Category: race

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Spartan Race Recap

I ran the Sprint Spartan Race the weekend before last.  It’s an experience I won’t forget, but I don’t really mean that in a good way.  The Spartan Race seems to pride itself on toughness, and part of that seems to be to keep race details in the dark, and give racers a surprise.  OK… so you should train yourself for general fitness, and rest assured you’ll be running a lot of hills.  I did the Warrior Dash the year before (I never got around to writing a recap), so this post will draw a lot of comparisons between the two events.

From the pre-race preparation email:
Greetings Spartans,

CLICK HERE to download the BIB LIST. The number on the left of your name is your CHIP number, use the search function in the PDF to search for you name. For Macs, use command+alt+ F to find your info.  Before you arrive at the race, please write this number in Permanent Marker on your Fore-Head ONLY. If you cannot open the PDF we will send an online version tomorrow.

I guess a Spartan doesn’t have a job that he/she has to go to the next day.  I thought this was a joke, but it was repeated later in the email and they were trying to enforce it at registration.  Most pictures I saw from before I raced seemed to show a minority of people who actually had numbers on their face, but at the starting line I was a little surprised to see how many people played along.  I wonder how long it takes to scrub off, though it would become apparent that the ideal Spartan Race demographic has nothing but tons of time to kill.   I just wrote my number on both arms (accidentally backwards on my right) – I’m used to body marking from triathlon.

I was aiming to get to the race parking lot around 2 hours before (they recommend at least an hour), and we managed to be there 90 minutes before my race was supposed to take off.  After waiting in line for a shuttle bus (yellow rocket school bus), the ride there and making it through registration, I had all of 10 minutes to spare.

For a place that caters to both cross-country skiing and mountain biking, Hardwood Hills was not exactly stroller friendly.  Maybe I should have let the $15 spectator fee dissuade me from having my wife and kids along, but we like to do things as a family, and I sure love the moral support.

Like I had said, I had about 10 minutes to get my timing chip and find the starting line.  With some of the requisite pumping up (and spraying with the fire hose), we were off.

I did like the course layout; at the Warrior Dash the year before, mud was the first thing encountered, and it happened right in the beginning before different paces over different terrain could thin people out a little.  Here, we went a good way before encountering obstacles.  I really struggle to remember every obstacle and its order after the fact, so I just tried to put them in table form below.

The mountain bike/cross country ski trails can get narrow, meaning there were bottlenecks at certain junctures.  The only time I really minded this was when one fellow decided to look back and check how his team-mates were doing, right between two trees we all had to run through.  I had some success communicating with racers I wanted to pass:”Coming up on your right/left”.

The trail presented a lot of climbing and descending, and if you do one of these, hill training is the best thing you can do to prepare.  It was a nice, natural environment to be running through.  Anyway, on to the –

Obstacles!

Name Description Comments
Mountain Crawl Up a hill under a camouflage net meant going on all fours If you’ve ever done mountain climbers, this is what they’re for, only here you’ve got to move your arms too!
Culvert Tunnel a Belly crawl through plastic tubing I was too big to really get my knees involved, so more than anything else this meant pulling myself along with my arms
Cargo Net A loose net about 10-12’ high.  Climb up, over and down the other side You swung around a fair bit making falling off a real possiblity.  I got my foot caught just as I had the other on the ground and wanted to leave the obstacle.  I did a jiu-jitsu roll to get free!
Rope Climb Straight up a rope (with no knots) for guys, rope ladders for girls I doubted my upper body strength on this one, and after a quick try, I realized my technique was lacking too.  I did the 20 burpees instead – the only obstacle where I did that.
Kettle Bell Pulley Raise a couple of kettle bells to around 20’ by pulling a rope down. One of their ‘obstacles’ which is more of a straight fitness/exercise station
Mud Pit Barb Wire Get under the barb wire by crawling through the mud Ow.  There were roots to scratch up your knees (see photos).  You couldn’t avoid them because you couldn’t see them.
Mud Pools Without barb wire you still have to wade through hip to chest height mud By the time you get out, you’re carrying another 5 pounds worth of mud in your clothes.  A hallmark of these kinds of races
8’ wall Get over the wall Did it in one jump and pull-up.  Burbathlon came in handy…
12’ wall Guess…. Unless you’re the size of a pro-basket ball player, you need help of other racers (or to cheat by grabbing a foothold along the side of the wall – that was me).
Bag of Cement Carry a bag of cement (20-30lbs, I figure) on you shoulder (or however you choose) about 100m or so This was one of the easier ones for a parent of small children.  There was only one bag, and it never screamed in my ear.
Spear Throw Throw a spear at a large straw dummy.  As long as you make contact, you’ll avoid extra burpees. Lucky they’re lenient on hitting the target.  My throw grazed it lightly.
Wheel Barrow Cart a wheel barrow-like device for 50-100m. Not much to say
Crooked Balance Beam Stay on the narrow, zig-zagging beam or do burpees Proud I didn’t fall off.  Burbathlon came in handy…
Fire Jump Jump over flames 2-3’ high Another jiu-jitsu roll for me – OVER THE FLAMES!  I got an ‘oooh’ from some spectators
Rowing Machines 20 rows on a rowing machine/ergometer Obstacle?  Sure…
Hay Bales Climb over hay bales using the attached netting
Gladiator Gauntlet Two guys with padded staves and a third un-armed (to push or wrestle you?) By this point the race had run longer than I planned and I thought of my wife having to deal with two screaming kids.  This must have given me the crazy eyes, because I barged straight through those guys with body checks.  They managed to take out my friend Rob though (see photo)
Big Ramp The final climb.  There are ropes, but it’s still slippery and steep. Managed to make it on my first try, though I benefited from watching people in front of me.

