National Capital Triathlon 2011 Race Report

I have done this race three years in a row and have improved my time each of those years. This year I was hoping to continue the trend. I thought I was in 2:12-2:13 shape and maybe close to 2:10 if all went really well.

This was also the first race triathlon race of the year (I had hoped to do some earlier races but it didn't work out). This year I am racing on the Planet X USA Tri Team and it was the first race for the new bike my Exocet, which I have called "Darth Velo"

Week leading up: Hard to describe but I felt a little off. Had a headache and felt fuzzy, and tired and legs were heavy from Tuesday on, workouts were not up to par, took Friday off totally.

Morning of: woke up at 5:30, slept pretty good woke up at 4:30 for a pee. Found it hard to eat and ended up that I didn't eat all of breakfast(SHOULD EAT MORE NEXT TIME), left home @7:00 and biked in to race venue.

WU: biking in felt good, just nice and eazy,  got in set up and went out for a run (about 3.5km) strides, bum scratches, and strides, back to bike final check list for bike and nutrition, gel before heading down for swim. Very short warm up as I didn’t have much time (go down a little sooner)

SWIM: gun went off, and I dolphin dived 4 or 5 times and settled into swimming, swam strong until the break in the buoy line. I seemed to be in with more people this year. In the past I have swam off to the side by myself as I have had some panic attacks before. This swim was the most contact I have had in a while, but wasn’t really a lot maybe five or six contacts with one kick in the face. I really slowed down  after the buoy line break (not really realizing it) I did make a conscious effort to go out hard and then back off, but looking back I backed off too much. I just sort off plodded along. The swim seemed long but maybe it was just I was swimming slower than last year. Swam wide around the turn around buoy and made my way back.  Swim back was much of the same, plodded back (but not realizing I was). Stood up at the beach when I was done and heard the announcer say 26min…WTF that was slow! Not the start I was hoping for.

SWIM Lessons Learned: need to have a plan for the rest of the swim, esp for an oly swim: set hard sections. Also training needs to have some hard longer sets (i.e. 3*500m hard, 4*400m hard)

T1: running up the beach I ran past a guy that I worked with several years ago, weird place to run into him! T1 went really well very quick and efficient

BIKE: Plan was to bike it HARD as I could, which I think I did. I passed a lot of people and was only passed by one person at the very very end of the ride. I knew I was having a good ride by gauging my progress against the other riders (who were ahead of me) as they not gaining time on me and I was gaining time on them). I felt great the whole ride. Took sips from my nutrition bottle at the back turn of each lap (maybe a little light on nutrition only drank about 2/3 of bottle … about  100cals). Just before the turn back to the transition area someone past me, I had actually passed him on the last “out” turn

Ended up with a time of 1:05 here is the bike output:

 T2: quick and efficient, I think my transitions were really good this year, I put about 15 secs on the guy who passed me on the bike

Run: the plan was to take the first 5km not full out(around 20min for 5km). The course is two 5km laps. felt good coming down the hill to the turn around, but after the  turn around I had weird stomach cramps, which made me decided to back off (mistake) the back part of the run loop is mostly uphill. And my pace slowed to 4:15s 4:20s. Ended up with 20:47 for the first 5km. after that I tried to pick it up but  could never get the sub 4:00 pace I wanted even on the downhill sections. After the aid station at 6.5km took water on my head and eload drinks, which made me feel better.  When I checked my wacth at 8km and saw 33:xx I was a little disappointed and mentally/physically slowed down . At 9kn I saw 37:XX  I was very disappointed cause I new sub 40 was out of the picture. I tried to pick up the pace up the final big hill but was still a slow pace. with about 500m to go the same guy that passed me on the bike ran by me, I tried to but in a big effort to go with him and took 5 or 6 good strides but my left hammi said NO and cramped, slowed really down and made my way to the finish line. Jogging down the chute I saw 2:18 and was pretty disappointed.

