Pic Spocket

It’s been a while since we’ve been back, but I just never had the time to write about our trip to France last September. My volume of training, few weeks away from Ironman Florida has just taken all free time away.

In the last days of August, we went to France to see Corinne’s family. She had not been in France to visit her family in over 3 years, 4 years for me. Soon after landing in Paris Saturday for our connection after an overnight flight, goodies were waiting for us to taste! Within 15′ on the ground, my mouth was full… hehe

We also had to try the famous “Macarons” from “La Durée”… Very tasty, but not necessarily worth their crazy price (couple Euros a piece if I remember correctly).

After our second flight, we landed in Lyon, before driving our rental car to Grenoble, where Corinne’s mother lives. The city is at the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains. Corinne was so very happy to see her familiar mountains when we got close. So much a change of scenery for her, when we move in the southern part of Canada, where everything is FLAT!

I was afraid training in France would be difficult as I did not want to burden Corinne with that, but opportunities presented naturally. The day after our arrival, the weather was just gorgeous and Corinne mother’s proposed that we go to “Les Bois Français”, and area with 5 artificial lakes dedicated to different activities, one of which was made as a beach and swim location. We arrived at lunch time, and had amazing Prosciutto Salads on the patio.

You know you are in Europe when you encounter these type of toilets… better work on your aim!!

The lake was perfect for swim training: about 120y on the narrow side, and 300y on the long side. Not many people were venturing outside the buoy line, and pretty much all of the people outside would cross the lake on the narrow side. I put my swim cap, swim goggle, and tackled the lake crossings on the long side. In addition to 2 short crossings, I did 6 crossings on the long side for a total of 1800y. Not bad for an unexpected open water swim practice!

Here is a picture of one of the other lakes, showing a perfect reflection on this beautiful day.

The Sunday evening, we met with Helen, a good friend of Corinne, for nice diner.

Monday, we took the road for the Alps, to go visit Corinne’s sister, Fred and the kids. This would be a surprise for the kids as our visit to France was kept “secret”. Few pictures of the drive to the Savoie area…

The kids changed so much that I barely recognized them (I did not see them in over 4 years… amazing how fast they grow!!!). Corinne has 2 nieces and one nephew: Deborah, Wynona & David. Wynona seemed quite happy to see us..

The light emitted by the setting sun just makes the whole area beautiful..

Tuesday morning, I eloped on my rental bike for pretty much the nicest ride I have ever done: Col du Petit St- Bernard before crossing in Italy. I have made a detailed post with many pictures about this ride. (LINK : “Epic Riding in France #1 : Little Saint Bernard Pass“)

As soon as I got back, took a shower, changed, and the whole team jumped in the cars to go the same route I just did with the intention to go have a late lunch in Italy, in the village of La Thuile, a big ski station in the winter. Pretty area!

The plan was to eat at “La Grotta” restaurant, but we arrived 10 min too late: the kitchen had just closed (near 2 pm). That really sucked because it looked AWESOME! I felt bad a bit because I did come back from my ride a bit later that I said I would…

Still, we had a very nice lunch on the terrace of that nice hotel, just by river.

Walked a bit though town…

And got desserts (I had TWO! Ice cream AND cake hehe!) from one of the local bakery. Mioum.. We ate our sweets outside.

Of course, on the way back, we stopped at the border between France and Italy to take many pictures. This time around, I had the big camera, so I could take better pictures than I could when I was on my bike ride with the pocket camera.

Wednesday morning, we went for a walk in Bourg St-Maurice’s nature park just at the bottom of the hill from Corinne’s sister house. Kids had fun on the rotating swing.

The afternoon, we all went to Val D’Isere where Carole (Corinne’s sister) works to try the new swimming and recreation complex OXYGEN they just built there. Again, nice opportunity to log some training while having fun and staying with the family during our vacation. They had a nice 25m lap pool, a lazy river, a gym, hot tub, sauna, steam room, cold showers, etc. It’s very upscale. The French National Swimming team was actually in town, doing a training camp at that place. I am just happy I came out of the lap pool before they arrived.

The car trip to Val let me evaluate the route that I would use the following day for my bike ride. It was not recommended because traffic is much higher in this area, there’s a bunch of dark tunnels and cars are driving fast. But after driving it, I thought it would be OK if I had a tail light on my bike. So I bough one when we were back in town.

We closed the day with an amazing meal typical of the area: Cheese Fondue! You dip bread chunks in a special mix of melted cheese, white wine and garlic. Awesome. Pretty heavy meal though!! Hehe!

Thursday morning, I did my second EPIC bike ride: Val d’Isere and Col de l’Iseran. Again, I made a long post about this ride with many pictures.. (Link : “Epic Riding in France #2 : “Col de l’Iseran” Pass“)

I came back late once again from my ride, just in time to have lunch with everybody and sign for Deborah’ birthday!

