Monday, August 4, 2008

Canmore Olympic

Well, ick is the best word I can use for Sunday. I am sorry to say that it was just not my day. It started out well enough. Karen and I drove to the race Sunday, very am. :) Once we arrived at T2, I realized that I had not dressed warm enough. A word of explaination for my foolishness: I've recently moved to Calgary from Mississauga (just outside of Toronto) and the summer mornings are quite warm, as are the lakes. This being my first triathlon outside of southern Ontario, I was seriously unprepared for both the air and water temperature. By the time we arrived at the lake, I was very cold, teeth chattering, etc. I figured that once I started swimming, I'd warm up. However about 200 metres into the swim, I was so cold that I could not breathe, even with breast stroke. So I hung on to a kayak for a minute, caught my breath and started again. However it happened again. My whole body was shivering and even though I hung onto the kayak once more, the shivering did not stop and I felt like I could not breathe properly. So at that point, I asked the nice guy in the kayak to tow me in; I was done for the day. I exited the water to find that my hands were purple and my chest was sore.

I was pretty upset but there was not much I could do. My first triathlon DNF. However, I learned a couple of valuable lessons, I need to dress a bit warmer here, learn some techniques for cold water swims and perhaps eat more on race morning!

Thanks to Iain & Karen for all their support on Sunday.

I've signed up for the Lake Chaparral Olympic in two weeks. This time I'm going to test the swim before the race!

Congrats to everyone that completed the race, you guys are made of pretty tough stuff!

Leaha the fair weather swimmer :)

1 comment:

Keith said...

It was just a little chilly in the am. But it's a DRY cold. (lol) It's too bad your day didn't turn out like you hoped, but I'm sure you'll do better at Chaparral. A buddy of mine is in that, so I'll probably show up. Look for the legend T shirt again.