Triathlon Lac Leamy
It was great to race in Gatineau this past weekend – it will be my only hometown race of the year. It turned out to be a great event with lots of good competition and it was also nice to come away with a good result!
The start list was a little bare at the time I signed up, so I was surprised to see so many bikes in transition on race day. What I didn’t realize was that they had combined the junior elite race with the pro wave. That meant about 50 guys toed the line to start the race – including current junior Canadian champion Andrew Yorke.
The swim went well. I took the lead about 200m in and held it throughout the swim. I was hoping to swim fast enough to shake the pack up and open a gap on some of the weaker swimmers, while towing a small group along with me. But I must have been a little too enthusiastic because at one point I looked back and it seemed like I was opening a gap on everyone. At that point I slowed the pace down a notch – there was no sense wasting energy early on when I knew that I would need it in the run to outrun some of these fast guys!
I got on the bike first and had almost a full lap to get going before the others caught me. Once we got organized we started working very well together. David-James, Andrew, Jason Wilson and Mark Bechtel were all very strong on the bike and we managed to stay away from everyone else. We could see a second pack coming on strong, being led by Andrew Tanner. One more lap and they surely would have caught us! But that’s the beauty of the sprint race!
Off the bike everyone started out running really quickly. The first lap of two was pretty painful! By the end of the first lap it was clear that Jason and I had a bit of a battle developing – we spent most of the first lap running side by side. It seemed that every time I tried to pick up the pace he was able to respond. I knew that I didn’t it want to come down to a sprint against him since he looked pretty fast. So I tried my best to keep up a fast pace, hoping that eventually he would break. About mid way through the second lap I could hear that the footsteps behind me were suddenly about a meter further back. Finally I was able to open up a gap! Even though I was really hurting and really wanted to slow down, I did my best to keep up the pace and hoped that the gap would remain intact. Finally we rounded the last corner and I did my best finishing kick impression. It wasn’t pretty, but it was enough to secure 3rd place behind Andrew Yorke (1) and David-James Tache (2).
And now, after 6 races in 6 weeks it’s going to feel really good to take a weekend off! I will use weekend to prepare for the top race of the year – national championships in Drummdondville.