In late afternoon, Corinne and me left using treacherous but beautiful mountain roads for the next stop on our trip: the area of Chamonix Mont Blanc. The road was SUPERB, even if scary at times: small narrow roads on the flank of mountains, many of which are not even wide enough for 2 cars to cross. Lots of sharp blind turns, crazy descents and climbs. The pictures below are from the wide opened areas we also encountered.

Saw some goats on our way…

Cows and nice landscapes…

In Chamonix, we met Corinne’s mother and her boyfriend in the evening, just in time for a nice meal outdoor. MORE CHEESE! Look at this… This is out meal for two: Raclette. A Huge piece of smelly cheese in a special rotating fixture so that you can bring it really close to a heating element, before swiveling back to scrape the melted cheese onto baked potatoes and delicatessen meats. Very typical from the area.

To be honest, we were saturated and feeling pretty heavy afterwards from all the recent rich meals.

Rather than staying in your typical hotel, Corinne found us online a very charming room in a small cottage (kind of a bed and breakfast place): CHALET SUOMI. The room was all pine wood.

The view from the windows and the balcony was even better: it gave on the Month Blanc. Here it is, a bit before sunset, then a bit after sunrise the following morning.

Chamonix is a SUPERB little town, right by the “Massif du Mont Blanc“, a mountain range of the western Alps. Mont Blanc is the highest summit of the Alps, sitting at 4810m, with eternal snow on the top. To see it from up close, we can go up to the “Aiguille du Midi” using 2 cable cars, up to 3842m of elevation. After a big breakfast on Friday morning, we headed to town to go up there.

The second cable car you take looks kind of scary…. 2867m long, 1470 m of elevation gain, BUT NO PYLONS between the start and end point!!!! You really hope that cable does not break!

Up there, the view is STUNNING. I took hundreds of pictures.

For the adventure lovers, you can go up on your own hiking/climbing. We saw many alpinists out there.

An ice tunnel took you to one of the hiking path…

The place was perfect for portraits with nice backgrounds.

Friday afternoon, we got back down to Chamonix, and just took a nice walk downtown. Beautiful area.

We drove back to Grenoble in the evening, and passed our last day in France meeting with friends that we have not seen in a LONG time! We had an awesome time with them as usual.

Many pictures in the online album. Here are the ‘general pictures’ and ‘chamonix/Mt Blanc’ albums…

France 2011: Misc.	Chamonix Mt Blanc

My first ride was on the Tuesday (see previous article). One route I had the intention to ride during the trip was the “Col de l’Iseran“. This is the highest paved mountain pass in the Alps. From our ‘home base’, it meant riding to Val d’Isere first from Seez. Problem is that according to our hosts, this route was not the safest: more traffic at high speed, narrow roads with blind curves and pretty dark tunnels.The Wednesday, we actually went by car to Val d’Isere and I carefully surveyed the route. It actually did not seem that bad for the most part. Tunnels would be the most dangerous part. The landscape was so nice on this part of the car ride that I decided I had to go for it anyway. So I asked the team to stop at a bike store on the way back, so I could buy a flashing tail light to make myself more visible the following day. My concern was mostly the tunnels at this point.

Thursday morning, I hit the road even earlier than Tuesday after a night of complete heavy rain fall. I was lucky: it stopped early in the morning. I started a bit after 8 am, with very little day light due to the mountains and the cloud cover. There was a lot of fog in the air.

Still, the road was beautiful even in mixed weather conditions. I had to be careful though because the road was still wet and I had an early warning. I had to go down to town before turning in the direction of Val d’Isere and in one of the switchbacks, I actually locked the rear wheel sending me in a small drifting motion just because I put a bit much pressure on the break. That woke me up… and made me more cautious for the rest of the ride regarding the use of the brakes.

Before long, I was done with the descent and started tackling the climbing part of the ride. That would be another ‘climb for half the ride, descent for half the ride’ type route once again. While I was impressed by the continuous climbing of Tuesday, it was worse this time with the average grade being higher (6-11% almost non-stop) and my bike did not seem to be geared for a spinner like me. So I used a LOT of the bigger gear. I also had to resort to a standing climb position for most of the first half of the ride.

Soon, I was hitting the smaller tunnels and ‘avalanche shelters’.

There was a sign a bit before Tignes giving timing of the Tour de France riders for the ‘Climb of Tignes’. They also had the now familiar kilometer-markers for the various climbs. Nice.

I started the timer, but it turns out the route I was following was not the same. They had to turn at the dam, and I did not. A bit later, I was at the Tignes Dam. The original village of Tignes is actually now in the bottom of the water, in the valley. They flooded it when they built the dam. The area is superb and the water has that blue-green color.

I stopped there and made several more pictures. Then I was off the Val d’Isere, the ski resort that sits at 1850m. Just before arriving though, there was a couple of longer tunnels, one as long as 800m without any lights in it. I really wish I had a headlight because I was feeling a bit uneasy in pitch black. I could not even see the road for craks or pot holes. But everything went OK and I arrived in Val soon after. Very nice village. At that point, I already had about 1000m of elevation gain done.

They had the pure water from the mountain flowing in fountains near the road, pretty useful to fill water bottles.

