Great White North Sprint Triathlon Race Report

On March 25, 2024 I signed up to compete in the Great White North Sprint Triathlon. This decision was preceded by months of me mulling over competing in my first ever triathlon. Race day (July 7) has come and gone and I’m so glad I decided to participate. Here is my race report.

Training

I had just about three and a half months to train for my first ever triathlon. This was adequate, but I wouldn’t have wanted any less time to train given my relative inexperience. The biggest takeaway from my training was that I should have used a formal plan. I always intended to choose and follow a plan, but every time I looked for one I was intimated by how complex they were. Instead I just winged it — this was a big mistake.

I was most nervous for the swim because I was the least experienced and confident at swimming — especially in open water. I ended up doing 10 swims total, each slowly building up endurance. In terms of distance I swam about 10 km. Only one of my training sessions was in open water and none of them were with my wetsuit (in fact I barely managed to procure a wetsuit in time for the race). I should have trained my swim more — in open water — with more sophistication¹. A couple lessons focused on improving my form also would have gone a long way.

I was not at all concerned about the biking portion of the race. The only reason I trained here was because I enjoy biking and because I knew this was where I would make up the most time on the race day. I ended up doing 14 rides for a total distance of 307 km. If that seems like way more distance than it should be that is because I snuck a metric century in there for fun. My biggest mistakes here were not spending enough time in aero position to get used to it and not doing enough intervals/tempo work².

If I was nervous for the swim then I was apprehensive for the run. For many years I’ve avoided running due to bad knees, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that my knees were a non-issue in my training and on race day. Despite having no training plan I did my best to slowly add running load so I wouldn’t trigger any injuries. My first runs were very slow and trepidatious 2k’s. Overall I did 25 runs for a total distance of 118 km. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I quite like running — so long as I run with someone or have a podcast pumped into my ears. Again my approach was very brain dead. No sprints/tempo/interval work, very little science in the load or pace, etc.

Despite my many missteps I was pleased with the brick training I did. Throughout my training I did 7 brick training sessions. These ended up being really helpful. In one of the bricks I did all three in a try-a-tri distance which gave me a lot of confidence. The big takeaways for next time are:

• Follow a training plan.
• Train more.
• Focus more on the swim and less on the bike and run.
• Train more in open water.

Race Day

The race day was a beautiful, warm, sunny, and windy day. Since T1 and T2 were at different locations I had already racked my bike the previous day³. The sprint distance was the last heat to go so I anxiously waited around in the morning watching other racers. I was very anxious about not having enough time to put on my wetsuit so in a rookie move I put it on way too early and baked in the sun. Right before the heat they allowed us to splash around in the water to acclimatize. That was helpful and prevented me from dealing with any cold shock (in addition to the wetsuit and the water only being 18 degrees celsius).

Swim

After a quick countdown my first ever triathlon was underway. I had purposely seeded myself to the back of the pack and so getting into the water was very anti-climactic. It was my intention to swim at a slow pace, but in the excitement I started my swim off much too fast. I quickly passed a few people which put me in the thick of things. About 200m in another swimmer started bumping into my leg over and over again so I dipped out of the way. But, the combination of going too fast and this dodging maneuver made me lose my breathing pattern. Suddenly I couldn’t do the front crawl I had practiced. Rather, I was swimming with my head out of the water. I was aware enough to realize that I was starting to panic, but I wasn’t able to calm myself down.

In my panicked state I just switched to a mix of back crawl and head up front crawl for the rest of the swim. Unfortunately, I zig-zagged terribly on my back and I found sighting incredibly difficult because I had never practiced. It didn’t help that my swim cap was coming off my head pulling my goggles off my eyes. Honestly, I was pretty terrified out there. Had the swim been much longer I think there is a reasonable chance I would have given up. Wearing a wetsuit was a godsend because of the extra buoyancy.

When I finally made it to the shore I dragged myself out of the water. I almost kissed the ground. For the most part T1 went well. The one hiccup was that I couldn’t get the hair tie out of my hair and my bun was too high to fit under my helmet. I ended up just pushing the bun down the back of my head and doing the rest of the race with my hair in this messy state.

There was lots to improve about my swim — primarily swimming slower. But, I’m pleased that the abysmal start didn’t wreck the rest of my race.

Bike

Once I was on my bike I was feeling more comfortable. My mantra for this leg of the race was “high cadence” and “aero position”. I wanted to focus on keeping my cadence up to save my legs and obviously an aero position is important. I feel like this mantra really helped and the aero position was noticeably helpful. The overall route had a couple of hills, but mostly was a gentle downhill. I passed about six people near the beginning of the route and towards the end I was passed by two people. For the most part though I was alone on the course.

My primary concern with the bike was making sure that I had enough left in the tank for the run. Lots of guesswork was involved. At one point on the ride I felt some tightness in my right hamstring, but thankfully that dissipated before the ride was over.

One mistake I made on the ride was my hydration. I did an okay job fueling — I ate a race energy bar. For hydration I had a water bottle with an electrolyte tab in it. However, I thought it would be good to have some energy in the water too so I had put some sugar in the bottle. While this is a good idea in principle it made the water really gross because it was lukewarm. On the ride I just wished I had plain water.

Overall the bike was a success. I was blown away how much faster the half-ironman racers were, but I was proud of what I did. After the race I ended up discovering that my back tire was flat. I had picked up a slow leak from a staple on the road. I was very lucky that it didn’t interrupt my race.

Run

I rolled into T2 feeling good. Other than nearly forgetting my number belt I had a smooth transition that was aided by some family cheering me on. At this point in the day it was starting to get very warm and I was feeling it. I was also feeling zonked after the swim and bike so I settled into what felt like a slow but reasonable pace. I was pleased that it felt like it was my cardio limiting me and not weakness in my legs.

The course was a there-and-back situation and the turnaround point felt so far away. I definitely had a pain-cave-lite experience on the run. Thankfully all the other runners were very encouraging which was fun to be part of. In the last 1.25 km I started to feel some shivers from the heat and I definitely had not drank as much water as I should have.

Sooner than anticipated I passed the finish line and what a great feeling that was! It was great to have some of my family there to celebrate as well.

Post Race

I pretty much screwed up everything about the post race that I could. I didn’t stretch and I did a poor job of rehydrating. Consequently I totally bonked after the race and felt pretty bad for a couple days after. This was a big lesson learned for me — in the future I’ll be much more diligent about this.

Results

My results were as follows:

• 750 m swim in 18:15.
• 21 km bike in 47:57.
• 5 km run in 28:38.
• Total time of 1:34:49.
• Finished 4/5 in the 19-29 male category.

Another One?

If you had asked me this question five minutes after I finished the race I would have given you a firm, “No thank you sir, good day!” But, with the exhaustion of the race solidly in the rear view mirror, I’m sure I’ll do another one. In fact I’ve already signed up for the Do North Triathlon later this summer and a half marathon in the fall. Beyond that I definitely have aspirations of competing in longer distance triathlons too.

We’ll see where it takes me. For now I’m just basking in the feeling of achievement and the joy of picking up a new sport.