I didn't get much sleep the night before the race. It was warm and we didn't have a fan. Around 2:30, a group of drunken partiers made their way loudly up the mountain. Around 3:30, the activity in the transition area started picking up, so I just got out of bed and ate breakfast, a peanut butter and banana sandwich. After getting everything together, Randy and I headed down the path to transition.
Pre-race activity was calm, which always seems odd to me. There's tension, but no panic. In fact, it's all pretty anticlimactic. Pump the tires, put nutrition on the bike, check the gearing, drop nutrition into the transition bags, and head to the beach. The lake is about a half-mile away from the transition. We got there by 6:00. We stretched, watched people, cracked jokes, and finally put ouyr wetsuits on. Randy's wave started at 6:48 and mine was at 7. The pros started first with fireworks and cannon blasts. Giving Randy a good luck kiss (awwww), I found the other 40+ women in our whoopie-cushion colored swim caps and looked for the only two people I knew there. Happily, I heard Allison call my name and was able to give a quick hello/good luck hug before we started. Our friend Ray was volunteering at the swim and I got to see him one last time as he ushered us under the arch and into the water.
Since we were the last group of athletes to start, we got to have fireworks and a cannon blast too! The swim was one loop in Lac Tremblant. Thirteen yellow buoys out and thirteen orange buoys back. The fog was so thick, I could only count out six of them before the start. Like any triathlon swim, there was a lot of jostling and jockeying for position for about the first 300 yards. At that point, the 40+ women were settling into their rhythm. Unfortunately, that's also when we started catching people in the waves before us. I had to swim around a lot more swimmers than I was used to, basically the whole way. On the way back, I kept getting pushed to the right and was constantly having to adjust my course. There was no cable to follow like at Lake Placid!
I should also mention that I was completely creeped out by Lac Tremblant. Not because of the fish (which I never saw) or the water quality (which was great), but because of the depth! You would be swimming along and the water is pretty shallow, maybe 6-20 feet deep and you can see the bottom. Then, all of a sudden the bottom of the lake disappears and you're swimming in a depth of 200 feet. At one point, I swimming right on the edge. To my left I could see the bottom and to my right nothing! I admit, I moved over to the left!
Anyway, I felt pretty good during the swim. I didn't know if I'd like the one-loop course. It's a lot of swimming with no breaks, but I didn't mind it at all. Unfortunately, I think due to always having to swim around slower swimmers, my time wasn't what I was hoping for. I wanted 1:10 or under and ended up with1:14:41. Not great, but not bad either!
After getting out of the water, I got my wetsuit peeled off (best volunteers ever!) and had to run the half-mile back to transition.
Click here to read abou the bike.
Click here to read abou the bike.
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