Mt Tremblant 70.3

You know sometimes when you are by yourself and you have all those funny little thoughts and wish you could somehow remember them all so you could share them in a cool blog post, yah that.

Last year in August somebody had the bright idea to sign up for Mt Tremblant  70.3. We all assumed it would sell out quickly, which it did. Thus at that point I was signed up for two half ironmans without even ever done one.
Luke and I made the trip to Quebec solo, as in without the children. Initially we were going to stay at a strangers house but when we realised  that the logistics of getting to the race site was going to be complicated and so we ended up splitting the cost of a condo on site with friends. I say on site loosely as it was .750k away from the village and it was straight uphill and .75 of a kilometer is rather long when you have a ankle that looks like a sausage. More on that later.

 Was rather excited to get this race number, was rather disgusted in the lack of Canadian history people seem to have. 1867 was the year of Canadian confederation for the people who I am disgusted with.

 

Training went resonablly well. Felt very compressed as long bike training did not start until May as winter dragged on and on in Bruce County. And then there was my run. As in I basically had not ran in a month. After the sprain in May, I basically desided that I didn't need to run train as I didn't want to damage my ankle further. There are somethings I just am good at, and running is one of them. So I felt my ankle was better and was going to do a light jog the Monday prior at Allan park.

 

Fail. 100metres in and I was on the ground again.

 

At that point there was nothing I could do. I iced for 6hours post as that is the current research. I did my best to stay off of it except for work and figured I would be walking the 21k. The swelling was horrid, and bruising worse. Pain- not so much. It just felt unstable.  I think mentally I was in a worst place then my ankle. I just felt defeated.

 

 

 

Mt Tremblant definitely had the triathlon hype going on. The place was buzzing. Everywhere within a 50km radius seemed to be intent on making triathletes welcome. The place is host to four races this year so I am not surprised. I did the check in on Friday night which seemed to be the best time. No wait at all. Bought a long sleeve shirt, sticker, and traditional water bottle at the store. Really wanted a tri top but practiced restraint.

Race morning was just stupid o'clock. Transition closed at 6:30am, my wave wasn't until 7:48. So basically I did nothing from 6:15- 7:20 but sit and stew about my ankle. Sure I got body marked, but really why do I need a volunteer to do that?  Next race I am bringing a sharpie and marking myself. The guy didn't even listen to me when I said to put my marking on my right leg as I would be wearing a compression sock on my left. He could have even put it higher on my leg. I mean I am not in the running for any age group awards but I like looking at other peoples ages so why should others not be able to see mine?

Prior to the swim start found a nice quiet area to get my wetsuit on, except I couldn't. I had to pee so bad and the line for the porta potties was too long, and I kinda wanted to pee in the water once I started so I was saving it,  but I couldn't wait. So I had to tell the other people in my nice quiet area that I had to pee on the grass, so they said in broken English, ' so we should turn away?' But I was already peeing.
Good thing the race had not started cause that was an automatic DQ.
Lined up to start the swim and saw a women was a bandaged ankle. We shared sad injury stories and suddenly I felt better about my ankle knowing that there was somebody else in my situation.
Started on the far left with the intent on staying there. Well my sighting has been getting better, but not that good. I was all over the place, and once the other waves started passing me I felt like I was in a over stuffed washing machine. It was one of the roughest swims I had ever been in. At one point somebody was pushing off on my chest with their feet. I swim that slow I am like a wall. Joy.
Honestly, I thought I was swimming well, when I looked around I was with the same colour cap as myself, and there was even times when I got into a rythum. In reaility I was slower than Musokoa. Another nice thing about Tremblant was the red carpet from the swim exsist to tranition. I avoided the strippers as I didn't want anybody near my ankle and at muskoka I found it to be a confusing affair. I can strip myself. Took the time in transition to put on arm warmers, and one left sided compression sock. Sang along to the music playing and noticed that the pros didn't wait for me. Bummer.

 

 

Out onto the bike, which was wonderful. Never realized how much traffic can cause stress while racing until there is none. Wide open highways with smooth as butter pavement. The only rough section was in the town. Even then was not bad. That being said. I lost two water bottles on bridge bumps from my read saddle holder. Mostly pleased with my ride. I say mostly except for two points.

1. Uphills, My triathlon bike does not climb well. I run out of granny gears. My road has three in the front, this bike has two and it is a standard crank. So either I need to learn to climb better with what I have or get a compact which seems to be all the rage. Mostly I climbed at 11km/hr cadence in 50s. That is not fun.

2. Downhills. I am scared of going over 55km/hr.  Alot of free time is lost with my fear. All I can think about is road rash and fractured pelvises and rib fractures punctured lungs, and cracked helmets and mushy brains.

 

Had a good time talking with a few other women. Playing leap frog. It was a beautiful day and there was little wind. Really nice to be out there. The only section I didn't like was the going out of the rollers section. I just could not get my gearing right and those short uphills were killer. A woman remarked to make that I had a lot of joy, and I really did. It was a wonderful ride with mild wind. I have having a nice weekend with Luke, and it occurred to me that really my ankle was such a first word problem.

The entire ride I was slightly concerned that something would happen and I would have to unclip, except with my ankle I could not, at all. I even tried. Just could not do it. So obviously my shoes stayed off my bike while I did a nice dismount. Transition was reasonably quick. Arm warmers off, bib on, dose of toradol for my ankle,  shoes on and go. For the record. I always sit on the ground.

 

On Saturday I had previewed the run course on my bike. So I knew that it was very do-able. Basically an out and back. Hilly town section, flat trail section and back to the village via hills.

I had no expectations of the run. I expected to be walking if it was bad. I did carry for the entire run a soft compression ankle brace, and a rigid plastic brace so if my leg broke I would be ok to finish.

So I set off, started by walking  some of the down hills as the pavement impact was what I was expecting to hurt..... but well I was reasonably fine. I do have a really high pain tolerance- ie. two babies born at home in my bed. Some discomfort started at 7k, but very tolerable. Basically I didn't push, walked the aid stations and small portions of the hills, endured and finished. I love out and back with the opportunity to see friends, to cheer and try to calculate everybody's finishes. Dysfunctional mental math is what gets me through, that and my really bad singing. I was taking requests this race though. So many aid stations had music which was wonderful and really they had to be every kilometre.

Ankle pre- race.

 

The one thought that I had the entire race was.. 2015 double it??? And I think so.