After all that, I felt pretty proud to have finished.  I had expected to finish in under 45 minutes (since the race was described as being 3 miles+; i.e. something around/over 5km), but in reality it turned out to be over 7km and took me nearly an hour.  Cue the smiles and victory poses.

Shark Boy and I show our muscles

Hulk Hogan has 24″ pythons… I have pyth-nons

The smiles were not to last however.  The rinse off facility was a meagre garden hose (Warrior Dash used a fire hose, and even that doesn’t get much of the mud off) which had yet another slow, long line-up.  After getting some over-priced food ($23 for a personal pizza, and order of fries, and 3 ice-creams) to feed our starving selves, escaping the venue involved spending over 2 hours in line to get onto a school bus back to the parking lot.  When it started to rain, my wife took the baby into shelter, but someone had to stay with the stroller and hold our place in line, so Shark Boy and I risked hypothermia; he was visibly shivering well before we were able to board, and unfortunately, he’s a little too dynamic to stay still under a tent roof with his mother – it takes both of us to manage our kids for any extended amount of time.  I tried to keep us under the umbrella, but there’s only so much that will do.  Fortunately, once some extra buses beyond the paltry 2-3 that had originally been doing the shuttling showed up, the better nature of some of race participants took over.  The people in front of us in line wanted “to make sure the kids got on this bus”.  Back at the parking lot, another long hike back to the car and we were finally in warmer air and on our way home… through weekend cottage country traffic.  My wife later compared the experience to being at the airport with small children; you have no-where to go and you’re penned in so you feel like a hostage, while hearing the kids’ screams of irritation, boredom and discomfort.

Afterwards, I hoped to find my time results online and find a few photos for this post, but every time I found myself, I seemed to be a background player… and as for the results, check this from the post-race follow-up email:

Congratulations on your Epic achievement,

…

Results can be found HERE Please use the search function to search for your name. For some participants you will find the Letters TBA by you name, some of the Data stored on the timing box suffered damage there was a small electrical fire by the finish line, we have sent the drive off to see if we can extract the information in the meantime we will keep you posted. 

…

If you were part of the group that were unable to receive a T-shirt at the end of the race. We apologise sincerely, our final shirt delivery had been held for inspection for Canada Customs for over 3 weeks and despite our best efforts to fly in replacements we were unable to to get the total. HOWEVER it is looking promising that the shirts will be released in the next 48 Hours and when you crossed the finish line you would have given your CHIP Number and Size please confirm your desired Postal adress by CLICKING HERE and we will collate your request with the finish line list and you will receive your T-Shirt.

We would like to apologise as some of you may have experienced line ups at Bag check, showers or the shuttle bus. We would like to Stress how important your experience is to us and we have committed to solve these problems for your next race. 

I had grabbed an extra large T-Shirt (I wear Large) on my way out of the finisher’s area since I couldn’t find a large, and having my fans/family there meant not having to deal with the Bag check.  The basic theme of the event’s problems seems to be that they want as many people showing up as possible (they get admission money for both participants and spectators), but they don’t ensure any reasonable service for all those people.  They either need to cap admissions lower, or spend more on what it takes to get people in and out or wherever they need to be.  I stand by my initial assessment that I got by reading the intro email mentioned at the top of the page: SPARTAN RACE – An event for Morons, by Morons.   I’ll never participate in this event again.

