"You got beat by a girl??"

Muskoka Race Report

"You got beat by a girl?" Actually got beat by two of them. Having the likes of Samantha McGlone or Tereza Macel 'beat' me is actually quite an honour. I often use the pro women as a bit of a bench mark for my own performance. I know when my times start to near their times, I've attained a certain level of performance. I'm just happy I'm healthy enough to even consider hanging on their heals because they can certainly lay the smack down and kick a lot of ass!

Goal: Attain an IMLP spot.

Arrival
I'm a keener. Got to the site nice and early. It takes me awhile to feel completely warmed up and I wanted a good spot in the transition area. So I arrived early enough to take the bike for a spin, go through check in procedure, lightly stretch out, go for a jog and finally do a swim warm up. I had some extra time and met up with Cliff , who was so keen on racing, he got a speeding ticket on the way to the race site! Hmm.. racing to get to a race.. ironic?

After talking to a few people the day before the race and in the transition area, I found out that quite a few were looking for Ironman spots. Silly me, not signing up the year before and leaving it to the last minute to qualify. I just find it so difficult to pay a large chunk of change to IMNA a full year before a race. Too much can happen between then and now. So I take my chances and try to qualify. Hey, sometimes life is gamble.

Swim 2k: Time: 29:06 Age group: 4/95 Overall: 41/792
I'm in the 3rd wave. Not a big fan of wave starts, I'd prefer a mass start, but the format for this race is 'chase', so we do waves. The horn blows and we're off, nice clean start. I breath left, I breath right and appear to be leading the crew in the first 200m or so. I relax and think about doing nice long strokes. I'm sighting the bouys really well and put my head down and swim 20 or 25 strokes without sighting, pop my head up and still maintaining course. All good signs. I feel like I'm swimming about a 1:24 pace. I run into a little traffic during the last half of the swim, just due to catching up the previous waves, but navigation is good and had no problems swimming around them. A little dissapointed in my 1:28/100m pace, I know swimming, and I know I was swimming faster than that!
Out of the water in 4th place in my division. I have NO idea how 3 buggers in my age group managed to pass me - totally didn't see them. We exit within 30 seconds of each other - so it's a close race.

T1: I see one of the guys that exited the water me and compliment him on his swim. I get an odd look, which in turn I find odd.

Bike 55k. Time: 1:33:29 Age group: 14/95 Overall: 76/792
I liked the bike course. I think many people would say it's 'challenging', lots of rolling hills and a few good climbs. I even came out of the saddle once or twice and rarely do that on any climb. I was keeping my effort in check during the bike, wanted to get a few calories down and just gauge my overall feel. I was a little scared that I may experience nausea as I have in the past, but I didn't! Phew! In hindsight, I should have put the hammer down more on the bike - but hindsight is 20/20, right?

Run 15k Time: 1:02 Age group 10/92. Overall: 75/792.
A very solid run for me. I'm very happy with it. I can attribute my decent run performance due to my increased bike endurance. I just got off the bike and immediately ran ~4 minute K's for the duration. I used to envy the guys who could run after the bike.. I'm slowly turning into one of those guys! The hard work is starting to pay off.
I got passed by one guy in my age group and asked him if he was going for a IM spot and he said "No". (phew) So I wasn't sure at this point, I thought I was around 4 th in my age group and after I checked the official results I was suprised that 3 more guys managed to get by me. So I finished 7th. Eep, that's enough to make me sweat on whether or not I'll get a IMLP spot!

After the awards ceremony they give out the Ironman spots. There seem to alot of people here and more than once Sally and I saw the odd tear on someone who wasn't able to qualify. My heart goes out to them, to train all those hours and not get a spot. The competition was that intense. So they call the M35-39 division and a BUNCH of us trod up to the desk. Nerve wracking. (what is it with us mid-life-crisis-guys trying to capture the athletisism of our youth??) We are talking amongst ourselves.. 'what spot are you going for?', what's your time?' etc... I know there is at least 2 spots for IMLP, but the bad news FIVE out of the 6 guys that were faster than me showed up to claim a spot! They start the procedure... 1 guys take IM Florida, the next 2 take IM Canada, the next one take IMLP! I'm next, I got the other IMLP spot! PHEW! Didn't have to wait for roll down. But there were many dissapointed guys in my category and I'm kinda bummed for them. I think the level of competition at this race kinda took everyone by suprise.

Well I didn't want this to turn into a long convuluted report but it sort of ended up that way. :)
Cheers!