RUN Leasons Learned: A little more cals and electrolytes on the bike. OLY runs should EFFING hurt was not willing to go on the pain train. Need to race more to get used to hurting more and teach the central governor to deal with it!

Run output:

Actual Race Photos Here

Results Here

Overall: still dispite the slower time I still enjoyed myself, and enjoyed racing again.

Overall Leasson learned:

Even if not an A race still need to have plans for swim and run.

Ended  1^st in my age group and 6^th overall

That is all for now

Take Care

Ewan

Canadian Half Ironman Race Report

Canadian Half Ironman Race Report
September 4th 2010

So this was my last triathlon race of the season, it was also the longest race of the year, a half ironman race. This involves a 2km swim, a 90km bike ride, followed by a 21.1km run(half marathon). This would be the 4th time I would be doing this distance and I was coming in with some very specific goals (more on those later). The race, The Canadian is put on by Sommersault and is the crowning race in their summer long race series.
Before the Race:
The days leading up to the race were incredibily hot in (as in 42degrees with the humidex!!!) So there was lots of water to drink and lots of Air Conditioning working overtime. I was also all alone for most of the week because Jen had taken the kids up to the cottage with her mom(who was on vacation). Add all this to a taper week ( a taper is a reduction in training volume so that your body can absorb all the training and fitness you have built up) and it was a very quiet week!

The day before the race:
I got all my stuff ready, now you may ask yourselves what does one bring to a triathlon? Well here you have it:

BTW you can tell that I was the only one it the house, as normally I wouldn’t have all my stuff spread out on the table like that :-)
And I certainly would dream of bringing my bike in the kitchen!

Not to worry as it all packs away  neat and tidy into one backpack that I use to get everything into the race.

The other important thing you do before a race is take pictures of your bike! Here they are, don’t worry it might seem weird that a grown man is taking pictures of his bike but trust me it is just a cyclist thing!






Side note: these pics were taken at the Watson’s Mill in Manotick  it is the old flour mill in Manotick, that was built as part of the Rideau Canal

The day before the race is also the day to get your nutrition ready for the race. Here is my nutrition all set out, and before you go asking the giant bag of white powder is not what you think it is... It my supply of maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is a sugar that is commonly used is brewing beer, but is also the main ingredient in "sports drinks". I use it to make my own highly concentrated sports drink (about 800cals that will last the whole race) it is perfect because it has no taste, so you can flavour it with whatever you want. I use those small round tubes called Nuun which provide flavour and a little electrolytes. 

Goals:
The goals for the race were as follows:
1. Beat last years time of 4hr 47min 6secs
2. Break 4hr 40min if everything goes right
3. Top Ten

Race Day:
Actually I should start this part with "Race morning @ 3am" which is when I woke up. Well I was _woken_ up by thunder/lighting/rain. For those of you wondering... no those aren’t ideal conditions for racing! I tried to get back to sleep but mostly  was semi-conscious from then until I actually got out of bed. This storm was the weather changing from the crazy heat earlier in the week to a much cooler day. By the time I got up it had stopped raining  but they were calling for the wind to pick up and possible showers in the afternoon. Ate my breakfast and drank my coffee, then pump my tires up and was ready to get going to the race. This race is close enough that I can bike in about 30mins, this is a great way to get warm up.
Pre Race:
The bike ride in was good, although I was a little over dressed and got a good sweat going. However I did leave a little late leaving so I was also a little late getting to the race venue that meant that most of the good spots in the transition area( the spot were you set up your transition spot, were you transition from one sport to the other swim>bike and bike>run), eventually I found a decent spot and was able to get my warm up run in. After that it was time to set the transition area up (get my bike ready, with the nutrition on and ready, as well as get the running stuff ready for after the bike). I got dressed in my wetsuit and headed down to the beach, it was at this point I realized how windy it actually was and that we would be swimming out _into_ a headwind, which means waves! I got into the water and did a 5min warm up swim. After that it was time to stand around for a couple more minutes and wait for the start. It is funny the thoughts that go through your head before, they are actually very silly, some doubting, and non-positive thoughts. I tried to put them out of my head and focus on my plan. 5,4,3,2,1,....GO!

