:: W4B photography's companion blog ::

:: Sunday, August 22, 2004 ::

The Triathlon at Rondeau Prov Park...
Got up at an ungodly 0630hrs Sat morning and met K at about an hour later at her place after a detour to Timmies. Drive down the 401 was uneventful and the weather was clear and bright. After about an hour we were at the park and signing in. Pretty low tech affair: I compare this to the ITU Ironman in Cornerbrook, NFLD which I saw on TSN at about 1am on Sat morning before bed. That was the real deal.

Curiously, some of the participants in this event thought they were there.
Several had high end Trek and Cervelo TT bikes. OLCV Carbon and the like.
Serious coin here - $4-5000 each. One guy even had an aerodynamic tear drop shaped helmet. Ridiculous and complete overkill. After all, while most were road bikes (some decent ones with aero bars and so on), there were people who had mountain bikes - like K. And more than a couple were overweight weekend warriors - def not like K.

Medium surf and wind. That's how I would describe the water of Lake Erie this morning. K. said the water felt warmer than the pool she normally swims in, but later describing the 750m swim, she said she was fairly numb by the time she got out. Transitioning to bike was no problem with her bike easy to find at the end of the rack. Two completely flat ten Km road laps. And she was no where near the end of the riders or swimmers like she feared... Curiously, Mr. Triathlon - the guy with the aero helmet and Trek TT bike - wasn't even in the top 6 out of the water or off the bikes - and K. kept pace with him for a bit on the road...

She then did the 5km dirt path run. Not sure on the overall time for swim/bike/run, she wasn't interested in the time - just to try and complete the event, but it was in the neighbourhood of 1hr 20mins I believe from the other finishers talking. We were in the car and leaving when the last runner came in. Probably 20 mins after she finished.

This whole thing was very interesting. I found it - should I be able to run which I find hard on the knees - quite do-able. I am convinced that had I the contacts so I could see with swim goggles, I could have done this and finished middle of the pack with a fair degree of certainty. And it looked like real fun too. After I try running at some point, we will see if I think the same. :)

Awesome day for it. We certainly lucked out.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 03:00 [+] :: 0 comments
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