ITU Brampton Continental Cup (Canadian National Championships) ~ Brampton, Ontario ~ July 2, 2006
Since this was my first race coming back after a nearly 2-month break, I was a little nervous but I knew I shouldn’t expect too much. I was mostly concerned with being a little rusty on the technical details. I was excited because I haven’t raced in Canada before and it’s a big race for them – their National Championship. I was also excited to see a lot of people I haven’t seen in awhile, especially my parents who drove up from Washington, DC to watch the race.
I trained on the course a bit for the days before the race. The lake was clean and clear; the 6 lap bike course very windy but flat and technical; the run course flat and winding around the lake 3 times. One somewhat humorous pre-race mishap was that my aerobar was lost in the wind on one of our trips to the race course with the bike on the roof. I had to fashion a new pad with a sponge and duct tape – pretty ghetto but it did the job.
We lined up in transition area in our ranked order; I was 27th. We were introduced and jogged down to the beach where we chose our starting positions on the marked carpet on the edge of the water. I chose the closest available spot to the shortest line to the first buoy. Unfortunately I was right in the middle of the group. The water was very choppy, but I tried not to think about it.
I am not fond of beach starts. I had practiced in the days before but not with ruthless women on both sides of me. I ran as far as I could then dove, did a couple dolphin dives – anchoring into the sand and pushing off – then started swimming hard. Women on all sides were pulling, beating, pushing off of me. Twice I was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled back. Different from my swim in Mazatlan, I focused on being totally aware of where I was in the water. I wasn’t going to miss any pack because the girl whose feet I was on let a gap open. I kept an eye ahead, seeing a larger spread out group maybe 5 seconds ahead and I wanted to be in the middle of that group. I waited until the last turn buoy and tried to get around the girl I was behind. The waves were much worse in that direction and I was still at the tail end of the pack. I knew I had to have a very fast transition if I wanted to make the pack.
Despite this urgency, my swim exit and run into transition seemed like slow motion. We were all bunched up running up the boat ramp and around the fences on the wet pavement. After getting my helmet and bike, I ran around the turn and saw everyone stopping right AT the mount line to mount their bikes. I wanted to get around them and run by to do a flying mount but there was no room. When I got on my bike, my sunglasses started falling out of their rubberband on my waterbottle so I grabbed them and slid them on while one-handedly maneuvering through the chicane out of the transition area. I bent down to make sure my rubberbands had broken and I noticed I was losing the wheel ahead of me. I stood to accelerate but I was more conservative since I hadn’t practiced riding the turns fast through this area. As I turned out onto the road I had a bit of time to make up and I was in for some tough windy conditions.
I saw the pack riding away hard. I fought the wind and stood in my saddle, pumping hard on top of my shoes to catch the end of the group. After the next turn we were in a direct headwind. Flashes of disappointment and panic coursed through my mind. This was it! I had to get on the group or I would lose any chance of placing well. A girl went by me and I almost didn’t catch her wheel, but I made it on it and I slipped into one of my shoes on the downhill tailwind section. I got the other one on around the turn. After rounding that turn, I stood, trying to accelerate to take a pull but I was having a tough time of it. Panic was flooding my mind. I knew I had to go while the adrenalin was pumping… the group was right there.
Girls started falling off the group back to us but they weren’t any help and we weren’t gaining any time. By the end of the first lap, we were 20 seconds down. We kept up the original urgency, but with the new additions to our group we weren’t organized enough to keep a consistent pace. Our gap opened to 30 then 45 seconds and I knew we weren’t going to catch them. Now I was just concerned with getting rid of the girls who weren’t doing their share of the work. After a couple unsuccessful attempts to shake them, one of the Canadians and I just fell into a rhythm pulling the whole group. We were the only ones working but at least it was a consistent pace.
With 2 laps to go, I gapped the group exiting the transition area. I took the opportunity to get ahead but I knew that 2 solo laps would hurt a lot. After half a lap, two of them pulled up with me. At least we dropped everyone else. I was sure I could outrun both of those girls and I entered transition area feeling confident.
I had a quick T2 and took off on the 3 lap run course. I put myself in the lead of our group, listening to Siri say: “Michelle you’re 1:45 down, but that’s ok just run the best 10k of your life.” So I established a quick pace, focused on my breathing and cadence and just ran. I didn’t look back until about 1k when I didn’t hear the other girls anymore. I had my spot to Worlds. I went through 2k and took a split on my watch: 6:50, woah. I didn’t see another girl until the end of the first lap. I caught one just after transition and hearing that I was in 10th place. 10th! Dang, not bad.
I started to get a side stitch at the first third of the 2nd lap. At that time I saw another girl ahead, one of my teammates. I encouraged her as I went by. I breathed deliberately, trying to make the stitch go away. The stitch worsened through the middle 2k and the run began to feel really long… I thought about my month off running and how my running endurance could be suffering. As I went through transition area for the 2nd time, I was told 50 seconds to the next girl. I knew this 3rd lap could be very lonely so I focused on pace and breathing. I was thinking about ice cream too. I could see 3 girls up ahead but they looked too far to catch. But as I came to the little hill into the neighborhood I saw that I was closing in. With 2k to go I was finally able to get rid of my stitch. I passed one of the girls and tried to pick it up with 1k to go – there was a girl not too far ahead. The last curvy section had a bit of a crowd along it, and I heard some cheers for Sam McGlone… then all of a sudden a redhead passed me pretty fast and took me by such surprise that I didn’t try to accelerate and go with her. So that was the race. I was very pleased with my final run time, 36:55. A PR and I broke 37.
I was happy for earning my spot to Worlds. But when I was alone getting my stuff together, disappointment seeped into my head for not making the pack I was basically in after the swim. It would have hurt a lot less being in a group and I was sure I had outrun most of that pack. I was happy that I was much closer to the main pack than I was in Mazatlan, but I really need to fine-tune some things before Cornerbrook. I have a few weeks of really tough training then I race in Newfoundland on July 30, after that I head to Europe for a month of awesome racing.