Swim:
With that we were off, me and 150 of my closest friends for a nice swim. My plan was to swim to the left of the crowd (which also was  the straightest line to the turn buoy) . If you remember my last race  I had some concentration problems in the swim. So the plan was to focus on counting my strokes and set targets (each of the buoys that marked the course would be my targets) I would focus on the first target and on counting strokes and only worry making it to the target. Once at the target I would set the new target and repeat.
The swim was good, it was hard swimming into the wind and waves but it went pretty well. I think I executed my swim plan very well and I never lost focus like the last race. The weeds were really bad coming back into the shore, but that was the only "problem".

Transition Swim to Bike (or if you are a triathlete T1):
It is a pretty long run up from the beach, but nothing to taxing. I had problems getting my watch strap on (AGAIN!) but everything else went well. Looking at the results I was about 30secs slower than the top guys, I will improve on these next year!

Bike:
On to the bike, I felt great immediatly passed a bunch of people on the run out at the bike mount. I was really flying on the first lap and had to force myself to slow down (it is a long bike ride/day and you don’t want to burn up to much energy early on). I settled into my pace and effort and continued to pass people. I also started in on my nutrition for the day. Re nutrition: I had one powerbar (300cals) and my bottle with nutrition mix (800cals) and a couple of emergency gels if needed. At the turn around of the first lap I got to see were I was in the race, I counted about 15 people ahead of me.
Once settled in  I focused on my plan, which was “strong and steady”. I was really biking well for the first three laps passing lots of people (there are several other race distances running at the same time). It is also inportant to not that by the time we got on the bike the wind was really blowing. The bike course is 6 * a 15km loop, which in the case of the wind means that you go the wind going “out” and then went into the wind on the “back” of each loop. Here is a screen shot of the weather from the day: see the wind 30km/h!!!

in case you doubted the wind, I found this picture showing the stands being blown over:

On the back part of the third lap I passed a group of (fast triathlete) meaning either i was having a very good ride or I was maybe pacing things a little fast. I didn’t feel like I was I going too hard as was still within my pre-set limits. I made a decision to back off the “back” laps (which was the head winds laps) at this point the wind really, _really_ started to pick up, so it turned out to be a good idea to back off a bit, it still proved hard work on the back leg the wind was very strong!
The last two laps went well, however the group of fast triathletes had re-passed me and  put a little more time into me.  I couldn’t/didn’t want to keep pace with them, I had to keep to with my plan. The last half of the last lap was all about getting mentally and physically ready for the run. Here is the physical data from the ride, you can really tell when I was going with the wind and when I was going into it:

Transition 2 (or t2 for the triathletes still reading):
This one was fairly un-eventful, I passed one guy on the run into the transition area. I tried to be smooth and efficient once I got to my transition spot. I didn’t have any problems with cramping (last year my legs cramped bad getting off the bike). The only problem I had was when I was turning my race belt/number around I ripped one corner. I had to fiddle around with it for 30secs or so to fix it. Grab my hat, fuel belt, and sun glasses and I was off on the run.