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Race Recap: 5 Peaks at Rattlesnake Point (My first Trail Race)

We can’t help but notice these new upstart obstacle course races with their mud pits and hay bales and whathaveyou. That’s fine. two can play that game. Here’s what we’ve visualized throwing at you: pole vaulting, hang gliding, weaponized anthrax, tickling past the point of being funny, forcible tattooing, landmines, Scrabble with somebody who takes forever and then plays a three letter word, talking about feelings, poison blowdarts, and listening to people overpronunciate foreign words because they visited some place two years ago. Or maybe we’re just going to come at you with the oldest form of athletics: chasing living things through natural spaces.


–from the 5 Peaks pre-race bulletin.

My first entry in the 2012 Race Calendar is in the books!  Plan A was to have the whole family come along, but fate intervened and the Lightning Kid ended up in the emergency room at 4AM.  While that sounds like enough of a catastrophe to not race, he was in good hands with his mother and the staff, and it ended up only being croup (he’s already doing much better), so after I dropped off Shark Boy at his grandmother’s place, I was off to the race(s).

It’s a shame they couldn’t be there, because one of the first things I noticed upon arrival was how family friendly the venue was.  Being a park, there was lots of open space for kids (and dogs, on leashes) to run around in without worrying about cars and traffic.  They had set up a bouncy castle and there were clowns making balloon  animals.

Due to all the extra drama I went through trying to get to the race, I was late getting there.  I missed the kids’ 1k foot race, but had enough time to get my bib attached and run my race kit back to my car.  The race goodies were limited to a small sport bag filled with a ClifShot and ClifBar.  That may seem meagre but I’ll use everything in that bag, and it keeps my post-race clean-up duties to a minimum.  My office is littered with race kit goodies like pamphlets for races that have long come and gone… I can get most of that stuff on the internet.

At the starting line, they organized the racers in waves that would depart whenever the preceding wave had hit the line of the forest (about 150-200m).  Both the Sport Course (5km which I was doing) and the Enduro Course (12.7km) I was still getting myself sorted out when the first two waves were being described and organized, so I didn’t take them, but I figured I’d rather err on the side of caution and be in a later wave.  I heard something along the line of a “26 minute 5k time” and that sounded about right… for a regular 5k on fairly flat roads.  Still I was chomping at the bit by that point, and off I went.

The first part of the race across the field and into the forest felt a lot like a road race.  A crowd of smiling faces, and you take your time while the traffic is still thick.  Then, the Escapment’s rocky terrain asserted itself, and you had to stop sight-seeing and concentrate on what rock or root to step on, or not step on, while making sure that your fellow racers didn’t have the exact same spot at the exact same time in mind as a place to put their own feet.  While that sounds stressful, it was that kind of mental engagement I was looking for in a trail race; headphones are prohibited for safety reasons, and in this case, I could totally see why.

I imagine some people would argue that running should be a chance for them to put their brains on coast for a while and take a break from the demands of work, but unless you’re a secret agent or play video games for a living, I’d argue that this kind of mental stimulation is quite refreshing.  I found it to be a lot of fun.

If you were willing to risk a look up from the terrain, you were rewarded with some nice views, as the Sport  race course seemed to follow a ridge line of the escarpment.  Still, I tried not to waste much time since I was hoping to finish the race as fast as I could, even without any concrete estimates on what my time would be.

One of the many lookouts

According to what I heard on race day, what makes this race unique is the rockiness of the trail.  Often we were leaping across 3 foot gaps between boulders, or clambering over waist high rocks to get to where we were going.  Doing things like box jumps in Burbathlon really helped me get on top of these.  Of course, there were also good old fashioned hills to climb.

I need to find a way to capture ‘steepness’ photographically.

I’d always been mere inches away from a cold the past few weeks, and taking a hydration pack along proved to be a good idea, since I seem to need more than average levels of fluids lately, and I’m always starting short on them.  I’m proud of the effort level I kept up, since I had a kind of light burning in my lungs with my heart rate averaging around 83% (see below) and a finish time of under 30 minutes.

