2010 Wolfville Tri Festival

Well it happened. I did my first triathlon. This past weekend Wolfville's rec department put on a Try a Tri event for kids and adults. My event was considered to be the Long Course at 400m/10km/4km. While the biking and running were short for me, the swim was just about right. In fact it was to be the furthest I had ever swam in one go. Sure I have spent enough time at the pool practicing that I swam 1km. But that took me 2 hours with lots of rest stops. This was going to be my time to shine with people looking on.

I started in Wave 2 or the 3 Waves which were to happen. This meant that my competition was going to be in different waves than me. Oh well, that just means you have to push yourself and not rely on pacing off of others. So push I did.

Now my swimming is not great (as I mentioned). And what is worse is my attempts at front crawl. Too bad, as this is the most efficient swim stroke for Tri's. But I relied on my tried and true breaststroke to carry me through. I started with a bang and for the first few las of the pool was just as fast as most people doing the front crawl. Sadly though my endurance began to falter and I fell back. I slowed, but carried on as best as I could. Finally I got out of the pool 3rd last and ran to to T1.

T1 was where I found out how hard it was to get dressed while wet. Next time, better jersey choice. Luckily I had already committed to a no socks approach, so that helped. Onto the bike I got and out onto the course.

the course was a very short 2.5km out and back we had to do twice. Luckily there was plenty of volunteer and police presence to keep us safe. It was hard, though, to get a good rhythm with all the turn arounds, but I still managed to do the course in 18 minutes flat at 33.2 km/hr. Did I mention it was bumpy? Oh yeah, it was. I survived though and onto the run.

The run started on the Acadia University track. That was nice as it is a cushioned surface. nice on the feet and legs. Then out a rails to trail, loop back, around the track again repeat and down the finishing chute to grab your numbered Popsicle stick.  The run was pretty easy, though my upper body was starting to cramp, almost surely from the swim (I have never done a brick workout that involved much of a swim). But the cramps went away by the second lap and I picked up the pace. I finished with my standard sprint (see above photo) which was nice to do.

As this was a just for fun event, there were no awards per se. We did get medals for finishing and some great draw prizes. And the food layout was great as well, plus a nice post race massage. Latter on we received our times and I ended up second fastest overall behind Kevin Besner, a mere 30 seconds out of first. It is hard to loose by 30 seconds when you can look back and actually find those 30 seconds you lost, but those are the breaks. And in the end I know I gave it a good go. I ended with a time of 49:18. And I think 20 minutes of that was putting my jersey on while I was wet (lol).

So that was one of my sports goals for the year. Complete a Tri of any distance and prepare for something bigger and better next year. Big thanks goes out to Shannon Read who organized this event, to the Town of Wolfville, to the RCMP officers that kept us safe, to the crazy amount of volunteers as and to the weather for being so nice.

Volunteer Ian McGrath, Constantly telling me I was about to turn on my bike at the wrong spot.