John vs. Canada
And Canada won. Big time.
So my friend, Dan, hadn’t been back to his hometown of North Bay, Ontario, since his family left the area about 25 years ago. Recently he discovered that the lakeside town of 50,000 souls hosts a triathlon every year. Our wives were kind enough to let us head north for a weekend so Dan could check out his old digs and we could test our mettle against our northern neighbors. With spousal permission and passports in hand, we headed north last Friday to take on Canada.
The race was a 1 km (0.6 mile) swim, 34 km (21 mile) bike, and an 8.4 km (5.2 mile) run. What you don’t see in these numbers is that the bike course and run course are both out-and-back routes that are uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back.
Due to the twisty, turny nature of the bike course, and my aversion to dislocated hips caused by running downhill in an uncontrolled, failing mass of arms and legs, the benefit I get from going downhill does not cancel out the penalty I incur going uphill. In other words, I anticipated being slowed down on the uphills more than I could make up for on the downhills.
Coupling this with the fact that I can count on two hands the number of good, solid bike training days I managed to fit in so far this year, and that the longest I’ve run is 5 miles, I went into the race thinking I’d approach it as a tough training day and finish in about 2 hours and 10 minutes. Dan’s expectations were similar since he’s biked and run about the same amount this spring and summer.
As you can see in the results, I met my goal – to the second: 2 hours, 10 minutes, and zero seconds. Hey, I’m a Capricorn - that’s what we do. Dan was right behind me, beating his goal by almost 7 minutes. Not bad.[1]
When all was said and done I finished 48th overall out of 115 competitors, and 6th out of 8 in my age group. While I’d like to finish closer to the middle of the pack of my age group, I’m pleased with this result since I was WAY underprepared for the bike and run. Unsurprisingly, my bike was weak (70th overall and last in my age group), but my run was decent (8 minute miles).
What was nice to see was that all the swim training I’ve been doing seems to be working. I swam an average of about 1:40 per 100 yards, which was in the top 30 swim times, and just happens to be the goal I need to reach for the Skaneateles Skinnyman triathlon with my TMF comrades. Chris and Kathleen, I hope you’re taking the challenge seriously!
Dan was just a little behind me on the swim, faster than me on the bike (you’ll pay for that, Dan) and darn close on the run, finishing 57th overall. Not bad for a guy who bought his bike, like, 2 months ago and just started swimming. I have to start doing secret workouts and find a way to hold him back.
So how about the winner? The winner of the race was Len Gushe from Ontario. I know exactly when he finished, because we were right next to each other on the run course about 50 yards away from the finish line. In fact, we were facing directly at each other. This is because I was just starting the 5.2 mile out-and-back run and he was just finishing the 5.2 mile out-and-back run. That’s right, folks. I was starting the “out” and he was finishing the “back.”
He beat me by almost 40 minutes in a race that took me 130 minutes. I would have had to go about 30% faster in each event to finish with him. In my defence[2], this is a man who won his age group and finished 60th overall at the 2000 Ironman world championships in Kona, Hawaii. [3]
And talk about your coincidences: check out this photo of me, Dan and “the Gushe” (I don’t know if they call him that, but Dan and I do). Len is the one with all the muscles. I’m the peon in the blue shirt near the car in the upper right corner running away from the camera. Dan is the cyclist at left getting ready to enter the transition area on the right of the photo. Check out the gallery for a few of the photos I took at the race.
So, to recap: Fun road trip, I got to see Canada for the first time, Dan and I did a longer race than we were prepared for and lived to tell the story. Not a bad weekend.
- A note on the results: the two transition times - T1 (swim to bike) and T2 (bike to run) - are usually broken out separately, but based on where the timing mats were located, they seemed to have combined T1 with the bike time and T2 with the run time. I am notoriously slow in T1 – I dry my feet, take in some nutrition, look around, paint a watercolor, write a poem, and then get on the bike – but it’s still no more than 3 minutes. All in all, it shouldn’t affect the bike time too much. However, a 1:40 T2 time translates into about 20 seconds per mile for a 5 mile run. Bottom line though: the first one to cross the finish line wins regardless of how many splits you get. [back]
- Do you like the Canadian spelling, eh? [back]
- So how do the distances in the North Bay Triathlon translate into Ironman distances, you ask? Good question. All you need to do is repeat the North Bay swim 3 more times, do the bike 4.3 more times, and then do the run 4 more times. That will give you the Ironman distances of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. Not for the faint of heart. [back]
June 29th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Amazing commentary on the race. When did you have time to do that??? Thanks for accompanying Dan and typing up your thoughts on the experience! I enjoyed reading several of your other articles as well.
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:16 pm
[...] the not-short drive home from the North Bay tri Dan remarked that he wanted to work on his swimming so he could improve his swim time. I’ve known [...]
September 6th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
John,
I think you are actually the peon in the blue shirt near the car in the upper LEFT corner running away from the camera. But regardless of position, the photo is truly amazing. What are the odds of the three of you ending up in the photo at the same time, with each one at a different juncture in the race?!? Maybe you can do an entry where you calculate those odds based on the position of every participant in the race at every moment of the race…