Toronto Island Sprint Triathlon: 59:30, 2nd OA

The triathlon season is quickly coming to a close, so it was nice to be out racing close to home this weekend for a race on Toronto Island.  I have been training and racing hard this year and have stayed injury free, but as is expected with a triathlon season, fatigue does start to catch up with you.  After my last race in Kingston (where I was DQ'd), I was feeling pretty tired and unmotivated to train, so I decided to scrap any plans for hard training, and took a couple weeks of light/no training.  This resulted in a lot of spare time, and gave me a chance to catch up on some of my other summer projects.

My last post showed the rusty razor...here's the after as well

So lets talk about the race.  I headed to the island with my girlfriend Catalina and my good friends Raffi and Vicky (Catalina and Raffi also raced the sprint).  It was fun taking the ferry over to the race, but it did leave us a bit tight for time.  I got to the start line on time, but only got in about a 1 minute swim warmup.

CN tower shot

Swim

The water wasn't too cold, and I had no problems swimming up at the front of the race.  Myself and fellow MSC ambassador team member Mikael Staer Nathan led the swim, and the pace was pretty chill.  We exited the swim with a couple other racers, and since the timing mat was up near transistion (which was a few hundred meters away), I ran hard to lead across the mat and pick up the points for the fastest swim.

Warming up in Nineteen Frequency

Looking...determined?

Bike

The bike course was very flat, and consisted of two laps back and forth across the island.  The ride did nothing to separate Mikael and I, and just put the two of us in a comfortable position up in front. 

Looking aero and fast

Run

I had a bit of an issue getting my race belt on in transition...the bib got stuck in my bike wheel and pulled off one of the cord locks holding it in place.  This small delay allowed Mikael to get out of T2 first, and with a fast acceleration, he pulled ahead.  I chased hard, and ran pretty well, but I couldn't catch him, and crossed the line in second.

Running in for 2'nd

Man-hugging it out

Overall

I was pretty happy with this race.  I find I enjoy the races a lot more when there is strong competition and there is a heated battle for the win.  I was feeling a lot better as well...my time off training helped a lot, and I'm now feeling good going into the home stretch of the season.

Catalina and Raffi also had strong races.  Catalina came first in her AG and Raffi put together a solid performance for his first race of the year.  My dad and brother also raced on the island this weekend, but in the tri-a-tri on Saturday.  My dad came first in his AG, and my brother came 2'nd OA!!!  Its great to see everyone racing well and having fun!!  Vicky was also excellent as photographer/cheerleader, and my mom was great as she woke up early to make me breakfast before the race.

As usual, a big thanks for Multisport Canada for putting on a great event.  Setting up a race on the island is logistically quite challenging, but it was run very smoothly.
A big thanks also goes to eLoad for their continued support in keeping me fuelled in racing and training.  Thanks also to Nineteen Wetsuits for their support and for keeping me swimming well in the open water!

The season is almost over, but I'll be racing at Barrelman to finish out the season.  Its a great late season half, and should be a nice way to end the summer.  Worth checking out!