Then I was off to the Col, still 15-20km away. A bit out of the village, I passed near this awesome field in a hill, full of sheep. Then, I crossed this beautiful stream before hitting the serious climbing section, back to switchbaks turns on the side of an abrupt cliff.

I told the family I would be back around noon, and to make that happen I had to turn around at 10h45 max to make it. When the time came, I was still 10km away from the summit. I thought it would be stupid to go all that way and turn around so close to the top, so I continued, knowing that I could be in trouble. Lucky enough, they all understood. In the middle of that climb, I could see Val d’Isere already very small in the bottom of the valley.

The last 2 km were particularly tough. Temperature was colder and I do not know if it’s fatigue or the oxygen in the air getting rare at this altitude, but I started breathing pretty hard under the effort. Just when I was about to reach the top and feel proud of myself, I see this group of girl teenagers climbing in roller-skis (skis with wheels for summer training) about to reach the same summit?! Turns out it was the French Junior Cross Country Ski Team or something training in altitude. Their coach was waiting on the top.
Still, an awesome feeling to reach the top.

I got cold on the top of the pass, even after I put back all the layers I had with me. It was now time to hit the descent. To be honest, I was really not big in my shoes.. a bit scared actually, descending. The route was very technical with crazy curves flanked by a cliff, bike accelerating naturally due to the slope and I had to be careful on how I modulated the brakes to avoid locking the wheels on the humid asphalt. Not helping matters, I got so cold at speed that I started shivering with my whole body and teeth chattering (really!). Not easy to negotiate the technical route in this condition! When I got back to the outskirt of Val d’Isere, I actually went in a trash can to find a newspaper that I used under my jacket as an additional layer for the rest of the descent. It actually worked great to cut the wind and retain body heat.

I stopped one last time at the Dam of Tignes to take a few pictures under the better light.

Then it was time to enjoy the more gentle downhill route back to my home base.

Click the link below to see the map and all the data recorded during the ride.

Total elevation gain for the ride: over 2200m.

As usual, more pictures (and larger versions) in the album below.

Done! Leamington is not my “Daemon Race” anymore. That was far from my best race, but I had a good race overall. 

I’ll keep this report short: no sense in passing 2 hours writing about a race that lasted about an hour hehe!

I got a bit afraid when 24 hours before the race, I started to deal with a pretty important neck strain. It was not all gone before race day, but it was manageable. I just had to breathe mostly on the one side while swimming.

SWIM: I had a bad swim once again (short course). Lots of seaweed, sun rise in our eyes after the first turn and surprisingly a fair amount of chop for a marina swim. Somehow, I could not hold my stroke once again, and ended up stopping a lot and doing a fair amount of side stroking. What’s important is that I did not panic this time and kept my energy for the following tasks at hand..  Somehow I kept moving and my swim time was not too bad considering how unfocused it was…

I came out of the water in 15th position according to the result sheet.

My first transition was the worst in a year. Somehow, my wetsuit was stuck and could not get the top off on my way to my bike. Lost some precious seconds there.

BIKE: strong head winds on the way out. In the first few minutes, I was passing tons of people, and I was thinking “Jeez… my swim was REALLY horrible”… Until a realized many of them were in the Duathlon race (no swimming). I was good at avoiding pushing too hard on the way out even if the average speed was painfully slow (low 30’s km/h) knowing that things would change after the turn around. I was not pushing as much power as I was hoping for in the first 3 km (not as high as the previous Wednesday evening race) but it gradually came back to me.

For one section of the course, we had to deal with some of the strongest cross winds I have seen so far. My steering had a mind of its own (aero wheels) and the most annoying thing was my aero helmet jerking my head side-to-side: nothing to help the neck strain! If I was to do that race again, I would use the regular helmet.

At the turn around, it was a good opportunity to see who was in front of me even if I could not see who was doing the TRI and who was doing the DU. Still, altogether I was in the top 7 at mid point (turns out I was 4th in the TRI race). It’s at that point that I saw fellow LPC’er Ryan Power (REV3 Buddy - his race report for Leamington is here) within reach. To be honest, that gave me a second wind as I made it a mission to catch up with him, therefore motivation to push hard. Now with the tailwind, we were now reaching between 45 and 50 km/h, restoring the average speed to a better number.

I caught up with Ryan just a few km’s before T2 which I entered first, but Ryan restored the proper order by beating me out of transition. 

Average power for the ride was a good 10-15 watts lower than Wednesday at TREX1 (ended up at ~290 watts), average speed of 38.7 km/h and I had the second fastest bike split of the race (about 30 seconds slower than Josh, including transition times).

By the way… this really sucks to have [T1+Bike+T2] in the same split. And most TRI races in Essex County are like that. I really wish they put timing mats on the Bike OUT/IN gate to get more details and to not have our published average speed artificially reduced due to transition times. Hopefully, this will change. All races I do in Michigan (Running Fit, 3 Disciplines, Element Events, Epic Races) have this. Come on, Essex!

