Just when you thought this was a travel blog, I’ve gone and made this first post a triathlon race report. Well relax, the travel stories are coming. In the meantime, here’s the story of how I ended up on the start line of the ITU Montreal Standard Distance Triathlon, three days after arriving in Montreal and fifteen and a half thousand kilometres from home, and what happened next.
My main reason to visit Montreal was to stay with friends Jo and Stef who I met through my tri club in Brisbane. When I called them to discuss dates, the conversation went something like this:
“Hey, I’m coming to Montreal. When’s that triathlon you were talking about?”
“There’s two.”
“Oh, which one are you doing?”
“Both.”
Which is how I ended up registered for not only the ITU Tri but also the Esprit Triathlon two weeks later (but we’ll get to that in a later post).
Race day eve was spent in the usual way: head into the race precinct in Montreal’s Old Port, watch one of the professional World Triathlon Series races (this time it was the pro women’s race happening on the Saturday), go to athlete check-in and hand in the bike for overnight racking. I was very happy to learn that I, alright my whole age group, would be on the blue carpet in transition rather than the bare asphalt. For the non-triathlon folk here, that’s the equivalent of getting a free upgrade to business class on your international flight.
Race day arrived and, with our race numbers and club tattoos applied, we jumped on the metro to head into the Old Port. The forecast was for showers at some stage but the morning was overcast and mercifully cooler than the day before. We were there with plenty of time to spare so transition set up was easy and we headed off to take a look at the swim start.
The 1500m swim was a two and a half lap course in the marina, giving the spectators an excellent vantage point along the length of the pier. Between Jo’s early wave start at 8:03am and mine at 9:18am I had time to see all of Jo’s swim (walking along the pier in bare feet because I hadn’t packed a pair of thongs), meet up with Stef again, do some stretches, eat and head back down to the start area. As predicted a few days earlier by the race organisers, the water temperature was 23.5 degrees – too warm to need or want to wear a wetsuit. Usually this is good news for me as a relatively strong swimmer because wetsuits can have a ‘levelling’ affect on the field. In this case though, my swim training had been non-existent for 6 months and I’d been looking forward to the extra buoyancy from the suit. But what can you do? Despite being my second swim in 6 months (the warm up swim 20 minutes earlier being the first) I’d always felt fairly confident with the swim leg and so I was feeling ready to go.
The swim was to be an in-water start with one hand up on the pontoon so when the starter’s gun went I had to do some in-water acrobatics to reach back, start my Garmin watch and then push off. I quickly got into a rhythm breathing every stroke and found someone at the right pace to hip-draft off. At the first turning buoy I left the other swimmer behind and starting making my way up through the field. After the first lap I was feeling comfortable and had found myself in a small group of swimmers all at about the same pace. By the time we rounded the far buoy for the second time I’d decided I needed to lift the pace a little again and so took off on my own. I was breathing away from the pier and it was only when I switched sides that I realised I was right up against the concrete pier and needed to move out, if for no other reason than to miss the next floating pontoon jutting out from the side. With 200m to go, I switched from a two-beat to a six-beat kick to get the blood back into my legs, ready for the climb up the (very) long ramp from the water to the top of the pier. I climbed up the stairs out of the water feeling good. 1500m swim done in 33:46.
As I ran through transition I couldn’t quite get the water out of my ears but I figured it would fix itself as I went. I grabbed my tri shoes, helmet and bike (all borrowed from Stef, thanks Stef!) and ran over the mount line, which marks the start of the bike course. As I started moving I gave my head one more shake to get the water out of my ears and managed to flick my sunglasses right off my face. Real smooth, Paul. Two quick u-turns later I was out on the course, with sunglasses, holding on tight as I rode over first the rubber mats and then the cobble stones, both of which made for a very rough start. As I started the first sharp climb of the bike leg, I heard a familiar voice. It was Jo on her final lap (ninth of the eight required we’d later work out, sorry Jo). Part of the excitement of this race for me was getting to race with Jo again. The big gap in our wave starts meant we wouldn’t see each other out on course much that day so it was nice to have a quick chance to check-in and see how her race was going. The bike course was really interesting taking riders right through the heart of Old Montreal, but it was also very technical with two very sharp climbs, two hair-pin turns and a series of left and right corners on each of the eight laps. After two laps I checked my bike computer and saw the course was a bit short so I’d have to keep track of my laps rather than just relying on total distance. Even then, I wasn’t sure I’d done the correct number until I double checked after the race. Eight laps, phew. Half way through the bike leg it started to rain, just enough to wet the road, and I saw two riders go down in front of me on consecutive turn-arounds. Both were okay, albeit with a little less skin, but I decided I’d be taking it very easy through the corners for the rest of the bike. As I came in on the final lap of the bike, the rain started coming down heavier and I hoped that my only precaution against wet running shoes – turning them upside in transition that morning – might see me putting on dry shoes, at least at the start. I cruised back in over the cobblestones and mats to finish the bike in 1:15:32.
The run was a four lap course going past the finishing chute in the middle of each lap so you were never far from support – just as well. On the bike I had felt I probably hadn’t adjusted the seat to the correct height the day before and was over-using my quads. Now on the run I was starting to pay for it with fatigue and then cramping in my quads. A few times I had to stop and work the muscles with my thumbs, but for the most part I was able to keep running. The rain kept coming down, although you tend not to notice as much on the run and it’s the volunteers and spectators that have it the worse in those conditions. As I came around into the finishing chute, I spotted Stef, Jo and a couple of their friends all cheering me on. I ran past to give and get all the high fives I could and ran under the finishing arch to stop the clock at 56:16 for the 10km run and a total race time of 2hr 50min 16secs. It was a long way off my PB at this distance but for me the day had been about enjoying racing in a new country and getting to the finish line and, with my finisher’s medal now around my neck, I’d done both.
