An Ultra Story

It has been a tough few weeks. So much needs to be posted, but I need a break. So instead of any important stuff how about I just tell a story. Since I first posted on this blog, several people have asked about the ultra triathlons I have done.

I was looking for a race to do when I came across this event in Canada on the internet. It was a double iron distance race in Levi, Canada. I decide to do races the way an impulse buyer shops. It sounded cool, so I signed up. The race was billed as the Championship of the Americas.

I did a little research and found that there was actually more than one of these type of races. The International Ultra Triathlon Association is the governing body for these events. The community of athletes who compete is relatively small and scattered around the world. It was easy to find the results from previous races. I assumed it was an advantage that I had no record in these type of events.

I decided if I was going to compete I was going to try to win. To do so I was going to remake myself as an athlete. I was a runner who did some triathlons. To win I knew that I had to come up with something else. I figured that just as I did others would look me up. They would find that I was an OK runner even up to 100 miles, but little else. My plan was to make my weakness my strong point. Namely the bike.

I did just enough running to assure myself that I could finish. The swimming I did was an entirely new program I made up. That is the topic of another post sometime latter. I rode my bike almost all the time. The main workouts I did were a long swim on Friday, long run of at least 20 miles every Saturday, and a long bike of at least 100 miles every Sunday. Every Wed. consited of 1.2 mile swim/56 bike/13.1 run. The rest of the week was shorter stuff.

I trained like that for several months. As the race approached I was feeling fairly confident. The sort of confidence that comes with having no idea what you are getting into.

We flew into Quebec City and were met at the airport by the race director. We rented a vehicle and got a tour. I had reserved a Ford Ranger, but they did not have one so we were upgraded to a V10 duely. The redneck in me could not have been happier. Quebec was incredible. It looked like someone had plucked an old European City and dropped it in Canada. The old city is completely walled. The race course consisted on 4.8 miles in the St. Lawrence River. Looking at the river was intimidating. The bike course was a loop with one short but steep climb, it would be best handled by going into it with enough speed to not loose all momentum. One end of the bike was a hairpin turn that was an issue because although I had increased my speed on the bike I still was a poor bike handler. The run was 1 mile out and 1 mile bike. Out was mostly uphill and back was down.

The most amazing thing about the race site was the fact that when we got there at 9:00pm there were people everywhere. They were walking, running, cycling, rollerblading etc. It seemed amazing that in a place where it is so much colder that there was so much more activity than there was at home. The entire culture was different. Even though, from what I could see, the local economy looked much the same as home the focus seemed different. There were not the huge homes everyone seems to be striving for here. The cars people drove were not as fancy as what you may see here. The thing was that almost every vehicle had a rack for bikes, or skis. It was a cool place.

The day before the race we had a race meeting and for the first time I had to submit to a drug test before a race. I had not studied, but I passed anyway. Everything was set, all that was left to do was the race. I'll cover that next time.