ITU Worlds Penticton Long Course Recap

This past weekend as you know was the World Championship for Long Course Triathlon in  Penticton, BC. Going into the race I knew this would be the biggest challenge that I've ever taken on taking into account both the immense distance of the race and the number of major injuries that I've had all year and in the weeks leading into the race post Racine 70.3. My Mom and stepdad Keith arrived in Penticton on Tuesday, and we all were immediately surprised at the look of the Okanagan landscape. In our minds we imagined that the Okanagan was lush and green, being known for its wine and food, but it turns out it is actually categorized as a desert region. In fact in Penticton it hadn't rained in more than 40 days when we arrived. The landscape though was definitely striking with its beautiful and massive lake and large foothills at the water's edge on either side of the lake.  

The very first day in Penticton, my first run was less than inspiring struggling in the immense heat, and finding it hard to breathe with the smoke in the air from nearby forest fires. On Wednesday things got a little worse when standing in the parking lot of the hotel (which was fantastic being right on the water and at the race start) my rear disc wheel got a puncture. I kept my cool (sort of) and we all hunted for a solution. I figured if I got a new tubular I could get it glued in time for the race - it takes about 3 days to properly glue on a tubular tire since you need to apply multiple layers of glue and let each layer dry for about 8 hours before applying the next layer and then after the fourth layer and mounting the tire you need to wait about 36 hours to let the cement glue completely dry. Luckily we found a bike store in town called the Bike Barn which was very close to the hotel who had just one high performance tubular tire left in stock. I also purchased a very cheap aluminum wheel to use with the bike for training in the interim while I prepared the disc. Unfortunately the wheel was very heavy and it jumbled up my gear shifting which really affected the performance of the bike for my training rides. In fact on my first ride training ride I was only able to use three gears without the bike making a racket which made cresting the huge climbs on the course quite a challenge. The problem was that while I could easily index the rear derailleur for a mechanical groupset such as Shimano Ultegra on my road bike using the barrel adjuster, I'm not familiar with how to adjust the wireless etap and I haven't learned since getting the bike a short while ago since with a wireless system like etap once the derailleur is set in place there are no cables that could stretch so unless the derailleur is hit by something in a crash or something you should never have to index the gears on it. On this bike though now that their was a different wheel it meant the gears were off and the performance was poor. 

Throughout the week though I spent a good amount of time learning the technical bike course and by Friday had the winding technical descent down and memorized so much so that on the final go of the descent (on Friday I rode the climb leading to it and the descent three times over) I was able to go without braking at all and able to somewhat confidently pedal down the descent and even get up and hammer out of the saddle before one of the sharp hairpin turns. Unfortunately out on that ride my eyes were burning throughout from the smoke and when I returned to the room my eyes were completely bloodshot. Swimming throughout the week was okay it was nice to be able to train in the lake and the lake was a perfect temperature for swimming, but my stroke didn't feel particularly good. I find if I'm out of the pool for too long, swimming in a lake for multiple days in a row, my stroke looses some of its power. Running was okay, was having some hamstring issues as usual and my legs just felt pretty achy in general. So overall, I would say training in the five days leading into the race didn't leave me feeling super strong and confident but tried to stay positive and thought the training didn't really matter at this point anyways as the hay was already in the barn. I did though have quite a good run workout on the Friday and a great pre race day of training on the Saturday with a fantastic hard high intensity bike workout (the same bike workout I do the day before every race) a good short brick off the bike, and moderate paced 1500m lake swim. On Friday though disaster struck. I went down to the bike mechanic van outside the hotel to get the cassette from the aluminum wheel transferred back over to the disc but found out that the glue hadn't taken at all. I think it was a combo of trying to speed the process of gluing up too much, and not having good light in the hotel room to be able to even see how much glue I was applying (which obviously wasn't enough). After panicking for a little bit my mom and Keith ripped over to the Pasta Dinner that was happening at the time to see if anyone would have a spare wheel and speak to Triathlon Canada to see if they could help, as both me and my brother called almost every bike store on the west coast to see if they had something I could use. We found a couple things that could possibly work pretty far away in Vancouver and Seattle but really when it comes down to it after riding the Revolver Disc and knowing how good and fast it is, I couldn't imagine riding anything else on race day. So I wanted to give the gluing one more shot, and figured if now at 7:30pm on Friday night I took the tire off slathered the wheel and tire again with glue and remounted the tire, that the tire could potential be ready for Sunday morning. I definitely would not be able to test the disc out or warmup my race day super chain (Ceramic Speed UFO chain which saves 2-5 Watts), or test the gears to see if they worked well under high torques, but if it meant I could ride the Revolver Disc it would be worth the effort. So I glued the tire back on, and then me and Keith mustered up the strength of ten men to stretch the tubular onto the rim to set it in place (If you have ever tried mounting a non-pre-stretched tubular tire onto the rim I recommend you make sure to hydrate before and throughout, maybe take a HotShot, and finish off with some Infinit Repair to recover from the hard effort). On Saturday took the bike over to the Bike Barn where the people there where incredibly helpful and I really can't thank all the mechanics, and employees like Andre there enough for helping me get the bike ready for Sunday's Race. They changed the cassette over to the disc, checked my gluing job which they said was absolutely perfect and no doubt safe for riding (my Mom still wasn't entirely convinced wanting to maybe wrap me all up in bubble wrap, and then wrap the disc in duct tape lol), and install the super UFO chain. They did an incredible job re-indexing the gears and even did the labour for free in exchange of me returning the aluminum wheel to them, so in the end it didn't cost anything. Now it was time to quickly run over to bike check in, get the bike into transition, and then shift all my focus to Sunday. I did a good 1.5 hour long session in the Normatec Recovery Boots, which left my legs feeling nice and loose, pounded down a massive plate of pasta, had a pre-nightime advil to build up the anti-inflammatories into the bloodstream, and then laid down for a few hours before waking up at 3:30am to get it going on race day. 