RUN: Started the run on Ryan’s heels. I pushed hard and I was surprised to still see Ryan not too far in front of me at the first of 3 turn arounds but as soon as he got there, he got his second speed back and he was goooone!

I suffer so much in these runs (VERY HIGH level of discomfort) pushing my body to its limit.. In the first 2 km, I was just thinking this would be the last Sprint race I would do… Ever. After ~2km, I was feeling a bit better Of course, 15′ after the race I was ready to sign up for another one…

I kept running as hard as I could, knowing that the run is one of my weaknesses and hoping I could hold onto my position, whatever it was. I did: nobody passed me. I caught up with LPC athlete Dawn on her loop #1 during my second loop, right before getting to where Corinne was setup to take pictures. Dawn has been kikcing butt in the local womens races (RUN and TRI) lately. I told Dawn about the upcoming photo OP and she cracked one of her awesome smiles to the camera Dawn would end up in a brutal fight for the win and had an awesome race.

I am still looking for that elusive sub 20′ Sprint run split.. I was on pace according to my Garmin till the end, but was not too happy when I saw my final time of 21′. Turns out the course was a bit long (0.25 to 0.4 km) otherwise I had my goal. Oh well.. next time

>>RESULTS

I have to be pretty happy with the result: 4th overall (after 3 fast kids - 2 of them with their name on their uniform: alwaysa bit intimidating hehe!)

First in my Age Group. I therefore qualified to represent Canada in the 2012 Age Group World Championship in New Zealand if I would be interested (which I am not - but cool anyway).

Still, I was 4′ behind the winner, a HUGE gap! Some people are just in a class apart. 

Many from our team (LPC) were participating, it was awesome to see everybody. Coach James and Charlotte were on site to cheer and support - Thanks!! Here’s a group picture of the people we could find for the group shot…

My mini-album:

TOMATOMAN 2011

Corinne has posted the bigger album on Facebook.

Good beginning of season so far: a good race at REV 3 Half Iron distance, and top4 overall (or better) in three local Sprint Races. Now I take a break of racing… Only 5 weeks to go before Ironman Lake Placid, so I will concentrate on getting ready for that.

I really like the TREX sprint triathlon Serie in Brighton Michigan. It’s 3 races during the summer, wednesday evenings, 1 month apart, on the same course. It’s an awesome benchmarking tool to see your progression. It’s pretty popular: 400-500 people show up, surprisingly for a weekday race. The event is well put on, the park and the course are superb and there’s good ambiance with Canadian rocker Ted Lamont playing music.

I have raced the complete serie in 2009 & 2010 for a total of 6 times. As reported last August, I managed to improve on my previous time at every race so far, which is nice! I was hoping to do the same once again. The time to beat was 1:05:08.

Of course, Craig was also doing the race, coming with Tracy and baby Cadence. Here’s a few shots of our youngest fan…

Corinne was there to cheer us on as well, and take these awesome pictures once again!

After setting up and warming up, it was time to line to the start. I was leaving with the first wave, reserved for the faster people. They called it the “Elite” wave, but the term was used loosely here.

1 minute before the start, I see Corinne and Tracy screaming from the beach “Snaaaaake!”. I thought they were joking, trying to make me swim faster (snakes are my phobia). I thought it could be funny, but that they were a bit mean to try to play me like that. Turns out, there was a real one!!!

No sweat though, this was a ridiculously small one, nothing like that beast I saw in Orlando last spring after a training swim.

And off we were..

SWIM 800m in 12:29 (COURSE PB!) with Wetsuit

(I am the black arm in the air, closer to the camera, gold lenses).

Seems like I had a good swim start. According to these photos, it even seems I was in the lead, but I think the camera angle is distorting reality a bit here. Still, I was in the front. But in the middle of the course, things went south a bit. It got a bit rough (lots of contacts), my navigation sucked doing zigzags, and stopped my swim stroke many times.  It’s another one case of  “bad swim but with a decent time”. Of course, the fact that we had a wetsuit (all 3 2010 races were without wetsuit, as water temperature was too high) helped!

Look at the guy below… Don’t let the huge sideburns fool you: he was first out of the water! I ran into him at the line for the toilets before the race, remembered him from Island Lake Tri a few weeks ago and chatted with him. Before too long, the whole line was involved, laughing, when he explained the sideburns were his secret to go faster in the water hehe! One of the next guys was Shawn, one of the guys I often end up fighting with for position at the end of these races. I won some, he won some.

I came out of the water in ~12th position of the ‘Elite” wave . Not too bad.

T1 in 44 seconds
Pretty good, since it includes removing the wetsuit! Grabbed my bike, then ran for my life

The mount line in on the grass there out of T1, and learned from past experience that you better run all the way to the paved path before jumping on the bike, which I did, passing a few people in the process, including arch enemy Shawn hehe!

Bike ~19 km in 28:53 (Course PB)
Norm Power  = 296 watts ; Average Power = 300 watts (w/o zeros)
>>GARMIN DATA

I had my best bike split ever. I held above 300 watts average (w/o zeros) for the whole ride, at ~304 watts. The average went down at the end of the course, because of the slow section of running path.