Run:
Sticking with the plan theme, the plan for the run was “run like a runner”. This came about from my last triathlon where I saw one athlete who was running so beautifully, I realized that triathletes run with short choppy strides (who can blame them after biking and swimming) and I wanted to run smoothly with a nice  long stride. The second part of the plan was to not go out a the start of the run to fast. Well so much for a good plan! I went out in the first KM way to fast (again) despite telling myself to go easy (was running a 3:45 pace out of the first 500m!) My watch shows me my running pace so it gives me the feedback that I was running to fast, so I tried to settle into my desired pace (4:15s) but from just after the first 1km my left hamstring felt “twingy”. I immediately went to the emergency stash of electrolyte pills, but couldn’t sallow them cause apparently I can’t sallow pills without liquids. I thought I would just wait till the next aid station but the leg wasn’t getting any better and I really wanted to get the pills down. I remembered that I had my fuelbelt with Red Bull ... a little sip from my fuelbelt bottle and them pills where swallowed . At the next aid station I swallowed the rest of my pills  (another 4), after that I tried to focus on running and the leg didn’t bother me the rest of the run. The run is three loops of just over 7km for a total of 21.1km. As with the bike the “out” sections went with the wind and the “back” was into a still very strong wind. The plan was to put a cap on my running effort (the cap was an Heart Rate of 165) for the first 14km and then see where I was for the last lap, normally this should put me right on my desired pace(4:15) and it seem to work on the out portions but the back portions was into a crazy head wind that reduced me to much slower pace at the same effort. None the less I was still passing lots of runners (from the other events) but I wasn’t passing anybody in front of  me in the race. Once on the last lap the plan was to throw the restrictions/caps out the window and run as hard as I could (after swimming 2km and biking 90km and running 14km) and that is what I did.
It wasn’t pretty but I ended up passing one guy in front of me. Here is the "Wasn't pretty" picture:

Here is the final physical data for the run:

I sprinted to the end, happy to be finished a very tough day!
Finish time:
I finished in 4hrs 40min and 58 seconds, with a break down of
swim: 31:23
t1: 3:23
Bike: 2:29:45
t2: 1:39
Run: 1:34:44

Post Race:
Hanging around post race and talking with the other competitors every was talking about how bad the wind was, and what a tough day it was. I enjoyed a burger and a sausage (via a BBQ for the athletes, nice touch!) and then biked home.... into a head wind all the way home!!!

Full Results: here
All Race Pics: here

That was a long report, but it was a long race :-)
Take care
Ewan

Race Report

National Capital Olympic Triathlon July 31, 2010
Race Week: A week a felt a little “off”, the only thing I can pin point was on Sunday I was stung by a hornet (which hurt a LOT) then Monday and Tuesday I had a huge headache, consequently all week long my workouts all felt a little off. I even had a cramp in my foot swimming (haven’t had that happen in ages) on Thursday. I was also trying to wrap several things up at work (as I was taking the next week off) so the whole week was a little “off”.
Race Morning: I had planned to get up at 5:15 but ended up sleeping in till 5:50am. I got up and tried to eat breakfast but couldn’t eat much which is pretty normal. I ended up leaving the house a little late (I was biking in to the race venue) I guess it was fair to say I was a little unorganized this morning. Further evidence of that was I forgot my one of my water bottles and my energy gels. LESSON LEARNED: plan ahead, have a plan for the race and race morning no matter the size of the race.
Warm up: I biked into the race (about 40mins) and again felt off, had a small stomach cramp (not a good sign). Once at the race I set up my transition area (for those that aren’t sure what a transition area is: it is a the large area at the race where racers rack their bikes and “transition” between sports, each racer has their only little spot to set up their bike and running shoes and anything else they need). My run warm up was fine, felt good on the run. I got a quick swim warm up in as I didn’t have much time left (see Race Morning Section!)
Swim: My plan was to stick to the outside away from any contact. In a couple of previous races I have gotten boxed in with a bunch of other swimmers and it really isn’t a good feeling. I felt ok after the first 250m, from 300m to the turn around I really struggled with my motivation (not sure why) but I even took some breatsrokes when I really didn’t have any reason to do so. After the turn around  I really got going I think I brought it home fairly strong and swam a pretty straight line. Time : 25:58