Finisher’s Victory Face

Post race snacks included chocolate chip cookies, bagels, pita, watermelon and banana.  I got a chance to look at and try some Salomon shoes from the demo tent.  The Salomon staff were well informed and it looks like my next pair of shoes (to be bought sooner rather than later) will be a pair of Salomon XR Missions

Here’s my Garmin data from race day:


And, Get Out There Magazine did a video race report that sums the event up quite nicely:

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Building my 2012 Race Calendar

It’s probably already getting to be too late to be plotting out my race calendar, as the training plan will follow from that – even one of my loosely structured ‘plans’ is in danger of never truly forming.  I have some favourite races, but I don’t want this year to be ‘Been There, Done That’ so there will be a lot of new and novel races for me this year.

Month
Race Name and Date
Quick Note
April
Primary Goal
May
NO RACES FOUND!
I may be supporting my wife in her race endeavours this month so…
June
Met Con Blue. June 2nd
Secondary Goal; Obstacle Course Race
Spartan Race Toronto (Oro); June 24th
Primary Goal; Obstacle Course Race
July
Muskoka 5150; July 22nd
Primary Goal; Olympic Distance Tri
August
Muskoka Grind; August 5th
Secondary Goal; Off-Road Tri
Primary Goal; Olympic Distance Tri
September
Logs Rocks and Steel; September 8th
Secondary Goal; Multi-sport Adventure

5 Peaks Trail run at Rattlesnake Point: I like running on trails and always have.  Still I don’t know that I can be considered a trail runner – I’m not sure if my usual routes are as technical or challenging as they would be if I were an ‘official’ trail runner.  Still, I’d like to try an official race and the races in this series come highly recommended.  This one is early in the season and as it’s my first one, I’ll stick to the shorter ‘Sport’ Course which is 4.5km.

MET CON BLUE: Obstacle races are blowing up as a trend, and what I like about this one is that it’s a Canadian Homegrown effort – I’m hoping that means less overcrowding than the Warrior Dash I did last year.  Collingwood and Blue Mountain have been like a  home away from home for my family in past years, so it would be fun to head up there for this.  It takes place the same weekend as the Milton Triathlon, but it looks like I might give that one a miss this year. I didn’t get much interest from friends when I tried to get a group going, unlike…

Spartan Race Toronto: This one is closer to where I live, and it looks like we have a strong contingent of people from the Jiu-Jitsu club going, so I’ll join in on the fun.

Muskoka 5150: Gone is the old Muskoka Chase triathlon; I guess I have mixed emotions.  It was a long standing race and one of my first.  The long course was always ‘neither-here-nor-there’: longer than Olympic distance but shorter than Half-Iron.  The Olympic Distance (51.5km total swim-bike-run) is probably my favourite distance so I’m jumping at the chance at doing this on my old stomping grounds in what is still technically a ‘new’ race.

Muskoka Grind: Every year I think I’m going to be able to try an off-road triathlon, and every year I don’t knuckle down and buy myself a mountain bike to accomplish it with.  So far, there’s been a dearth of these events in Ontario, but with this addition to the calendar maybe this is the year I get myself a mountain bike.  If only I knew anything about mountain bikes.  This will be promoted to primary race status once I have one…

Bracebridge Triathlon: The Recharge with Milk Series has become my favourite, but I seem to have trouble lining up their races with my schedule (at least last year).  Bracebridge used to have a Half-Iron but now they’ve gone down to the Olympic Distance, which suits me fine.

Logs, Rocks and Steel: In the same vein as trying an off-road triathlon, I wouldn’t mind dipping my feet into adventure racing without that pesky navigation or teamwork (I’m a loner, Dottie, a rebel).  This fits the bill! The Pine Crest Course is 4km of paddling (kayak for solos like me), 22km of mountain biking, then a 5km trail run.  Overall, it’s a lot for me to work up to… good thing it’s late in the season.  Still need that Mountain Bike though.

That’s the plan (so far).  Always subject to change as conflicts and chaos can arrive.  I’ll probably keep updating the table on a separate page of the blog as the year progresses.

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LinkoRama

Just checking in with a few interesting links I found over the week.

Caitlin over at Healthy Tipping Point is doing a series for people looking into triathlon.  Where I did a single post in a similar vein, a whole series is that more comprehensive and awesome.  No wonder that blog is so popular.

Meanwhile, Meghann at Meals and Miles drew my attention to an awesome relay that goes from Miami to Key West; a beautiful and fun part of the world to understate things.  It looks logistically difficult to put together, and that’s before you consider the mayhem and TSA blues it would take to get me and my family to Florida.  Still, maybe it’s one for the the Race Bucket List.

