m y T r i L i f e

May Looooong weekend

Saturday

Awesome temperature in the Edmonton area... 31C! No wind! Perfect day for a long ride. Left Naomi's and headed south to Beaumont to start. I guessed at the direction and managed to take all the right grid roads, woo! Nice little town... will have to ride there again. Headed back to Naomi's to make a few tweaks and adjustments on the bike, refilled my bottles, and headed out east past Ardrossan for the second half. Legs were feeling good so I wound it up a bit towards the end coming back on Wye Road. Slipped on the running shoes and headed out for the t-run. My foot is feeling great again! My injury seems to have healed, I was a bit worried it was going to take longer.

A quick shower, grabbed some food and headed down to Element to get my race package for the duathlon. Roy the RD had already left, so I just picked up my new race kit for the season instead.. a two piece 2XU race suit. Amazing fit and material... very comfortable... probably the nicest tri gear I have worn! The clothing from Zoot, Craft and Orca was also on the rack for a good comparison of fit and comfort.

Left Element, and down to the pool for my recovery swim. The cold water felt so good after riding in the hot sun all day.. I actually wanted to swim some more!

Sunday

5:50am wakeup.. uggh. My least favorite part of racing.... especially on a long weekend where I want to sleep in. Packed the car with my gear and headed out to Sandy Beach. It was rainy and cool in Sherwood Park... but I was hoping the weather would be better by race time... I wasn't going to race in cold rain again!

Sandy Beach is a tiny little community on a shallow lake... not much going on. Apparently they used to hold triathlons there.. but the lake is dirty and shallow. The roads were nice and quiet as I did my warmup... most of the locals were probably sleeping off the booze from the night before. It seems like they forgot most of their empties at the beach area.

The clouds threatened, and the roads were still wet, but it was nice enough and I had enough clothes so I wouldn't freeze like Lethbridge. Although my bike was going to get covered in road grime again... not happy with that!! Legs were complaining during my warmuup from the previous three days of training, but I was determined to push them as hard as they would go.

A dozen of us headed to the start line and we were off. My legs responded surprisingly well and I was only 20 seconds down after T1. I was able to hold a fairly decent pace on the hilly and windy bike course... but lost almost three minutes to the leader. My legs were just too tired.. I couldn't get that extra gear. Second run was not as hard as they say... but about 2mins slower than the first. A good workout.

Duathlon is a lot of fun! I will definitely be seeking out more duathlons in the future. I hope Roy gets more people out to the September version of this race. They reminded everyone that there is another sprint du at the Sylvan sprint tri in two weeks. If I wasn't doing Oliver, I'd be there.

After some food, a good nap, I went down to the gym and did a shortened brutality session to completely finish off my legs! FUN!

That night Naomi and I went over to her parents for a visit for a couple hours, then home for a much needed sleep.....zzz..

Monday

Got up and took the bike to the car wash... AGAIN. Uggh... am I going to have to wash it weekly?? Naomi and I then rode out to meet her friend Tim. We went for a nice cruisy spin out to near Fort Sask and back. A perfect day for a social ride in the county. Finished it off with a 10min hard t-run for good measure.

Looking forward to racing Oliver in two weeks!

posted by Greg Nicholson @ 5/19/2008