SWIM LESSON LEARNED: I could have swam harder. I also have to trust my training  (but I still need more more longer straight open water swims) I keep looking for reasons _not_ to push it in the swim, if I want to get faster I will have to push it more in the swim.
Transition 1: I past 3-4 people on the run up to t-zone, wetsuit came of great, watch strap didn’t go on well (despite practicing it) passed one more person running out with the bike. Mount was OK.
Bike: I wanted to really push the pace one the bike. The course was a 4 * 10km loop course (for 40km) and the out portion was into the head wind and you would get the tale wind on the back portion. On a course like this (closed to traffic and multi lap) my plan was simple: bike as hard as possible and take nutrition on at each turn around. Everything went according to plan, so there is not much to say about the bike. The only problem was that my chain would skip on the bottom three gears so I could use them on the downhills (lost a little time there) and at about half way the hips felt a little tight but the legs felt great the whole time. Time: 1:03:33
Here is the Speed vs Heart Rate Graph from the race:

One Race shot from the race photographer (notice the drafter stuck behind me....he is hard to see as he is stuck to my wheel after I past him, something you are not aloud to do! HINT: look at the second shadow behind me)

T2: very good in and out no wasted time
Run: felt great starting the run I purposely held back because I know that first 1kmcan be really fast especially on this course, I even tucked in behind a guy who started talking about how some guys on the bike hand only done 3laps????) everything was going good and I was feeling really good until a slight downhill at 4.25kms and my hamstring tightend up, crap!@!!! Not good, I kept running but had to slow my pace up a fair bit… I didn’t give up instead I shifted my focus to counting my steps to distract my brain from the hamstring tightness, this seemed to work and after about 1.5kms I was back to normal. But I wasn’t running with a full stride ( I saw a duathalete running who was a pure runner, and that is how I should be running in a tri). A 8.25km left I picked up my pace and passed I guy that had been in front of me for a while, I tried to bring it home as hard as I could, the last km has a huge hill in it and it _HURT_ , with 100m to go you turn of the path and run up a small hill to run to the finishing shoot, I ran that as hard as I could, I running down the shoot I looked up and saw the clock and it said 2:14:33, I had 27secs to break 2:15 and only about 50m left, I put my head down and ran as hard as I could. Time: 40:15
Here is the run splits from the race guess where the cramp hit??

RUN LESSONS LEARNED: I still think I have another notch on the run (avg HR 173 for a 10km it should be closer to 177) it is hard to keep and even pace on this course but if possible I should have done it.


more photos here
 
Overall: Crossed in 2:14:42 good for 10th place I a, Happy with placing and time (about 2min improvement over last yea), but not happy with my swim performance. I think my run could have been better as well.

Smiths Falls Triathlon Race Report

Been meaning to write this up for a while but I have had the time yet. It is a race report from a triathlon I did last weekend. I did write much (or any I think) race reports last year for the blog. I do write down some of my thoughts on what happened for all the races I do, so it really doesn’t take much work to turn those thoughts into something for the blog. So without further delay here is my race report for the Smiths Falls Triathlon.
Pre-Race: was fairly normal and I trained throughout the week as if I didn’t have a race on the weekend. It wasn’t a standard training week as I had to travel to Toronto for a meeting which messed up my swimming schedule. So knowing that I focused on the run during the two days I was away and managed to swim a little when I got back. On Saturday, after training in the morning, we went down to Jen’s parents, who live just outside Smiths Falls, and it poured rain as we were driving down: hopefully not a sign of things to come tomorrow. Jen and I got to go out for an early supper at a great restaurant called the Goodwood Oven. I had a great sleep on Saturday night; I fell asleep reading to Keir @ 9pm and woke up at 6am. A normal breakfast and then I got my stuff packed up and biked into the race.
Day: Sunday June 20th 2010
Here I was floating in the water waiting for the horn to sound. The start of the Smiths Falls Triathlon is a couple of minutes away and I could help but reflect on the my first ever tri which was also here (but over 6years ago), the feelings were much different. During my first tri there was a _Lot_ more nerves and fear, this time around a was really excited about racing (even the swim!). The count down started 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…. GO!
Swim 500m:

I had positioned myself pretty well, just on the outside at the front (the red dot on the map) which worked out to be a pretty direct line to the turn around buoy (marked C on the map). I started out great, and got away clean (no bumping) but about 75m in my goggles started to leak something fierce. I was faced with a decision, do I stop and fix them or keep going? Since it was a short swim (should be under 8mins of swimming) I figured I would just tough it out. By now my right goggle was almost totally full of water and the left wasn’t much better. When swimming in a triathlon one of the more important things to do is sighting your swim, this is really just looking up every now and then to make sure you are swimming towards your target in a straight fashion. Well sighting with goggles ¾ full is hard as it turns out, and I soon started to swim in a zig-zag line and ran into another competitor. That was my sign to pull out to the side and re-adjust my goggles. One of the safety kayakers asked if I was ok, and I tried to make a joke about my goggles. Not to worry I thought this will just cost me a tiny bit of time but won’t set me back to much… well it happened two more times that I need to stop and fix my goggles. I guess I rushed it each time and never got the proper seal. A little frustrating and it probably cost me about one minute to a minute and a half. Apart from the goggle mix up the swim felt good but not great, never really got into a rhythm (because of the goggles).
You exit the water and have to run about 200m up to the transition area to get on your bike. I got to my bike quickly and started to peel the rest of my wetsuit off, I heard Jenny,Keir and Isla cheering me on. Keir told me he had seen his friend Preston and I tried to think of something funny to say back to him but after sprinting up 200m the best I could come up with was “that’s great Keir”. Helmet on, race number on, Watch on and I was gone.
Bike 26km:
This year I have really been working on my biking (not running a marathon in the spring helps your biking a lot) and wanted to have a good bike split. The plan was to bike as hard as I could for the 26km, “red-line it” so to speak. The course is a nice course on open roads and it takes place early on Sunday morning so the roads are fairly quite. It took a couple of minutes to get out of town and then I was able to really open it up. The bike ride was uneventful, I did pass a lot of people and was able to keep my pacing were it needed to be for my “Red-line” level of effort. The last 10km was into a head wind on some rolling terrain so my speed did drop but my effort was still high. Here is the proof:

I was happy to get back to the transition area and managed to ride 2min faster than the last time I did race (in arguably tougher conditions).
Run (5km)
The run is usually where I make up ground, so I was pretty confident heading out onto the run. The run at Smiths Falls is all up hill for the first 2km and then basically all downhill after that. I felt good on the run but never felt great. It was very hot out by the time the run got going and there was a couple people out on the run course try to help with that: there was one guy with a super soaker water guns and another guy had a water hose spraying people who were asking for it. With a km to go I tried to push it but I never felt like I got going up to speed.

Overall:
I was pretty happy with the whole race, very happy with my bike, ok with my run and somewhat pleased with my swim. I ended up in a time of 1:11.56 which was good for 14th overall. I am pleased with that coming in I thought top 20 was possible (my previous best was 32nd). I have some good ideas of what to work on in the coming weeks. I really did enjoy the race and am looking forward to the next race. After the race was over I met up with Jenny and the kids, got Keir and Isla some bananas and bagels. We didn’t stick around very long as it was really hot and the kids were ready to leave.

Full Results Here: http://sportstats.ca/display-results.php?lang=eng&racecode=46494
Full Pics here: http://www.zoomphoto.ca/eventgallerysearch/11927/112/1/