Finally, this guy had to go and ruin everything I thought I was doing right in my swim training.  I’ll probably mix in his advice with what I was already doing for some Frankenstein hybrid; that’s how I roll.

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Grab/Santa’s Bag of Stuff from the Web

With End-of-Year crunch and Christmas time gatherings, I don’t seem to have time for training or proper blog posts, but here’s a couple of discoveries from the web that I love and wanted to highlight with more than just a tweet.

My favourite triathlon blogger is Swim Bike Mom; a ‘regular jane’ with a job and family who also happens to be a half Ironman.  Her posts are always heartfelt and funny, but this one took the cake (I was actually jealous that I didn’t come up with the idea myself): Triathletes Are Babies.

My other big find was TriMuskoka:  a newly developed advocacy club for endurance athletes and endurance sport tourism in Huntsville and Lake of Bays, Muskoka. We are committed to athlete development and support for both local and visiting athletes. Our priority is to ensure that every club member achieves his or her goals.  

This area has been home to multiple triathlons in recent years, and I’ve noticed a steep increase in the number of people running and biking out on the roads (I’m sure people are swimming in the lakes too, I just haven’t spotted as many).  I’m really excited to see a formal club/community spring up from all the local enthusiasm, and the icing is that not only is the old Muskoka Chase Triathlon converting to an official WTC 5150 race, but Element Racing is putting on an off-road Triathlon called ‘The Grind’.

A final note: I’ve added an ‘About’ Page for quicker way to introduce myself to new readers.  I’m looking at making some more cosmetic changes on the blog (can’t wait till Blogger’s Dynamic Views allows widgets), I hope they aren’t detrimental.

Happy Holidays and/or Merry Christmas! 

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Race Bucket List

Bucket lists seem to be all the rage these days, but I’ve always found the idea daunting – how could I list everything I ever wanted to do?  My list would be something like: 1.) Live Forever and do everything.  Yet, if I focus on the idea that there are endurance/athletic events I would like to participate in, then maybe I can come up with something.

These races will be in the ‘Bucket List’/Pipe Dream category for one or more of the following reasons (in increasing order of likelihood):

  1. Conditioning.  I’m too far out of the shape I’d need to be in to complete
  2. Skill/Equipment.  One or more of the disciplines involves a skill I don’t know how to do
  3. Geography/Logistics:  Getting there with equipment won’t work while taking care of my family at the same time

All of these are fixable or will change with time, and so will the list as I find out new possibilities and opportunities… so let’s get started!

    • Pentathlon Des Neiges.  I was going to put the Ottawa Winterlude Triathlon here but I just happened to stumble across this event in IMPACT magazine. Both events include skating, cross-country skiing, and running, but the Pentathlon des Neiges adds snow-shoeing and cycling.  The latter discipline can be done with mountain or cyclo-cross bikes and actually takes place first (followed by a run, then ski, then skate, then snow-shoe).  There are short (9+4+6+6+4=29km) and long (15+6+9+9+6=45) distance races and it all takes place on the historic Plains of Abraham in Quebec City.

    • Men’s Health Urbanathlon What I like about this obstacle course is it seems focused on the fitness aspects needed to complete while leaving out the fear factor/bravado and quite frankly, mud involved in mud runs, Warrior Dashes and Spartan Races and the like.  If they bring one to the Toronto area, I’m as good as signed up, but I wouldn’t mind travelling to one of the fine cities that are currently offered when my schedule would allow it.
      • Ski 2 Sea what if a race included even more of the Canadian Multi-sport experience, enough to span all seasons?  And what if it was a journey with an end destination that was far away from the start?  What if you started on top of a mountain, downhill skied 2km, switched to cross-county skis for another 8km, jumped on a mountain bike and rode 28km out of the mountains only to hit the road with your road bike for 36km.  Now jump off the bike and run for nearly 15km and get in your canoe/kayak so you don’t get wet because there’s another 8km before the finish line.  It’s a lot of distance to cover, and the logistics are quite intimidating so people often do this as a team relay, but it seems like such a dream journey (and it is a net downhill, after all) that I can’t help but be tempted by this one.