The whole time, I fought with Shawn, exchanging positions (but falling behind by 3-4 bike lengths every time to stay legal). I knew I was stronger on the bike this year, so I thought I would leave him in the dust this year… turns out he’s been training too! He had that annoyingly noisy rear disc wheel that does this “woohoohoohoo…” sound so you hear him coming everytime he’s about to pass you (I SO WANT ONE OF THESE! hehe!). I still did most of it in the front.

Within a few minutes on the course, we passed all the fastest swimmers, and we were 2nd and 3rd. By 15 km, the first guy which seemed to be from some university’s Tri Team, was in sight with the distance closing. We were getting really close but we ran out of course before we could catch him and lead the race.

We posted the fastest bike split time recorded on this course since 2008. There is one faster time in the inaugural TREX race in 2008, posted by Shawm, and my guess is that the course was different (shorter) then.

Here are me and Shawn arriving at the turn back to transition.

Fear not, I passed him again in one of the fastest flying dismount I have ever done (on grass please!) to beat him to the timing mat.

T2 in 27 seconds (Course PB again! Woo hoo!)

I had a very fast transition. It helps that for sprint races, I have these Zoot shoes that I can wear without socks. I just “body glide” the cr*p out of them for easy entry. I came out of T2 within 3 feet of the race leader. But it turns out I was no match for him on the run, and he put distance right away.

Run 5 km in 20:11 (Course PB! Again…)
pace: 4 min 02 secs (Garmin had me at 3:58 with a 5.1km distance)
>>>GARMIN DATA

Here is the young race leader… then me coming out… Then Shawn on my heels.

For the first half of the course, the only thing I could think about was the pain and the strong desire to start walking. I almost did it. But I held on.

I really wanted to go sub 20′ on this course, and I managed to hold 3:58 pace on my Garmin watch, which would give it to me. But either the course was a bit long, or my watch was slightly off so I missed my target.

There’s a few loops and out-and-backs on the course, so you can see your competition pretty well. I was happy that I seemed to gain space on Shawn behind me. He did outran me at least once last year. So I was safe there. Forget about Mr First: he was just increasing his gap with me, and set a new course record. I am no match for these 17-18′ 5k runners (in a TRI!!!). But I could also see “Roman” coming up on me. Last year, he was passing me every time in the first km of the run. I try to hold on my position, but between 3 and 4 km he passed me in such a way that trying to tag along was not even an option. So I lost my second position. At least, he is now passing me at the end of the course. Give me another year or 2…

So… I obliterated my TREX course record. Last year’s best time was 1:05:08, and as seen above I was already ahead with eating cookies at 1:04.

Final Result: 1:02:46  | 3/425 overall | 1st Age Group
>>> Official Results Here

PODIUM! First ever 3rd position at a T-REX race (did 4th once last year).

Here is my split progression over the last 6 times I raced this course.. Interesting… and it will be hard to beat next time!

* Wetsuit Swim
** Speed Suit Swim

Craig also did an awesome race, beating his previous best time by 3 minutes or so.

Here’s what NOT TO DO in transition:

I did my transition in 44 seconds including wetsuit removal. Craig did his transition in 1:46 and he had no wetsuits to remove!!! I really need to force him to practice those! And he is the one laughing at me for practicing to quickly putting on my helmet….

Of course, he did his signature move, like 100m before the finishing line.

At least he did not get passed (by one of his wave anyway) doing so. Although looking at results, he definitely lost a few positions. Still, he did pretty good at 136/425 finish for the small amount of training he does (new baby… not that he was training that much before the baby haha!)

As usual, larger and better pictures in the album below.

2011 Triceratopr Tri

For my Ironman preparation, I needed a half-Ironman race (70.3 miles) near the beginning of June, ideally on hilly terrain.  Since last year, I really wanted to try one of the event organized by REV3: they are growing fast and offering a good alternative to WTC’s Ironman brand in the sense of ‘big event experience’. WTC is not gaining in popularity these days: it’s clear that their only interest is capitalizing on the name and making as much profit as possible over the athletes. REV3 is doing the things it needs to do to gain momentum & popularity: offering the best athlete experience possible, not just for pros but also for Age Groupers. They are also known to offer some pretty nice race swag.

‘REV3 Quassy’ in Connecticut fit the bill perfectly: tough and hilly course representative of IMLP. Quassy is about an 11-12 hours drive from Windsor though, so for months I was looking for somebody to do the trip with. Corinne could not come: not enough vacation, and she can only handle so much sport-related trips in one year, and I pushed the envelope a bit far this year. I was about to give up and do one of the 2 smaller local 70.3 races in Michigan that weekend when LPC Pro Triathlete Ryan Power contacted me about the race. He was interested in doing the REV3 Olympic distance happening the day before the feature 70.3 race. So we teamed up and planned the trip!  His race report is actually already online on his blog: REV3 CRAZY. This is a pretty high profile event attracting many pros because of the big prize purse. They also have a big purse for age groupers participating in the serie, so they attract some pretty fast non-pro athletes as well. So competition is pretty fierce.

