This was our first time to Victoria BC. When I entered this race, in part, wanted to explore this area. Glad we did. Though not dramatically different than WA - same climate, same fauna, etc, the city is very neato. Seemingly Britsh. Can have afternoon tea, castles all about, double decker buses, etc. We hit an open air market, picked up all kinds of great stuff - cider, kids clothing (hand made), hot sauce, cookies. Best was the organic berries. We grabbed a tray to appease a hungry 4yo. My wife asked if these berries had been pre-washed. The woman, who appeared to be Westeros LARKer, informed us "these berries are not sprayed with chemicals, they are naturally cleaned". In short, best strawberries ever. I am not normally a garden person, but we visited the Butchart Garden - beautiful. Worth it, even with the crazy $70 entrance fee (for 5 people), though it does effectively shame your garden skills. Just watch out for the selfie sticks - they must hand out selfie sticks with every purchase of a phone or camera in Japan.
Dont expect the favorable US dollar to do anything for you either. Everything is sold to Americans "on pare", othersie known as "automatic inflation because math is hard". Also, be prepared to discuss Turmp at length. Every single Canadian asked me what I was going to do if Trump is elected. I think they are all preparing for some form of mass exodus of Americans to Canada. Does not help that on the day of this race 50 people were senselessly murdered in Orlando. Terrible.
The Race
Morning went as expected. I went through my usual eccentric exercises for the L ankle, overall felt ok, not PR worthy, but acceptable. I re-read my RP. Transition seemed small to me relative to the other races I have done, but the usual excitment was there. I had brought a cycling coat because the prior two mornings were cold, but I saw the sun come up and knew it would be a perfect race day. I met a few fellow racers - so chill. No nerves out there. Just happy dudes.
*Bring cheap flip flops from now on out*. The walk from transition to swim start was on the gravel running trail, or effectively a walk on hot glass - so painful.
Swim
There has been a lot of talk recently about IMC being moved to Victoria. On the whole, I have no reservation about it, except for the swim. We were informed the swim would be 400meters short due to weeds. (I swam in plenty of weeds, so not sure why it was shortened). However, the organizers allowed us to warm up in the water, which is great, but a huge number of folks took the opportunity to do so, too many to get back into the chute in time or in an organized fashion. There was a relatively mad dash to get folks out of the water in time for the pro start, which resulted in a highly disordered chute with random time seeding. There was a single person holding a 40-50 minute swim time sign - she walked to about the middle of the hoard. She seemed disappointed when the red sea did not split for her, comical. There was no movement forward or backward. Pros went out at 6am, the AG gun went off at 6:10, and we rolled into the water, randomly seeded, like happy lemmings. As poorly organized as it was, the swim was in fact very pleasant, but required strong sitting skills and the ability to navigate multiple bodies.
My plan going in was to burn some matches since the run was not guarunteed and make our swim coaches Mike and David proud. I have been consistent at 1:50-2:00 in the pool, so with the full wetsuit was aiming for 1:45/100y. I noticed crossing midline a lot, but tried to fight this and stay wide. I definitely kicked, probably more than teh coaches would approve of, but never stopped, felt very comfortable, and sad when it was over to be honest.
Result: (1500m swim): 26:13 (1:34/100yard). Ill take it!
T1 I broke the 3 minute mark for the first time, without a wetsuit stripper.
Bike
This course is really quite nice. Great views, mostly good roads, great opportunities for speed to be had. There was many comments about congestion, but I did not see it. I did very often stray to the extreme left of the lane often, and sometimes into the lane with oncoming traffic however. I figure we are never safer than on race day, so I rode as though I owned the place.
I absolutely was committed to getting into Z2 and staying there for 20 minutes, with a goal NP of 215. I succeeded, my NP was 204 for this segment, though my HR really did not show it. I stayed in the ~154 range from start to finish of this race. The remainder of the race my NP was 232, overall NP was 229 for an IF of 0.8 and VI of 1.06. Though I did not hit my taget IF of 0.83, I am absolutely thrilled. Also my fastest descent of all time - 49mph. I was influenced by Gabe's picture of a pro who had his damn face sitting in the aerobars. I did that and pedaled like I was going to take off for a flight. Really fun, would have scared the crap out of my 2013 self when I started this sport.
