From International to local: Squamish Triathlon

I race locally this past weekend, and on the road, to boots!  Squamish is about an hour from where I live and luckily for us, Steph friend Hope was kind to let us stay with them even though she had a full house! This meant for me that I didn't have to get up early to drive there and got a great meal out of the deal!  The Squamish Triathlon is has an Olympic and sprint option.  I entered the Olympic distance which consist of 1.5 km swim, 37 km( Olympic is usually 40) and a 10 km run which was in the trails instead of road run.  The weather has been hot up here and there was rumors that wetsuits might not be allowed.  I was praying this wasn't the case as my speed suit had ripped a few days prior and I need all the help I can get swimming.  This race has two separate transition so aft setting T2 Steph and I rode to T1, which was a great warmup.  I was happy to find out once at Alice lake that wetsuit was a go and I would be able to race with my sleek Synergy wetsuit.  Steph 5 year old nephew came with her parents, he just started doing Tri and wanted to see how a big race moved along.  I was in the second waves and as the gun went off, I settle in my usual swim pace, trying to find someone to draft off.  I would be able to draft a bit but not too much, I exited the water in about 28 min, average for me and headed on the bike.  The bike course is 4 loops, which consists of fast descent , one flat and one long incline.  Still makes for fast course and although I didn't ride my TT bike much this year, it was nice be on it.  I'd book the distance in slightly over and hour averaging 35.1 km/hr which I was happy with.  After a quick transition it was time for the trail run, which was a fast 5 km loop that had to be done twice.  On my second lap,one of the aid station had ran out of cups, I wasn't too happy.  I was happy with my final run time around 46 min or so.  I was unsure where I finished and was pleasantly surprise to find out I was second in my age group and 23 overall. Couldn't have ask for better conditions for a race and was happy to have  Steph, here parents and nephew to cheer me on.  Can't thank enough Caps Westwood cycle for always getting my bikes ready.  Next stop, Boise, Idaho for Xterra race on July 27, where it will be time to hook up with some of the usual suspects for another off road adventure.  Say tuned for Gear 2.0 coming up soon. Happy trails!

Carpe Diem