We left on the Thursday afternoon, breaking the trip to Middlebury CT over 2 days.  Some trip related statistics (for the whole adventure between the 2 of us):

Here’s some of my stuff ready to go packed the night before departure, and the trunk pretty full of equipment. I had scared Ryan of limited space in the car (hehe!) so he timidly showed up with one and only bag haha! However, it was pretty amazing how much stuff he had in there, as shown by the mess on his side of the room once unpacked!

We actually crashed 2/3 of the way somewhere in Pennsylvania. We had a small bike ride to do on the Friday, which we did while over there. The hotel was strangely located though, so we had the choice between “Steep Hill Neighborhood”, or entering the grounds of the local airport. We did a bit of both, speeding through the airport access loop which was actually pretty cool hehe! Imagine dropping somebody at the airport, then being passed by 2 guys speeding on TRI bikes with aero wheels & helmets. We did get a few puzzled looks by the very few bystanders. We did not hang there too long to stay out of trouble.

As we got closer to our destination, the scenery changed drastically: lots of greens, and no flat areas, just hills one after another.  It’s a very nice area actually.

Finished the Drive on Friday morning and got on site for packet pickup and swim practice. The weather was cool and sunny but quite windy, and the water was awesome even if it was showing white caps that afternoon (wind)!! The water of the lake was very clear and would be very calm for both of our races. Very nice venue.

Packet pickup was smooth on the Friday afternoon, with very little wait. Ryan had the royal treatment, being a PRO. He got questioned everywhere he got though about why he did not do the race on Sunday since it was the one with prize money. But the Olympic is what he came to do, preparing for one of his top priority 70.3 race in 3 weeks. He had a dedicated spot in transition in the pro area, with a huge banner with his picture. Cool! He even got to keep the banner.

I was wondering how the trip would go since I have never travelled and shared accommodations with another athlete for the purpose of a race, let alone the generation difference, but I think it worked pretty well Since we were both there for the same reason, all activities/schedules/restaurants choices were aimed to be compatible with our upcoming races His race being held on Saturday and mine on Sunday had pros and cons. On the positive side: On race day, the other was there to offer any support needed, carry equipment, take pictures, cheer, etc : Nice! On the other hand, it meant that we both had to wake up before sunrise on both days and our moods were shifted by 1 day. By the time I was getting real nervous for my race and needed to be cautious with my nutrition, he was all relieved that his race was done and was ready to eat treats hehe!

I made sure to harass him with a lot of questions, trying to pick his brain and understand better the life of a Pro Triathlete. Turns out they do not necessarily train that much more (in duration) than a very dedicated age grouper training for long course. However, a much larger portion of their training is done at high intensity and they must be masters of recovery. That’s what is more difficult to do for us age groupers: training wraps around work, family and general chores (the ones you have time to get to).. By the time you are done, sleep and repeat. No time for power naps.

Saturday

So I was the ‘support team’ for Saturday’s race and watched Ryan. I was excited ‘cause I never get to watch races. His bike computer went dead while he setup his bike in transition, so I tried to slap on my Garmin Edge 500 with the limited tools we had, which I got done. Somehow, it did not pair completely with his power meter and we did not realize it at the time. It’s hard to pair with a device on a race site just because there are just many units in the area. I wish I thought of using my spare wheel I had with me: it was already paired with the computer. So he ended up racing without power data. He had a very good race for his first one this season.  He started the swim in the second wave, but still was within the first athletes out of the lake, a swim PR for him. Details of his race are on his blog. I got a few decent shots of him while racing. I tried to scream at him a few times to get his attention, but he was so focused on his race that he never really saw me. Tunnel Vision.

Olympic Distance Swim…

Bike.. Ryan flying back in T2 in the second picture…

Run… The last mile was up a hill and it happened that there was an overpass right above the running path. I set myself there for an interesting viewpoint. When Ryan came, I screamed at him hoping for a look at the camera… but the kid was too focused on racing and did not notice anything… go figure hehe!

Turns out that watching a race is pretty tiring and maybe even a bit stressful when you are trying to run from a spot to another constantly, trying to get good pictures of the race. Ryan thought the same thing by Sunday’s end (of course, he did swim and biked too that day).  I have a new respect for my wife, which does that at every race I do!

After dropping off Ryan at the hotel to cool down and relax, I was back at the race site for another swim practice, one last bike ride to make sure everything is in working order, keep the legs moving, and drop my bike in transition as required. By the day’s end, I was pretty tired and started to wonder if I did not pass too much time on my legs running around, the day before my race! At least I got to bed REALLY early by my standards (10 pm) and managed to fall asleep before too long.

