After doing the triathlon in St Donat I had a couple of weeks to improve my skiing and skating. I knew that the pentathlon des neiges would be a bit tougher as it is a well known event and there are usually a lot of good athletes. I was nervous looking at the results from the past years and was hoping I could keep up with the mid pack. I went and skated as much as I could during the two weeks before the race but as the days were going by the temperatures were raising and there was a threat that the skate would be cancelled.
I also took my MTB out for the first time of the year just to "practice" it and make sure everything was working fine for the race.
We drove down to Quebec city on Saturday during the day. The race started on Sunday morning at 8:30am downtown. As we expected the skate leg got cancelled so the course would be 15km bike, 5.5km run, 9km ski and 4.5km snowshoe.
The start was a run to the bike on the "grand allee" and then down the main street to a sharp right turn into a snowy track. From there on it was single tracking with the option to overtake in the deeper snow. We had 5 laps to do and every time we were coming in front of transition we had to run next to our bikes. A guy fell on the first lap and apparently broke something oucchhh!!!
I felt pretty good on the bike but my foot kept unclipping on my third lap onwards and I almost crashed with my foot going in my wheel at one stage (I realised today that my egg beater actually snapped).
I didn't wear any goretex socks which was a mistake leading my first lap of the run to be very painful with frozen toes...I started feeling better on my second lap and the third was ok too... I totally avoided cramps this time since I had my bottle of water not frozen in transition and had enough electrolytes thanks to my nuun hydration tablets. I was also wearing my new swiftwicks compression socks and Unleash compression tights under my north face winter tights.
Transitions are my specialties, I am pretty quick and don't waste my time... which I think got me to the ski transition with one of my team mate Jonathan Dionne :)
The ski leg didn't go as well as planned. They changed the course to make it shorter and we would have 4 laps instead of 3 to do, implying that people would be more concentrated on the course. I got passed on the right, left and even pushed down. I didn't feel comfortable and the fact that we had to double pole for a section at every lap didn't help either...I should probably have practiced that a little before :)
I was so thankful to see the end of the ski section.
I had no clue where I was standing in the ranking at that point. I knew we were only 7 girls doing the whole long course solo but I didn't know where the others were. I only knew I had lapped two of them on the run and that the bi-athlete Claude Godbout was ahead but that was it. I then jumped in my snowshoes and off I went for the last leg of the race.
There was 3 laps of the snowshoe run and I felt pretty good for it. As I was starting my second lap I heard that the first girl was finishing and on my third lap I heard that my other team mate Alexandre Provost was just finishing.
I finished the race in 2h20min, in 2nd place as a woman and in first place in my age category. I was also 54th/100 overall :)
The first girl finished 15min ahead of me , 11min were from the ski section...I guess I know what I have to work on haha :)
It was once again a nice event and challenge for me who is not totally used to winter sports yet :)
