Pic Spocket

Wednesday evening, it was the third and last installment of the T-REX triathlon serie in Brighton Michigan. I have done all races in 2009 and 2010 so far, and manage to improve my time at each iteration.

This was the second triathlon for baby Cadence Turner.

I won’t go too much in the details. It went very good, starting with a nice swim in the speedsuit. I was only slower than my last swim there by a few seconds.

On the bike, I still have a hard time believing it, but I battled the whole time against a 55 yrs old woman. The little thing was passing on every hill climb of the course, and I would passer her on the downhill and the flats. We kept doing that till the end of the course. I was so intrigued, I looked her up online when I returned home. It turns out she’s an ageless legend, Laura Sophiea,  multiple ironman age group world champion in KONA (World Championships) where she competed like a dozen times. No wonder I had a hard time! Here she is in the picture below, right in front of me.

I still posted the fastest bike split of the race, and also tied the bike course record for 2010 with a 29:32 time for the 19.2 km course with rolling hills.

I came out 3rd out of T2, and ran my fastest triathlon run split to life with a 4:06/km pace, but that was not enough to keep my position. Several fast runners wednesday evening and I ended up finishing 7th with a time of 1:05:08, a new PB on this course by about ~45 seconds. I did 3rd in my age group, getting some more goodies.

Craig also raced. He went back to his signature move, as shown below. After the finish line, we were posing with our “T-REX serie’s finisher beer mug”.

A funny thing: the event photographers had banners around the race site, including this one on the stage where Canadian Ted Lamont was playing. I was on the picture from a previous race this year.

I am very happy wit my progression. I raced 6 times on this course in 2009 and 2010 and managed to improve my time at each opportunity. Here are the time comparisons:

* Wetsuit Swim
** Speed Suit Swim

As usual, more pictures in the album below!

T-REX TRI 2010

Last Sunday, I raced the Tecumseh Triathlon (previously ‘Windsor Triathlon’). This race is one of the only races in Ontario offering prize money for the Elite division, so it attracts some very fast people. However, they make the Elite race start earlier and keep the results separate from the “Age Group” division. With the Elite guys out of the way, I was hoping to place really good (top 3?) in the non-elite race.

Thanks to my lovely wife for supporting me 100%, I have awesome pictures of the race to share once again She was cheering for me on the side lines.

Last year’s race was done in torrid conditions. Extremely hot and very humid. This year was similar in trend, but not as bad. I had quite a good race. I had a decent swim, but the last 200m were weird due to the shallow water. It was hard to figure out whether you should swim, jump or try running in it.

I had an awesome bike split: simply the fastest bike split of the non-Elite athletes for the day. The winner of the Elite race was a monster on the bike though, doing 7 minutes better than me on the bike alone. He’s one of the top triathlon time-trialist in Canada. That’s crazy fast!

I did OK in the run, but I got passed by a couple of “Masters” (over 40 years old) in the second half. I did not know at the time, but seems like there was prize money ($300) for the fastest Master of the day, so these guys were gunning for it. I wish I had a stronger fighting will so that I could respond more agressively when being taken over near the end of the race. I tend to give in rather than digging even deeper.

Total time (800m swim / 30km bike / 6km run) =  1:30:10, some 12.5 minutes faster than last year!! However, I did not place as high as I’d hope with a 5th position overall in the non-Elite race. This was very tight though with the winner only 73 seconds ahead of me! I am still quite happy with my race and my improvements.

>> RESULTS

Below: Charlotte Loaring, m y coach’s sister running the finish chute for her overall win in the non-Elite division. Then, posing with awards with her and Sean Ryan, the overall winner for the non-Elite division on the men’s side.

Craig also raced, cutting a good 10 minutes from last year’s time. Good job! Craig literally left sweat and blood on the field. Look at his pedal below, showing the blood from a cut on his foot from the swim that went through his bike shoes - that happens when you walk the lake bottom rather than swimming ;).

Baby Turner witnessed her first triathlon race. Craig actually replaced his signature move (push-ups) by a pit-stop to kiss Cadence during the run, under the amused eye of another athlete…

After the race, me and Corinne joined the Loaring pool & bbq party, where some of the LPC and Elite athletes met after the race.

Tecumseh Triathlon 2010