Welland Half Iron Post Race Report

On Saturday June 14, my dad and his friend were supposed to do a TBN (Toronto Bike Network) supported bike ride from Stoney Creek, Hamilton to Niagara Falls. They were going to sleep over on Saturday night and ride home on Sunday. This worked out well for me because it meant that I could just crash in their hotel room, and make a short drive to Welland in the morning for the Welland Half. As it turned out, my dad caught a bad case of strep throat and couldn't ride, but decided to drive down anyway to make use of the hotel. In all of the confusion of preparing for the overnight stay and the uncertainty of him riding it became a very hectic couple of days.

I think it was a lack of racing experience for the year (since it was my first race this season), as well as the confusion but I ended up forgetting my GPS watch, my eload nutrition, my water bottles and my helmet back home in Mississauga! YIKES! To make things worse, I realized all of this at 3:00 p.m. and had to rush around Niagara trying to scavenge what I could around town. $90 later I managed to pick up everything except my GPS watch, which I was uncertain about racing without. I had never raced without my GPS watch and was scared and unsure of how the day would turn out. I convinced myself that this little hiccup wouldn't phase me and that I would still keep my head in the game.

  

The gun went off and I ended up throwing down my fastest 2K swim with 35:14.... Strange considering I had been in the pool twice all summer. I felt good coming off of the swim and half way through the bike, realized it was going to be a special day. 

Not sure why the photog decided to take
pictures of my derp face but it makes
for some funny photos :p

The Welland bike ride is always great. It is flat, fast and the wind never seems to be a bother. I finished the 90K bike in 2:35:53; another personal best split with an average of 34.6. I felt like I could have gone faster on the bike based of my perceived effort alone, but while monitoring my power decided I should maybe back off a little and maintain my current pace. This yielded an average power output of 190, just under what I had planned to do. 

 
The run I was really nervous about. I had no watch and no indication (aside from the km markers) of my time or pace. I started off the run slow (I think) and as I felt better, started to speed up and to my surprise never stopped. I felt strong the whole way through and finished the run in 1:42:26... yet again, another personal best split. My 21.1K split was even faster than my first half-marathon time as a  stand alone road race! I feel like racing without my watch turned out to be to my benefit. Instead of pushing myself out of T2 to reach my pace as soon as possible, I let myself naturally settle into my rhythm and run my own race. A seasoned Ironman veteran said it to me before the race: the run is really all about pain management and personal drive. No matter how well you train, the run all comes down to how bad you want it, how smart you race and how well you listen to your body. 


Those tan lines though...



I came into the finish in a time of 5:03:55, 62nd overall and 4th in the 20-24 AG. I was just under 5 minutes short of a medal. I think if I cut down on my transition times (mine were over 8 minutes combined) I could have made it. However, I think my slower transitions allowed me to collect myself, feed myself and mentally prepare myself for the next discipline. Again, this may also have been a lack of racing experience this year.

 Turns out my final Wildman sprint was all for naught.

The race organizers mistook the length of the run course by 750m

so the real finish was 3 minutes behind me at this point but again, makes for a good picture

What started out to be a disaster of a weekend turned out to be my best race to date. Through all of the challenges I put on myself by forgetting all of my stuff, I remained focused and set on my goal. I beat my time from last year by over 40 minutes, and set a half-iron PB by over 30 minutes. It was a good father's day present to my dad. He comes out to every one of my races to support me and yell bits of advice and encouragement when he sees me on the course. It felt good to be able to put out a performance like I did as a way to thank him for his patience and sacrifice.