Sunday morning (3:30am) was pretty cool to start, and the winds were calm. The swim would be wetsuit legal which I was thrilled at since I could unleash the Zone3 Vanquish. I was incredibly nervous before this race, probably more nervous than I ever have been. But after my pre-game rituals of watching Ryan Hall's Boston Marathon Run Workout video, which I have done before every road race so that I can visualize that stride throughout the entire run, and since starting triathlon watching Sun Yang 1500m Freestyle Race from Worlds a couple year's ago to visualize during the swim, I was ready to go. The pro wave went off at 6:20am, then the pro women about 5 minutes later, then the Paratriathletes, and then me and the rest of those in the 18-49 Age groups at 6:35am. Sheryl let me know on Friday during her race that the start was frantic and chaotic, and this start lived up to that. It was by far the most aggressive swim start I've ever been a part of, getting kicked, punched and wacked from all angles. It took a long time to navigate around the masses to get some room to swim, and by about 500m I was completely on my own. I felt pretty good but then as I approached the first turn bouy to go east the sun crested the hills in the east and I got completely blinded by the sun. I had to start breathing to my left to not look straight into it, but once we turned east there was no way to avoid looking into it when you where sighting straight ahead to see where the next bouy was. I got totally thrown off course because I literally could not see a thing, but eventually saw some splashing to my left and went over there to catch up to those swimmers.

Turns out they were the female pros who started about 10 minutes before. I stayed there for a little just until I could see the next bouy and then finally made the turn south back to shore (another 1200m). Now the sun was to my left so I could breathe to the right as I normally would and cranked the pace back up again. The thing is on the west to east section of the swim, my pace dropped significantly since psychologically it is very hard to swim all out when you are not entirely sure if you are going the right direction. But in the last 1000m I started ripping knowing that I need to try to make up time lost both at  the start of chaotic swim, and in that last section. I was completely solo again and it stayed that way all the way until the finish of the swim. I would say in the entire swim I was completely solo for 2600 out of the 3000 meters. One day I will get someone to draft of I hope. I got out of the water not sure where I was entirely in the field, but felt pretty good with the swim. It was about 3 minute slower than I anticipated but I think that was heavily influenced by the blinding section for the middle 750meters. The first 1500m I swam 20 minutes flat which is pretty much bang on what I wanted (1:20/100m), but the middle 750 across into the sun I swam 1:30 average and that hurt the time significantly. Still got out of the water feeling pretty energetic and ready to get after the bike. 

