Shawnigan Lake

My day began at a beautiful 4:40am. I managed to get about 6 hours of sleep (better than I was expecting) and after a bit of breakfast of cinnamon mini-wheats and orange juice I was out the door and on my way up to Lake Shawnigan. I was nervous mainly because the past several days my old granny hip was really tight which made it hard to run. My short brick work-out on Sat was more of a hobble/walk than a run. Nonetheless, I put that out of my mind and hoped that when the time came to run my body would co-operate for 5k.

I got up to the lake in time to watch the half and the olymipc competitors start and come through the first transition before the cannon went off for the sprint start. At 8:40 I got into the lake to do a bit of a warm up and, wow the lake was chilly compared to Thetis! But when that cannon boomed and the water started to froth with arms and legs, I did not feel the cold; instead I focused on getting out ahead and not getting kicked. Coming into transition was tough, it was hard to run up the hill to my bike because of my hip, even though the cold semi-numbed it. I fumbled for a bit to get my shoes, glasses, helmet and race belt on because my hands and feet were colder than I had thought.

The bike seemed to go by quicker than I expected. The course was rolling which I liked; it kept my mind working and processing the whole time. I held my own on the course not letting any women pass me. T2 was even more of a struggle than T1. After 40 some odd min on the bike my feet were really frozen, running through transition felt so surreal, because I couldn't feel my toes my balance had been compromised. But I shoved my feet into my flats, zipped up the laces and threw off my hlemet... Next came the pain train

Run was terrible... hip was in horrible condition. I got passed by a lot of people, so the focus turned from racing into finishing running (or at least my half hobble I was doing at this point). At 3k I could feel my feet again, and although it was a balmy 13ish degrees and drizzly I was not cold at all. The run course was a flat out-and-back along a gravel path, so I got to see Adam and Andrew killing it in their races.

Turns out I had quite successful swim and bike times, 8:24 swim 6th woman, 48:18 bike, 12th woman, and I was in 10th place heading into the run, until things went a little sour. But overall I loved the experience! I learned a lot about transitions, equipment, and race-prep. Congratulations to all competitors and team mates Nick, Adam, Andrew, Tyler, Derek, Lief and Hannah. Thanks to coach Noa, as well as all the volunteers, race was a huge success and great time for me.

This past week I have been doing yoga and physio religiously to stretch out my hip flexor and thankfully it has helped an enormously. I had a 15 min run off of a 2hr ride yesterday and I was apprehensive about it at first, but my hip held up and everything felt great! Huge, huge improvement since last week.

I am looking forward to the rest of the season and (fingers crossed) summer weather.