        • Ironman 70.3 Laguna Phuket Thailand  I’m a little wary of iron or half-iron distance racing and it’s not only the daunting training schedule and training volume.  Races with the Ironman brand don’t exist in everybody’s back yard, and most people who have done one turn it into a trip with overnight accomodation, meals and maybe a little vacation time… if you’re going to drop that kind of cash and time, why not make it a more once-in-a-lifetime experience?  I love Thailand (from having honeymooned there) and I can’t picture a better destination for a ‘destination race’ than the land of smiles.  So far, you don’t even have to qualify!  This race took place this past Sunday, in fact.

        • Berlin Marathon   My wife and I both have a lot of friends and family in Germany, and Berlin has become a bit of a home away from home for us.  The Berlin marathon is also considered the fastest course there is so there’s my motivation to beat my previous, pitiful marathon time.  What really put this marathon into my dream file was a conversation I had with a gentleman who had done more than 50 marathons all over the world, but when I asked him his favourite, he said it was the Berlin Marathon, during the year of German re-unification.  He had run through part of the city that were inaccessible to him growing up, and attempting to leave those parts in the East had gotten people shot and killed over the course of the Cold War.  By the time he ran through the Brandenburg Gate (below), he was blind with tears in his eyes and needed the guidance of a friend simply to find his way through the pillars.  So many Big City Marathons have a lot of historical draw, but none like this, at least not to me.
        Runners going through the Brandenburg Gate
        • XTERRA Canada (Canadian Open Championship) I already like taking my running “off-road”,  and it’s my honest intention to get a mountain-bike for cross-training purposes and to participate in some non-navigational adventure races (like Logs, Rocks and Steel) and off-road triathlons.  From the latter category, XTERRA is pretty much the biggest and baddest.  This race takes place in beautiful Whistler, BC which only adds to the draw.  Until that time, maybe I’ll get to do the Mine Over Matter as my introduction to off-road tris…

        This list is long enough for now, but I’m always up for recommendations… dream big!

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          Orillia Sprint Triathlon Race Report

          I usually find other people’s race reports to be a little boring, so I’ll try to keep this short and succinct. This was my first time doing this particular race, and I only found out that the distances 3 weeks beforehand; a busy summer had me dropping from last year’s Olympic distance training levels to ‘Sprint’ levels (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) but Orillia upped the bike-run distance by 60% (33km bike, 7km)! I was under-trained, and being underprepared is going to be a bit of a theme in this story.


          An 8AM start time meant getting up a 4:45AM, and this doesn’t lead to a sharp mind by the time you’re at the race site; I hadn’t filled my water bottles, and been unable to get my bib pinned – but I had a saviour (via his mom): Trevor Clark. This young man finished 3rd in Junior Men, he’s friendly and incredibly polite, and obviously has a great future ahead of him. Most important to me, he had an extra race belt!


          To calm my pre-race nerves and fears, my wife gave me the following advice: “This is something you enjoy; go out there, and take your time, you’ll be sure to finish, and have fun doing it.” Words to live by, for sure. I hit the water with barely a minute to spare, and though Lake Couchiching is big enough to have some chop, the swim was smooth and simple, and sure enough, I was enjoying myself! The swim was over all too soon.  


          I found the bike course to have a lot of nice variety; country houses, farmer’s fields, shady treed lanes. There were a couple of times where I saw a turn coming, and rather than try to pass shortly before the bottleneck that would result, I kept my gear light, my cadence high and simply enjoyed the ride. It probably made my ride more efficient. There were some riders whose *bike budget clearly overpowers their swim ability* who passed me at the 8k, 15k and 25k (!) mark, but I was pleased to see an overall mix of athletes who were able to hang together (alternately passing and being passed) with bikes of various qualities and fitness levels of which to be proud. Climbing over Highway 11 near the 28km mark was nasty, as the hill was steep, and fatigue was starting to set in.


          Both of my transitions were not the fastest, but it didn’t bother me since I was treating this race with more of a ‘smell the roses’ attitude anyway. The run course was all road, so I opted for my cushioned Salomons rather than my Zoot racing flats, and suffered no problems. It felt like I had a conservative start with a strong finish for a negative split, but after reviewing the statistics that doesn’t seem to be the case. The course was nice and flat, and the final half kilometer was through the park, allowing for lots of cheering (Spectator tip: “Way to go” and “great job” are always welcome but “All downhill from here” is like music to my ears).


          Post race food is plentiful, and some of those snacks are right up my alley (the key ingredient is chocolate, people). World Endurance Canada still knows how to run an event (maybe more rack space though guys?).