On Sunday I completed the Vancouver Subaru Sprint Triathlon. It was really fabulous. The weather was sunny yet not too hot (as we started early in the day) and the water was cold but not unbearable with a wet suit.
VANCOUVER SUBARU SPRINT RACE REPORT
Overall the race was well organized. It had a good course balance between hills and flats. It is only in it's second year since inception (OH) so there also wasn't a herd of people everywhere you go as you do in some triathlons which I found nice. It had less entrants than any other triathlon I've ever done. I would do this race again any day, so take my complaints below with a grain of salt.
I have two small complaints about this race but to be fair neither were the end of the world. I think both could be easily modified by the race directors.
The first is about aid stations. On the bike course there was only ONE aid station for sprinters (it was strategically located for the half iron athletes) but totally useless for sprinters. It was about 3/4ths of the way up the UBC hill and about 5km into the bike. If you put water on your bike you certainly wouldn't need this aid station. Truthfully, in a sprint, I think you should carry all your own nutrition but I like to use aid stations as insurance in case anything goes wrong.. you drop your water bottle, you can't get your gel open for some reason, you realize you made your gatorade too strong. The first and only aid station for the bike came far too early in the course.
The second little beef I have is also during the bike course. There were two parts going along Chancellor Boulevard where bikers had to go single file for a distance (maybe 1-2km either way). For some reason I was Lance-freaking-Armstrong during my race Sunday and I got caught behind some athletes going in each direction. I did lessen up on my pedaling a lot during that time and it was the annoyance that really bothered me. Nonetheless, it probably didn't affect my time that much, so whatever.
HOW I DID AT THE TRIATHLON:
Ok, so I didn't beat all of my friends. That's ok. I had fun and improved my time quite drastically (and evidently, so did they!).
Overall: 77th out of 118 athletes
Out of the girls in the race: 17/44
Out of my age group: 14/20
Swim: Rank: 28th
I've swam better races. I'm too calm during race swim starts I think. I slept like a baby the night before and really didn't stress about this race at all until about 20 seconds before the whistle blew. I went off course due to poor sighting and I'm just not aggressive enough I think.
Transition #1:
This is where it all fell apart for me. I have a video of me making like a 4-5 minute transition. I as just MUCKING around in there. You see me re-pinning on my number, having trouble yanking my shirt down, standing up my bike pump that fell.. just stupid things. I have no idea why I did them, but it seems obvious to me that if I want to chop time off my goal this would be an easy place to do it. I'll try and post the video later... it's almost embarrassing!
Bike: Rank: 70th (28.5km/hr average)
As I mentioned before. I may be related to Lance Armstrong. Best bike of my LIFE! It went by so quickly and I made up fantastic time. It's not a fast time compared to many bikers, but it was great for me! I actually wonder if I get Aerobars if that would help even more, haha! It was also a longer bike course than other sprints (6km more, totaling 26k)
Transition #2:
Hmm... I need to pay attention to where we leave transitions. Again I went the wrong way and had to go backwards to get out, haha.
Run: Rank #97: (5:46 min / km)
As always, my run was total crap when compared to everyone else. But, it was still a good run for me at 28:46. Last time I did a sprint it was 35 minutes so let's keep that in perspective!
Final Time:
1:37:58
You go girl, sounds like you made many improvements!
Was thinking about you racing on my run on Sunday!!
Congrats!!!
Nikki
Posted by: Nikki Marie Nagy | July 15, 2008 at 09:13 AM