The bike was broken up into three sections. First there was an flat out and back to the north on Hwy 97, then two loops around Skaha Lake which would be very hilly at the southern part of the lake with two major climbs and a very technical descent. On the out and back I got into a good rhythm pretty quickly. In fact it was the most "relaxed" I've felt at the start of the bike. Not that I was chilling but that in most of my races I get very anxious to start hammering, and my breathing tends to get out of control early in the bike before settling. This time I was quickly on my goal power of 4.7 W/kg, at about 265 W and on the out and back of 25km I averaged 42.3 km/hr. I did take the u-turn at the turnaround quite gingerly because in my head I was still thinking a little bit about the freshly glued tubular, but tried to quickly forget about it since I knew I couldn't take the upcoming technical descents so cautiously.

I started my first loop feeling pretty good, but also knowing I lost quite a bit of time on the way to start the second loop with a competitor in front of me who would not move over to the side for me to pass. This slowed me up quite a bit, but angrily put the hammer down after he finally gave me a sliver of space to make the pass. After that flew down the road on the east side of Skaha and reached the 40km in a "within race" PB for 40km of 55:42. The first climb of McClean creek I was so pumped that my climbing legs felt fantastic. I felt super comfortable spinning quickly up the climb at around 315W, and then went what I thought was fast down the technical descent until an Australian competitor and French competitor flew past me. On the following climb, (the biggest on the course) up 97 North on the west side of Skaha, I flew past and seemingly just walked away from both the Aussie, and Frenchmen pushing 343 W or 6 W/kg up the long climb. Again though on the long descent both the Aussie and Frenchmen passed me. The second loop was pretty much a carbon copy of the first. I ripped up and past both the Aussie and Frenchmen on the McClean Creek climb and then even though I tried to be even more aggressive not touching the brakes once and even getting up out of the saddle to pedal on the descent it didn't matter both competitors past me once again. But on the climb up 97 again past both of them with nearly identical power as the first time up the climb, however this time only the Frenchmen past me on the descent, and I stayed clear of the Aussie. Into transition, I was somewhat pleased by my bike even though it was roughly 5 minutes slower than I wanted (I biked 3:07 for the 120km with more 3600ft of elevation gain which is 38.5km/hr, sportstats has it at 3:09 but that included the run up to the mounting line, and the run from the dismount line to the transition mat). I was not blown away by the power I managed to push on the flats, but was very happy that I was able to get off the bike with still a pretty solid time, and with my legs feeling relatively fresh (well not fresh but as good as they can probably feel post 120km bike and 3km swim), and that my nutrition on the bike was so well handled. Looking at the numbers it looks like I consumed approximately 6L of fluids on the bike (almost 2L per hour) and an absolutely mind blowing (in other words no clue how I didn't throw up or feel sick) 500 grams of carbohydrates (about 165 grams per hour!!). I don't know how I was able to handle so much because that is about double what I have trained with, but going into the run it meant I had essentially carb loaded again for the run.

Transition 1 was slow with how they set up the transition area having to run all over the place, and transition 2 was pretty much the same. But got out onto the run feeling pretty good. The legs were the usual brick type feeling but by about 2km was into my normal rhythm and was settling down. Just like I planned ahead into the race, I kept repeating over and over in my head to relax, relax, relax, and to stay relaxed for as long as possible and my body listened. I kept my cool, and wasn't too concerned with the heat. To be honest after Wisconsin this year the fact that it was 33 here in Penticton when I started the run, didn't seem very hot compared to the 42 degrees and humidity that there was in Wisconsin. By about 5km my hamstring was doing its normal thing, but I worked through it like I did in training over the last 5 weeks. I reached 5km in 19 minutes (3:50/km), and at 8km I reached a critical point in my race. I caught up to Robbie Chalfant who I caught up to at almost exactly 8km in the 70.3 Miami last November. In November last year, I had caught up to him but within the next kilometer he dropped me hard, and from there on the final 10km was a death march. This time I caught up to him and was feeling already much better. We made the turn out onto the second lap as we could hear the announcer say that these are our two leading Age group racers out on the course. That pumped me up so much.

