The Welland Double

The Welland Double
By Roger Hospedales

Race Date:  Sunday June 28, 2009

For this third time this season, I pulled off the double (racing the Duathlon and GT 12.9) at this past Sunday ‘s HSBC Triathlon Series Welland race (www.hsbctriathlon.com). Why do I keep doing this? It is quite simple. I love racing and the GT 12.9 race serves as a sneaky way to get some swimming in and to do some speedwork, both of which I do not get a lot of in my training. Plus I am trying to make up for my lost season last year.

Since IM Lake Placid is just about one month away, it is crunch time as far as big week training is concerned. This week I headed into these races with a little more than 15 hrs under my belt. That may not be big for most but that is fairly big for me.

With the forecast for rain, I packed up my trusty road bike with clip on bars and no bike computer, and an old pair of Mizuno Elixirs that I can’t let go of. Unlike the second day at Lakeside, the forecasted rain did indeed come. However, it actually felt great, as it served to keep conditions cool and ideal for racing. You did have to be careful out on the bike though as there are few turns and train tracks to go over.

Here is what happened at each race:

Duathlon – Run 5 km, Bike 30 Km, Run 5 Km
12th overall in 1:39:15. Second in the men 40-44 category.
1st run – 24:45
Bike – 48:59 (5th best)
2nd run – 24:00 – yeah, negative split!

My goal for today was to average both runs at better than 5:00/km pace, and to blast the heck out of that bike despite not having my TT machine. Mission accomplished on both. I can’t believe I negative split the second run. I had lots left but I treat these races as my speedwork for my Ironman racing and I rather save that quality effort for my A races. The bike at Welland is flat and fast, but that also means you are hammering hard to whole way, there is no time to relax. Fellow competitor and Team Running Free teammate, Gord Avann and I played tag quite a few times during the ride and that constant trading of the lead certainly helped in maintaining that fast pace and forgetting some of the pain.

 GT 12.9 – Swim 400m, Bike 10 Km, Run 2.5 Km
9th overall in 45:12. Third in men 40-44.
Swim – 12:47 (super long run from water to transition)
Bike – 18:13 (3rd best)
2nd run – 11:54

This race featured a time trial start, with racers starting every 3 seconds from each other in the water. It is a cool format, but I prefer to see the race unfold in real time in front of me. That way I know who to catch and who is trying to catch me. Basically, I’m a wuss that doesn’t like racing hard from start to finish, which is what the TT format calls for. My swim was horrible, plain and simple. This probably has something to do with my racing earlier and then hustling down to the water because my swim training indicates I am much faster than what I am doing. Like the Du, I got on the bike and hammered my way past a lot of people. Onto the run, I pushed to hard and just tried not to slow down. I was satisfied once again that I was able to run at sub 5:00/km pace on tired legs. This was a main focus for this weekend, and I am glad that I was able to perform fairly well on fatigued legs. Just one more week of big volume and it will be time to ramp it down for Lake Placid.

Once again shout outs go to Multisport Canada for putting on another perfect race, this still remains one of my favourite race sites. Congratulations to all first timers, one (Erin Makins) actually won the GT 12.9 race. This was quite cool to see and I saw it all unfold. Erin is one heck of a runner. I hope to see you all at the next HSBC Series race at Gravenhurst (July 18 & 19).