RACE REPORT - SUNDAY

Clock went off at 4h30am. I had something close to my usual 70.3 breakfast: bagel with Peanut Butter & one bottle of ‘Ensure’ meal replacement. Filled my water bottles and nutrition mixes, packed the gear and we headed out to the race site which we got to for the opening of the transition area at 5h15 am. This helped avoiding the long waiting line of cars and gave us on-site parking really close to the transition area. The car could then be used as our on-site locker Thanks to Ryan, I have some pictures to share of my race!

My location in the transition area was simply the best! Very easy to find as I was the last bike in the row right in front of the corner of the “PRO” area. I did not even have to “walk my transition” 2-3 times like I usually do before a race to memorize the flow in transition.

Transition setup, ‘fake tattoo numbers’ (which did not hold up the swim!).

Few bathroom stops, then it was time to suit up and head out to the beach for the swim warm up. The lake was very calm, and the water temperature was nice and comfortable. Before too long, the pros were starting: Mens, followed by Women. After the women pros, they made us wait 10’ to give them a good head start. I was in the first wave, Men 35-39, which was pretty nice. In some places, they make the faster age groups start last which is kind of stupid since we end up with a very busy swim course and dodging people for the entire duration of the race on the bike and run course. The first turn seemd kind of really far from the beach… Second picture is the pro race start!

SWIM 1.9 km in 29:33 (70.3-PR!)
10th place in M35-39 / 128
35th place in Overall Mens / 625  (non pros)

Once again, one of my best race swims (my best in this case!)  is in a ‘long course’ event! Somehow, I often screw up in short-course, but I guess I am so scared about the 70.3 distance that I really start easy and build into a good rhythm, leading to a good swim.

My plan was simple: start to the side, out of trouble, at MOD intensity for ~100m then build to a higher effort while ‘natural selection’ occurs and the field becomes sparser. Before too long, there were not many people around me and I could go ahead and navigate using the most efficient path. I was able to draft a bit on the first leg, but a bit later there was just nobody around me to draft from: a handful of swimmers way ahead of me, and the mass behind me. After turning the first corner (which was F-A-R!), we got the rising sun in our eyes, which made navigation difficult, but I mostly aimed for the splashing in front of me in the distance. It was nice to turn the second corner and be able to see normally again. I had good rhythm, and aimed for the SWIM IN portal.

My swimming came a long way this winter as I came out of the water 10th of my age group (and of my wave) in under 30’ - actually made spectators laugh when I removed the top of my wetsuit, looked at my watch, saw my time and raised my hands in the air as a sign of victory: not only I made a PR on the swim, but I met another of my 2011 goals by having a sub 30’ HIM swim. I had the 35th fastest swim split over 625 non-pro men that day. How freaking amazing is that? If somebody would have told me that 2 years ago, when I was barely able to cross 1 pool length, I would not have believed them…

T1 in 1:41

There was some distance to cover, so my transition is not as slow as the time suggests. I did lose a good 10-15 seconds going back to volunteers for water, which was stupid because I had a bottle in transition beside my bike. In a matter of seconds, I was passing the mount line with my bike, doing a decent flying mount…

BIKE 90 km in 2:39:06  (34.0 km/h avg)
MEN | started the bike in 32nd position (gained 3 spots in T1), ended in 14/625
AG M35-39 | started the bike in 10th position, ended in 3/128
>> GARMIN DATA
Normalized Power = 268 Watts
Best:   30” = 395w | 20’ = 298w | 30’ = 293w | 60’ = 277w | 90’ = 274w

There was simply no flat area on this course. You were either going up, or down. What changed was the grade. I got a few times above 70 km/h going down hills, which I have to say does not make me really comfortable especially when the road surface is not top notch and there’s a curve in the bottom…

Course was superb and the scenery was something! The course was passing by a lot of lakes or following rivers. The sun was out, but temperature was not too warm and there was a lot of shade: perfect racing conditions.

My split involves zero drafting (even legal) simply because I was pretty much alone the whole time (I was in the first wave). I did get pass by a few M30-34 towards the end, which left after us (these guys were machines!!!)

My coach had recommended a very conservative race plan at ~250-255w average for this course knowing that not only the bike course was challenging, but also the run would be a tough one.

I have to say, I completely went overboard on the first section of the course. In theory, the power I can hold for 1 hour (FTP) is roughly 300 Watts.  After 20 km, my Average Power was at 288 watts, and I had passed 3 pro female already (and they left 10′ before us). That should have been a hint…

I kind of realized I was pacing this like an idiot, but I remembered (as a joke to myself, on the bike) that the coach said: “if you see you do something different than everybody else, you probably are doing something good”… hehehe! But I guess he meant it the other way around…

I tried to reduce my enthusiast, but after 50 km, average power was still around 278w and I lost count of how many Pro Women I passed (over 10) which never happened to me before, at least not that early on the bike.

At 60 km, started to feel quads giving up at times – a pretty bad sign - and started to swear at myself for pacing this course so badly. I had the elevation chart stuck on top of my aerobottle (best idea ever!!! I liked knowing where I was and what was coming…) and know that most of the climbing was done. I still intentionally backed off a quite a bit on the power output for the rest of the course in a weak attempt to save the run (perhaps too much in retrospect).

