Welland Half

At the beginning of the season Rich and I had picked out Welland as one of the local races to focus on this season. I had 3 goals going into this weekend 1 go after Cody's record, 2 if I fell short of that I really wanted to go sub 4, and the last one was to get the win. Especially after coming second last weekend I REALLY wanted a win. However, things got flipped on their head about mid-week.

Wednesday morning Ang woke up with some pain in her stomach, but we didn't think about it to much. The pain intensified all day and that night around 12:30 we decide to go to the ER. We left the ER around 5:30 in the morning with orders to return at 8 for an ultrasound because they thought it might have been gallstones. The ultrasound didn't show anything so they shot her up with some drugs and sent her home. The pain wasn't gone for long and before you know it we were back at the ER to figure out what was going on once and for all. A CT scan revealed that her appendix was inflamed and before we knew it she was in surgery. All of that was a whirlwind of 48 hours of going back and forth to the hospital. Not the ideal taper before a race, but sometimes life comes first.

Saturday was the first time I was able to workout so I got in a quick bike and run with a couple of race pace intervals. I was pretty close to throwing in the towel and skipping the race. My bike felt like i was pedalling through slop, and my calves started getting tight running just 60s at race pace, but after much debate and Ang pushing me I decided to suck it up and race.

The Race
Driving to the race I was texting with Rich, and we kind of decided to scrap goals 1 and 2 and just focussing on getting the win. If I just focussed on that the times would come if they were meant to. My dad and Ang's mom got a bunch of pictures so I'm just going to use those to describe the rest of the day.

Swim start - there were only 6 people in the elite age group/pro wave and we started a minute ahead of the 39 and unders

It was pretty overcast and chance of rain so I went with clear Vorgee Missiles to compliment my Nineteen Rogue

I came out of the water 3rd. After trying to make a couple moves and shake Andrew I decided I should just conserve some energy and moved to Andrew's feet. Some guys from the wave behind us caught us at about 1500m and we moved onto their feet for a fast last 500m.

The ride was pretty uneventful. I pulled away for about 60k, but Andrew reeled me back in around 65-70k. I sat in for about 10k before making my final push for the finish. Once again with the cloudy skies I swapped out the lenses on my Smith PivLocks for clear lenses just in case it started to rain again.

Heading out on the run. 1st 10k were pretty solid before it started to fall apart. I've been getting a tingling left foot in the last 2 halves so I think I will try to loosen my shoes a bit next time. Hopefully that will be one less thing on my brain.

I kept checking my watch as I knew the 4hr mark was close. I could hear Steve Fleck counting down, and I tried to pick it up for one last kick. We thought I broke 4, but later found out the clock started with the age group wave 1 minute behind me. I just missed sub 4 going 4:00:40.

Breaking the tape

Celebrating what we thought was a sub4 performance 

The cheering squad. Mom, Dad, and Ang

Once again Multisport Canada put on an excellent race, and it is always fun racing with so many friends. There are always things you want to do better, and I think I have the ability to go sub 4. My swim was 90s slower than last year, my bike power was a bit lower than Knoxville, and I think I lost some mental focus on the run when it seemed the win was locked up. My next chance to really break the 4 hour barrier will be at Barrelman, but before that I will be racing Muskoka.

Thanks for reading. I will try to update things a bit more tomorrow with power numbers etc, but I wanted to get something posted before calling it a night.