Then I said over to Robbie to try to run to together for as long as we can. But about 1km into the second lap my legs which were pretty much in autopilot mode just floating along, kicked it up into another gear and Robbie wasnt able to stay with me. It was not one of those devastating Mo Farah type kicks or anything more of a Eluid Kipchoge gradual and methodical rev up in the pace. What was a few meters, quickly turned to 10, and 20, and soon, 200m ahead in a very short period of time. This was the turning point of my race because at that point I knew I had reached that next level. This was a guy who just 10 months ago whipped me in Miami by 16 minutes, and now I was pulling away from him. I couldn't believe it, but for just a moment thought maybe I was digging my own grave here injecting such a push in pace at only 12km into the run. But my legs felt full of energy, and kept repeating to myself to stay relaxed and just keep knocking the miles off. I reached the 20km with a big lead for the Overall Championship, and I've always said that I'm a much better front runner than I am trying to chase someone down. I feed so much adrenaline off of it, and get this running scared mentality which just makes me push harder and harder. My fueling on the run was not very good at all (really only had one gel from one of the aid stations, and a little water) but I guess my fueling on the bike was now carrying me through the run. At about 24km my legs starting to waver, and I wasn't so much an injured type feeling, but instead very similar to how my legs have felt nearing the end of marathons where they feel like your running through quicksand, and every stride feels like a huge test of strength. But this late in the game I just get telling myself "you got this, don't you dare f'in give up."

My pace stayed pretty strong only now getting into the 4:10s but stayed focused and knowing every step was getting me closer to the world title. I reached 29km, and my eyes filled with tears of happiness and pride. I grabbed the Canada flag on the way to the line, and let all my emotion out. I was the World Champion, and with that now a Professional Triathlete. I worked my butt off for this race and status, and there were so many instances the last few months were I didn't even think Penticton was going to be possible. In June when I found out my MRI results, I thought my season was over, then I got hit by car which destroyed my beautiful bike Elektra and hurt my confidence out on the road even more, not too mention a concussion, and a small break in my hand. I thought I made the biggest mistake of my life choosing to pursue this dream, and not take my Physiotherapy exam last November, or in June. The thing was though it wasn't that I ever doubted my ability, it was that I thought my injuries were going to prevent me from ever showing my ability and that made me even more sad and upset. But that adversity in the end made me even stronger and just added fuel to fire burning inside, and makes this victory even sweeter. And it was in the end how the race unfolded that made it even more satisfying.

5:58 is the actual time (6:17 is from when the pros started)

The fact that my swim was good not fantastic (thanks to the blinding sun), then the bike was good not fantastic, but that I won this race with my run. The thing that has been the biggest wildcard for the last 4 years of racing and especially last 2 years in triathlon. And I could not have done any of this with my incredible support team of: my Mom who was in the car with me on the way back from reviewing the results of the MRI with the Sports Medicine doctor, a car ride with alot of tears, but also telling me that she believes in me and supports my decision to pursue my dream 100%, and throughout the entire journey has supported me so much and done so much to get me to the finish line in Penticton. My Dad who has been there every step of the way to help me in any and every way possible, and put up with my insanity/temper tantrums on so many occasions. Keith who has believed in me from the start and had no doubt that I would achieve my dream. Sheryl who has been so much more than just my swim coach, giving so much emotional support, motivating me, and being there every step of the way to help with whatever.  And to my brother and sister for all their support and best wishes. And then at the race I need to thank the Bike Barn for being so helpful to get my bike ready in time for race day, and giving some reassurance that everything would work out. And to my sponsors throughout: Harry Walker at Revolver Wheels - the disc is truly magnificent, Zone3 for the super fast wetsuit, Rudy Project for my very comfortable/fast training road helmet the Boost and then the Wing57 for racing, Skechers Performance Canada for my fast light training and racing shoes, Compressport Canada for keeping my legs feel fresh throughout racing and training with your compression apparel, and Infinit Nutrition Canada for fueling me throughout my training and racing. This World Championship is just the start for me and there will be so much more to come in the future from Frank the Tank. Next up is the 70.3 World Championships where I will go after it hard like I always do and back this performance in Penticton up with another.