Result: This was a PR bike split for me at 2:40:xx, using my aluminum training wheels.
T2 I got lost and spent at least 20 seconds tring to rack my bike in the wrong stall due to the wetsuits covering all of the numbers. Had that not happened I believe I would have been sub-2 minutes.
Run
Let me begin by saying this run is my absolute favorite course. 90% of the course is covered by tree shade. 95% of the surface is perfect dirt trail. The elevation gain is entirely within a 1.5 mile stretch. There is ample room to pass. If you want an absolutely perfect place to run, this race it is. It has PR written all over it.
My plan was to give the ankle 20 minutes to declare itself, it gave me the green light, so I committed to 6.5 miles. I aimed to be around my TRP of 8:00, treating this run like a IMC training run. I was able to keep it up until for 9-10 miles (ave pace 8:08). At that point the ankle was tight, I could tell my thighs/knee/hamstrings were compensating for a poor gait, and if it had not been a race I would have walked away. I slowed things down to ~9min/mile pace, but definitely I could have keep going. It is the first time I was in the race mentally - I was able to have a conversation with myself "could you go faster, make a move?" Usually I am in some far away land of piss and vinegar, but not today. In the end I came within 2 minutes of my previous HIM PR. Not bad at all, and I got to watch Heather Wurtele finish as I started the second lap. I hope she was not hurt - she had the most odd gait, running with almost a peg-leg stiff left leg. She won the race though. Seeing that lit a fire inside for me.
Result: 1:45:xx, prior PR 1:43:xx
Post race:
Mike Westover waited for me. He absolutely crushed the run today, made it look so easy. Great dude. Met up with a happy family, zoomed out as fast as I could. Highly recommend Brown's social house for lunch in Langford - fantastic spot for post-race brews. The halibut tacos were supreme.
Looked up my results over said brews. My final time, 4:58:xx, is another EN-built PR for me, on a bum ankle. There will be an * on it due to the short swim, but I am taking it! Assuming I could hold the swim pace for 400m longer, it was still a PR (~5:03, compared to my prior effort at IM Austin in 2015 of 5:12).
Thank you all again for the wisdom. My experience is proof of the benefits of trolling the EN universe. Special thanks to the inventor of the OS, Coach P and Robin for the injury advice, Paul Hough for the inspiration to do more, Mike and David for swim coaching, JW for the courage to bike faster.
Comments
Canadians enjoy DTrummph, sorry hah.
Rest well
Awesome job, DS! You've come a long way in a couple of years and are still capable of a lot more. No * or what-if's: a sub-5 is a sub-5. If someone had told you a few years ago after that 6:xx at St. George that you'd go sub-5 yesterday, I'm not sure you would have believed it. Now that you've got that box checked, time to get back to work on your journey to IMC. Congrats again.
And from an American living in the Middle East, you have NO idea how often I have to navigate conversations with DTrumphhhh!
Congratulations on cracking the sub-5:00:00 code DS. There are no accidents, you just put all that hard work into a very smart execution set and kicked some butt!
SS
Sounds like a perfect day...I'm seeing a sub-11 in Tempe.
I think the swim timing mat was at transition so you were probably closer to 25 minutes in the water.
Doug,
Great race and nice PR. I'll be getting out to Victoria June 20th. I'm not sure I'll check out the course but will for sure have a brew while I'm attending a conference.
congrats fast man.
careful with your run build to Whistler.
whistler has lots of varied accommodations with good prices within walking distance of venue. I assume the Victoria race does not have this ? Victoria is nice. and the Victoria course sounds nice. I actually like a four looper ironman run. note to folks - the race is not actually in Victoria but sort of nearby.