By the way, my gearing was P-E-R-F-E-C-T for this course. I was spinning my way up comfortably even decently graded hills, drinking my nutrition while a few people around me were standing, grinding like mad-(wo)men. I very rarely had to stand up. Di2 worked flawlessly too providing reliable shifting and no chain drop (which could be catastrophic in my setup).

Here I am getting close to T2… As usual, I am pretty aware of my surroundings, spot Ryan with the camera, and waved him off

Carefully got off the bike for T2, knowing that legs were trashed…. I thought the chances of a decent run were shot, especially knowing the course ahead of me… Actually even wondered if I would be able to finish.

T2 in 1:29

Nothing special to report here… I was pretty quick out of T2 to tackle the run course. There are faster T2 times out there, but the top of my age group were posting similar times.

RUN 21.1 km in 1:33:07  | 4:28/km Pace   (70.3-PR!)
(actually my Garmin has the course a bit short by ~300m, so 1.3’ fast, confirmed by other GPS tracks)
MEN | started the run in 14th position, ended in 29/625
AG M35-39 | started the run in 3rd position, ended in 9/128
>> GARMIN DATA

 I made Ryan laugh when I passed by him in the first km saying “I’ll never make it!! I am dead!”  First 6 km of the course are mostly downhill, which gives you a chance to get some of your legs back. Here I am starting this grueling course, wondering if I can really make it…

 I could not help myself but stop in the 2nd km to ‘water a tree’ so I lost ~30 seconds there

I ran fine for the beginning of the first section, but at km 4.5 I got into some trouble with hamstring muscles cramping affecting my run a lot (Just before the limit where I would need to stop). First the right side, then it passed after a few minutes. Then the other side… but same thing: it passed after a while. Also felt the front inside quads starting to give really bad signs before hitting the hard hilly section.. I was really not confident at that point about my chances to run the whole course.

After the first 7 km, then it turns into a bad joke with a pretty challenging section from km 7 to 14 with lots of climbing and rolling hills on a dirt road. At least, there was a lot of shade. I got passed quite a few times in the first half of the course. There is just nothing I can do here but race my own race the best I can: I can’t run -yet - like these guys. Many of the downhill sections were too steep to capitalize on and I had to be on the brakes, giving a lot of pounding on already very sore muscles. It seems some of the athletes were better than me at negotiating the steep downhill sections. I need to work on that.

Somehow, I took it as it came, pushing through but without going too hard and before I knew it, I was passed the most difficult section. Once I made 2 steps of walking in one of the steeper hill, but my legs felt 10x worse and came on the verge of buckling, so I went back to running right away (good deterrent!), keeping a short stride.

My clearwater pace was ~4:31 IIRC. I think Ryan will tell you the run courses were not fast ones… So I was surprised to see I was on 70.3RUN-PR pace even after the hilly section at 4:27-4:28 pace avg!!

I knew the 3rd and last section was much easier at the exception of the last mile with a long (but not too steep) incline that I dreaded for a while. Somehow, I dreading it so much in the kilometers leading to it that when I actually got to running it, it did not even feel so bad (don’t get me wrong, it was hard… it’s just that I could keep a good momentum on it).

Even after that last hill, I was still at 4:28/km pace by my watch. For that course, it’s a VERY good pace for me as it is only 6’ off my stand alone half marathon PR time on a flat course on fresh legs. I was able to crack a big smile at Ryan when I passed beside him on the ‘home stretch’ and finish strong. That picture is taken right after the last big hill, going to the finish area with 2 other guys battling for positions in the M30-34 age group.

FINAL RESULTS:
TOTAL TIME= 4:44:57
MEN (Non Pro)     29/625 Overall
AG M35-39             9/128

My age group was crazy fast, but also very tight since 2nd to 10th positions were within less than 5’. So placing in my AG in a similar event in the future is not a ludicrous goal.

I am extremely pleased with my race. My execution was smooth, met all my goals and I know I’ve left everything I had on the course. I was hoping to place slightly higher in my Age Group, but competition was just fierce and I have nothing to be ashamed of. Here I am, after receiving the Finisher’s swag.

I have to say though, I think I’ve ridden on a very fine line here…..

We got back in town shortly after the race and hitting the buffet. I was still hungry, so we hit McDonald’s for a crazy-not-so-healthy-recovery-meal.

I failed to do the recovery activities I should have done. I did not have my compression socks (if you can believe it, despite having so many bags) and I really should have done an ice bath. As a result, we are 4 days later, I am still extremely sore and can’t even think of running again. Yet, I am supposed to race a Sprint Distance in a few days (next Wednesday).

Monday was the veeeeerrrrryyyy long return trip. We were both exhausted and ready to go home. So to be honest, the trip was a real torture.

Overall, it was an awesome adventure and REV3 certainly did not disappoint! I highly recommend this race.

I wish we did more pictures of the trip in general, there was some pretty sights along the way. Oh well… Here is the photo album:

Rev 3 Quassy 2011