Toronto's recap will be brief, just like my race was! (you'll get the joke in a second). I had an okay swim in Toronto but that made me miss lead pack. I found it very hard to get back into a good rhythm in the water after Dallas and was just started to feel good again leading into the race. After an okay swim I had an amazing T1 and felt great as soon as I got on the bike. I was a bit too far behind lead pack to chase them down but also a bit ahead of the people I came out of the water with. I decided to 'wait up' for the guys and we formed a pack of 4. After 5k into the race I could see the leaders so I attacked pretty hard, it was successful at first but my legs just couldn't handle closing the gap. I then thought we might be able to catch up to the leaders if I waited for the pack of three to come back. Almost immediately after they caught me I ended up in a pot hole after a pull which caused me to puncture. With no wheel stop and carbon clinchers I was forced to stop. It was unfortunate but I'm glad it happen in this race rather than the bigger ITU races I was in earlier on this season.
After Toronto, slightly frustrated, I got right back into training. Luckily the week after Toronto I had one of my favourite training partners come to visit, my dad. I hadn't seen him since Christmas so it was very exciting to get out for a few rides and to watch him rip up the track over at the university. The day he flew out I went down to London to race a 5000 on the track. I was feeling really good leading into the race and knew I had a PB in me. I ended up kicking for home like a sprinter to a 16:01.56 which was 5 seconds faster than I have ever run. I was very happy but knew there was not a lot of time to celebrate because week three of racing was coming right around the corner!
I felt pretty sore post 5000 because of the spikes. I still hit the run workouts I was planning on that week but I was still a lot sorer than I would have liked. Belle river is close to 3 hours away from Hamilton so David Hopton, a fellow C3 member and friend, decided to drive down the day before. After Lionel Sanders asked around to see if there was a place to stay Andrew Vendrasco and his girlfriend let us stay at their house. I would like to thank them again for that because they made our lives so much easier!! Initially Dave and I thought we were starting at 8:00am which made us get to the race site a bit early because we soon found out that our race start was actually 9:30. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to get a very solid run warmup in and left me enough time to warmup the way I like to in the water.
The swim was an in water start which I really liked, and no wetsuit which is also very nice. I had an okay start but it took me a little while to get going in the water. We did a 180 degree turn and headed back towards the start. At that point I was feeling pretty good and started going very hard to catch up to the leaders. I believe I came out of the water in 4th just 10 seconds down of Alex Hinton. I knew I was in a good spot and controlled myself as I went through transition.
The bike was pretty uneventful and I tried not to pull like a crazy 16 year old (like I used to pull). It was flat and fast; and as soon as I hopped off the bike I knew I had a fast run in me. Alex lead out of transition and I was in second. Soon after Jackson Laundry and Jacob Jamnicky went by me. I kept it cool but still ran really hard. I ended up catching up to Jacob a little before halfway and stayed in third for the rest of the race.
Here are a couple of pictures from the race this weekend:
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