First race of the year, first race of the 2013 season.
Two weeks prior to the race I got an email from the Daniel Poirier, race director of Endurance Aventure who asked me if I could be interested in racing the winter triathlon he was organizing. I thought yeah why not, what does it include? To that he answered it would be a 10km run (I can do), a 14km ski (I can do, I learnt last year so I'm not super fast but I can go through the distance) and an 8km skate to finish with (That I can't do). I told him I never skated before and that I didn't think I could do that but he replied I had two weeks to learn which should be enough....I took him seriously!!!
The very next day I was planning on going on the canal rideau in Ottawa to learn. A couple of days later I was on skates and it wasn't pretty :/.
On my second attempt I ended up in a toboggan with some rescue guys cause of a bad fall but nothing broken..so I was back on the skates the next day again. I even bought some blades to put under my ski boots and ended up skating at what I considered an ok speed to do the race.
I left on the Saturday morning very early as i had a 2.5h road trip to get to the start line and I wanted to be there for 7ish am. The night before I had checked the temperature estimated for St Donat and waxed my skis accordingly. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that there are two St Donat in Quebec and the one I looked at wasn't the right one hence I arrived in a -19 degrees Celsius climate instead of the -5 degrees expected. Adding another layer wouldn't be a big problem, however the wax under the skis might be :/
The race started at 9am with a mass start including the racers doing the short distance triathlon (half the distance cited above), the racers competing in the 5 and 10km run and the racers doing the long distance triathlon. We were cold and the start signal was actually a blessing.
The run was two laps of a small loop on a lake in a not so packed snow and then a back and forth on a road with packed snow on it. The course was a little hilly which I didn't mind. When I got to the first turn around on the road I tried to assess how many girls were in front of me by looking at the people running back and I was almost sure I didn't see any of the girls, not even from the runners doing the 5 or 10km or the shorter triathlon..but I wasn't sure...I kept watching and knew the second girl was pretty close to me. I increased the gap a little bit in the second lap and finished the run first girl in 49min.
Transition went smoothly but I was thirsty and cramping a little bit. I think the cold dehydrated me a lot and even if I drank my water and electrolytes (Nuun) on the road prior to the race I knew I hadn't drank enough.
I tried to drink from my water bottle but it had frozen at that stage so no water for me :/. I grabbed a few lollies I had in my transition bag but they were frozen too so it took me a while to get them through...
The ski leg went pretty badly due mainly to the fact that I had almost no glide (bloody forecast of the wrong town) and the trail was pretty hard with steep hills. I really thought that this was the end of my first place but I kept pushing as much as I could. On my second lap I passed 3 out of 4 of the other girls that were in the long triathlon, meaning I had at that point a 7km advantage on them. I thought then that even if the second girl was catching up with at least I should be 2nd knowing that I had improved my skating just enough to not be miserable.
I finished the ski leg still in first place not having a clue where the second girl was behind.
I hit the transition, tried to put on my skates quickly but I was still dehydrated and my legs were a little shaking (you could actually hear the blades doing clack clack clack on the ice before I started skating). I was a little nervous about the skating section as I only skated on the canal, very flat, and now I was on this loop in the wood and it was going up a little and turning left and right sharply and then down again. I wasn't prepared for the right turn, nor was I for the going down part. I did look like an idiot but it was fun.
The skating leg consisted on 8 laps. I had accomplished my first loop. I asked if the second girl was on the ice and they said no..I went for my second lap, a lot better than the first one. I asked again but the second girl was still not there. I had done 5 laps when they told me she was on the ice. By then I slowed down a little bit thinking I would play it safe trying not to fall to finish first. I had a lot of cheering from the organisation but also from the wonderful volunteers out there...and jeeeezzz I needed it.
Finishing my last lap I knew I would win, I got to the finish line and someone gave me a high five....wrong wrong move....I fell about two meters from the finish line as I had no balance left at that point, what a looser :/.
I ended up finishing in 2h29min placing me 1st women over 20min in front of the 2nd woman and 20th/30 overall.
I had a great race...it was well organised, very nice course and awesome dinner afterwards.
I also enjoyed re-hydrating on my way home with my Nuun Hydrations :)
I would like to thanks Endurance Aventure for inviting me to that event and I will definitely put it in my calendar for next year after much more skating and skiing practice :)
