Pic Spocket

I have been away from racing for several weeks, so I was eager to toe the start line at this late September race. I was hoping to have a good race before tackling the last training block of the season for Ironman Florida. The race seemed like a good idea when I signed up a few weeks before, but I have to say that the morning of, I was less sure: temperatures were quite chilly and water temperature was reported to a low 62 degrees F (16 deg C) on Friday.

Upon my arrival on the race site, worries quickly vanished though. Air temperature was a bit chilly, but the sun was getting out and it did not feel really bad. Also, the water temperature increased a couple of degrees during the weekend and the water was very inviting under the warm morning light: the river was very calm, mirror-like.

I was wondering if I would see people from Windsor-Essex there, but it seems a lot of the local athletes have closed their season already and/or shifted their focus to running for the fall races. It was nice to run into Mary Minutella (”Tri Like Mary“) that also crossed the border for the race. I was surprised to see her, knowing she did a 70.3 the weekend before. Turns out she does not want the season to end either hehe!

This race is on the same site as the 3D Motor City Triathlon which is in early June, so I knew the site (Belle Isle Island, between USA and CANADA on the Detroit River) from racing on it in 2010. Swim and Bike course were pretty much identical, but the run course was new.

Corinne unfortunately could not come. Not only I would have no pictures, but I would miss her support. Ironically, the only other Tri race she missed (I think), was Motor City at the same location.

For this race, you need to take a bit of time to make sure you set up your transitions properly, because there are 2: the swim site is in a different spot than the bike-to-run transition & Finish chute. So you have to make sure you have the correct equipment in each spot. T1 requires a bit more time as you need to make sure you put your swim equipment in a bag before leaving T1: race organizers later bring back your stuff to the finish area.

SWIM 1500m in 21:15, 8th overall

This is the fastest course I have been on. No, I do not think it was short…. And no, I did not start swimming like an Olympian haha! But the “out section” is close to the beach, protected from the current by the Marina. Once at the Marina, you venture out before making a turn back in West Direction, with a nice TAIL CURRENT. Pretty amazing to see at what speed the ground was moving under us in that section.

I had a very good swim, mostly because I started way right of the crowd. I actually enjoyed the cool water temperature with the wetsuit. I had a small moment after 200m where I was a bit out of breath, but the water was shallow allowing me a few dolphin jump to recompose myself and the resume my swim with a good rhythm. Before I long, I was on the beach. I was 8th overall out of the water, 1:45 behind the leader, not bad!

T1 in 1:07
Fastest transition of the race. Enough said…

Bike 36.5 km in 54:31 @ 40 km/h, 3rd overall
 290 Watts Normalized Power

The bike course on Belle-Isle is always fast, but is faster with a wind coming from the WEST. Unfortunately, the wind was in the opposite direction which means that we had a headwind on the part of the island with less wind protection. That also meant that the tailwind would not be as effective on the other side because of trees. Still, I was able to hold 36-37 km/h against the wind, and a nice 44-45 km/h speed on the other side. The bike course is a 4 loop affair, but comes a bit short from the official Olympic Distance.

In June 2010, I did the course with a Norm Power of 260 Watts. This time around, I pushed 290 Watts. I went pretty hard, but I was kind of alone without a sense of where the leaders were. If I would have been closer, I might have been a able to dig deeper and be closer to 300W.

On my last lap, I caught up with TREX buddy Shawn, with who I have a friendly competition. We are always battling on the bike together and finish within 1 or 2 positions. He was just back from the World Sprint Tri Champ in Beijing, so it was awesome to run into him. It actually gave me a second wind.

I thought I might have the fastest bike split, but looking at the results, I was 3rd over the ~100 participants. Eric Fernando, who I beat at the Tecumseh Tri had an awesome race, and he biked like a madman posting the fastest time. Pretty impressive knowing he did Ironman Muskoka (70.3) the weekend before.

T2 in 0:49
Top 5 times, within seconds of the fastest time so I was pretty efficient with my transitions.

RUN 10.125 km in 40:59, 13th overall

There was a bit of uncertainty before tackling the run. I have been battling with some pain (I hesitate to call them injuries) lately, and I ran very little and only slowly for many weeks now. So I was quite happy to see in the first kilometers that I was flying at a pretty good pace, very close to 4:03 min/km – much faster than last year (ran at an average of 4:16 pace at MotorCity Tri 2010).

I had no idea of my position since the Sprint Tri folks were already on the course when I got there. So when I finished the first loop and passed the MC booth, I was very happy to hear him say “Here’s Thierry Guertin from Windsor Canada, looking strong and currently running in 3rd position” – Whoo Hoo!! That gave me the boost I needed to push hard on the second loop too. I was able to hold my position and gain back 2 minutes on Eric Fernando in 2nd position, but he was still too far for me to be a menace.

After a last hard push, I crossed the finish line, very satisfied with my race.

Total Time: 1:58:39, about 12’ faster than last year on a similar course.
Rank= 3 / 100  PODIUM! Woo Hoo!

>Bike DATA
>Run DATA

>RESULTS

The race course differed slightly from an Olympic Distance. Here are my estimations based on my pace for each sport:

• Bike was short by 5:30
• Swim was fast by 2:15 ( tail current)
• Run was long by 0:30

So that would estimate my current OLY TRI time in 2:05:52 on a fast course.

3D always has a bunch of nice door prizes including wetsuits, which is pretty nice! I stayed for the beginning of the award ceremony to get my Trophy (my first!). 

I had to skip out shortly after though, as I needed to go back home, shower, and cross back the border to fly out to Germany for business. Big Sunday!

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Sport and Races, Our news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.