water and less time I can build up a lead. I overheard someone talking about the women’s race that had already started and were coming out of the water and they said that the top women where doing the 1km in just over 30minutes. In normal conditions the top women swimmers should be doing a 1km swim in under 15minutes so to be taking over 30minutes mean that the conditions were actually pretty bad. Again good news to me!
I set up my transition and did a few strides to warm up. We had to get our wet suits on about 30minutes before the start of the race because we had to walk about 1km to the start because we were swimming back to transition.
I had decided that I wasn’t going to do a warm up in the water like I usually do because of water temperature. I didn’t want to loose any more body heat then I had to. There was one more wave to go before mine and I see one of the officials telling some of the other guys in my wave to go up in the big tent and stay warm. I thought this was really wired as we were about to start in a couple of minutes so I went over and asked what was going on and he tells me that they have delayed the start of the race for an hour to see if the water will calm down at all. Inside the tent Lea went and got me a heating pad from the medic tent that I put down my bathing suit keep warm. After only about 15minutes the same official comes in the tent with an announcement. “Due to the water temperature and the rough conditions and not an adequate number of life guards in the water the swim has been cancelled and the race will now be a duathlon. At that point my heart just sunk. I had so many mixed feelings and I didn’t know what to think. How can they do this to me, they just took out my strongest part of the race. Should I even compete now, if I do is there even any point to try? I decided I came all this way and so many people believed in me that I had to get something out of this race. So we walked back to transition and took our wetsuits off and got ready to run. It was going to be a 3km run, 40km bike and 10km run.
The first 3km were blistering fast just as I thought they would be. I came back into transition in about mid pack, grabbed my bike and headed out. I passed a bunch of guys right away as soon as we got on the bike. I got into a good pace right away and my legs felt strong and fresh and I wasn’t feeling any effects from the first run. The first part of the bike had some quick rolling hills. There were a few technical turns that a few people bailed on. There was one big hill on each lap that was about 2km and good grade. In the weeks leading up to the race I had felt that my climbing was feeling good and I was right. Each lap on that hill I felt really strong and was just climbing past everyone in front of me. So coming into transition I didn't know where I was in the race but heading out onto the run I just couldn't seem to find my running legs. I tightened up right away and just never got into a rhythm. I started to think about the race and what I was going to take out of it. I had surprised myself with the bike and was really happy with that so I decided that since I have to race Muskoka Long Coarse next weekend for the first time and as a Elite for the first time that I would just finish the race and be happy with my position.
I've also been dealing with my first real injury for the past couple weeks that I've just been training through. The bone along the outside of my left foot has been giving me a lot of pain and I really don't want to make it any worse. I want to as much as possible just keep training and racing as long as I can or for as long as I can deal with the pain. I'm trying to limit what I do outside of my training not to make it any worse.
Another piece of interesting news I found out was when I was back at Becky's appartment where I was staying (big thank you Becky!!) I was searching som stuff on the net and I came accross that Triathlon Canada just announced that they have a new team call the President's Team that is made of up athletes that either medaled at Worlds last year in Germany of won Nationals and I'm going through the list and I seem my name!! And the funny thing is I didn't go to the National Team's Lunch on Friday before the race but I was told that they did a presentation for the new team and they called my name and all this stuff....would of been nice to have known.
Anyways Worlds wasa huge roller coaster this year. I didn't know what was going on from one minute to the next....a little disorganized I would say but I'm really happy with my bike and hopefully that can carry over to this weekend in the chase in Muskoka when I come out of the water in first!! All those big guys better watch out cause I'm coming for you!!!

"Thank you to the people who said I couldn't, you have been what has defined me, never give up, and never back down".