Ewan

-triing-

Last weekend I did my first trithlon of the season. It was the Ottawa Riker Keeper Olympic Distance Triathlon. This was also my first Olympic Distance. Olympic (or International) is 1500m swim 40km Bike and 10km run. I had a lot of fun, the swim was interesting... the morning was actually a little stormy and the wind made some strong waves. The swim was three laps and going out was very diffcult as you were going into the waves and wind. The first lap was diffcult but by the third lap I was actually feeling good. 34min was my swim time (including my transition, change from swim to bike), I was a little disapointed with that time but considering the conditions I will take it. On to the bike, I felt good my calfves were a little tight. I started to make up ground on the people who had passed me on the swim. Finished the bike 1hr12min. The run went well, I could have pushed a little harder on the first 3km's but it was a learning experiences. I finshed 46mins for the run and a total time of 2hr 33mins, 39th overall. I really did learn a lot and know what I need to work on for the next triathlon in August.
The are some photos below and you can see some more here at the photo services website
Keir had fun watching dad and actually wanted to follow me into the water!!
That is all fo now
Take care

-Triathlete 1.2-
 
Well this past Sunday I did another triathlon, it was the Graham Beasley/ National Capital Triathlon. It was another Sprint Distance Triathlon which means it was a 500m swim, 20km bike, and a 5km run. My goal for this triathlon was to beat my time from the first triathlon I did in June.
I got to the race area in the morning at 8am figuring that it would leave me with loads of time. Well I had loads of time, but the transition area(were all the athletes equipment is stored) was almost full. So  I ended up getting a bad spot for my transition area. Next time I will get there a little earlier.
My swim start was at 9:30am. I adopted a different strategy for the swim portion, swimming more in the middle of the pack rather than out to the far left. This seem to work as I was really please with my swim, I even actually passed some people. I settled into a good rhythm and finished the swim in 10:31 on my watch, up to my transition area.
My transition to the bike didn't go so well. My top wouldn't go on without sticking, so I really struggled with it and in the process I ripped 3 of the 4 pins holding my race number off. After re-pinning my number and getting my shoes on I was off, by the time I got on my bike it was about 13mins. Did it really take me that long in the transition area? No matter, focus on the bike.
The Bike course was nice, the road was rough in some spots but wasn't to bad. It was not a flat as the the first triathlon but that is ok cause I passed a few people on the hilly sections of the course. I Kept a good pace on the bike and made it back to the transition area under 37mins. You have to dismount your bike and run to your transition area, well my area was at the far end of the end of the bike/start of the run (that was from being "late" in the morning). My transition from bike to run went a lot smoother than swim to bike. The temperature was heating up so I took a last swig gatorade from my water bottle on my bike and I took of on my run.
I was a little disappointed with my run, For the first km that last swig of gatorade was swishing around in my stomach, it didn't feel nice. I did not take any water at the first water station  By the first km my stomach settled down and I got into a nice groove, passing people and maintaining a nice rhythm. Just before the 3km marker there was another water station but I didn't wasn't to risk that sloshing feeling again so I didn't take any water. Then at the 3km marker my left hamstring cramped up, so I had to easy back on the tempo. I was worried it would turn into something worse, but by 4km marker it was completely gone, so I was able to finish the run strong.
There was quite a crowd at the finish, included was Keir, Jen, my Mom and Dad, and Jen's Mom and Dad along with our nephew William and niece Scarlett. Our friend Sara and her daughter Paige was there also.
I was very happy with my swim and bike and a little disappointed with my run.
The times break down as follows:

• Swim 12:46
• Bike 36:29
• Run 23:56
• Total of 1hr 13mins 10secs

That is better than my first triathlon, so I accomplished my goal. I now I can go faster, but I think I did improve (especially in the swim and Bike) from the last triathlon I did.
Here is the "tooting my own horn" portion of the blog: ended up 24 out of 117 me, 5  in my age group, but here is the best part because the top 2 men in the race were from my division they get medals for the overall, so that means the next 2 in the division move up. So I got the 3rd place medal for my age group! I certainly was not expecting that, but it was a nice surprise :-)
Non triathlon related: Keir was 8 months old on Friday! Keir's two top teeth are really coming in now and we both think it won't be long till he is able to stand up by himself. If he is on the ground now he can get right up to a sitting position and he try's to stand up after that but but he hasn't got that motion figured out yet.
That is all for now
Take care
Ewan