I flew home into cancelgar friday afternoon after hashing through a physics midterm. Luckily the flight was in the afternoon, because true to its name, the morning flight into C-gar was cancelled. Made it home in time to attend part of RSS Grad 2011. It was great to see my friends and the new grads! They are a class that really cared about graduation, and it showed in their decorations, march and all of their festivities. Congratulations RSS class of 2011!
Leaving to Cranbrook sat. am was a bit delayed due to the fact that our key broke off in the door... whoops. So I got to do my bike/brick at home in the sun (and on my nicely tuned bike). We finally got on the road and made it into Cranbrook in 2.5hrs. I checked out the cranbrook pool and then my mum and I headed to the pre-race meeting-- amazing draw prizes, and I really wanted to win a new wetsuit. Alas, no such luck. We stayed out at St. Eugene's Resort on the Reserve out near Kimberly. The hotel was an old residential school, and restored beautifully! Also- the lounge went above and beyond to try and accommodate me and my finicky stomach- no gluten for me!
Race Morning: It was cloudy/overcast but not raining, with temp. hovering just under 10 degrees. After setting up my transition area I had plenty of time to warm-up and watch the sprint and men's olympic starts. The olympic women's start was a 1/2hr after the men's (the women made up the majority of the racers this year) and the sun was just beginning to peak out as we started. The course was a big clockwise loop on the south end of the lake. My sighting was decent, and I was able to stay away from the thrashers at the beginning. On the last stretch I sighted the beach and noticed that no one was out of the water yet. This was a huge surprise to me! I am NOT a good swimmer, so my positioning of being in the top few women made my day! The run up of 95m from the beach was included in swim time.
T1: thanks to the wetsuit strippers it was pretty fast. Hopped on the bike with my shoes attached- major win for me!
Bike: New bike course this year. Instead of the flat and fast ride out to Skookumchuck, the course ran in the opposite direction to Forte Steele. A bit more challenging, the new course had 5 good long rollers on the way out- but nothing crazy. The fresh pavement and variety of the course definitely made this one a winner. The bike went well except my chain fell off twice on two hills when I downshifted. Getting off twice to fix the chain wasn't my cup of tea- but that's racing for you!!
T2: nice and quick. grabbed a gel on the way out- as I didn't take in any nutrition on the bike.
Run: The sun was out full blast by the time I hit the run course. Nice to finally see the sun for the first time in what seems like weeks! I tried to maintain a steady pace, but began to struggle a bit through the middle section. I picked it up in the last 2km and reeled it in to a 2:31:33 finish. Just about 5min faster than last year, and on a slightly more challenging course.
Overall I had a really great weekend seeing friends and family! It was a much needed break from life in Coquitlam and SFU.
The High Altitude Club finished third in the team challenge! Way to go guys!!
Thanks for reading!
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