Peterborough Half Tri - Relay Run

Very exciting! Seeing all the swimmers take off in the water. It was also a strange feeling to be a spectator of a race and then be part of it. I was part of a relay team. There were about 5 Whitby Tiger teams. I was on the "Whitby Tiger Shark" team. Our team came in at 4:55. I think there were about 20 teams a together and over 400 tri-athletes.

I was waiting for Brenda at her bike transfer area. It is difficult to stay warmed up when you aren't sure of exactly the time that she will be in. But the weather really helped in that area. It was hot and sunny. She arrived, hung the bike put her foot out, I ripped the time chip off and wrapped it on my leg. I took a relaxing breath and bolted off.

Through the gate and to the left, I started passing people right away. Then all of the sudden a lady passed me, I think it was someone else doing a relay. I didn't want to go out to fast, stayed back for about 300 m and ended up passing her. I did the first k in 3:50... ooops. I slowed down a little for the next one, but I was passing a lot of people. I felt kind of sorry for them, but I was on a training mission; 4:10/km. I knew it may be too difficult, but I was going to try it out. The first few kilometers were on grass in an odd loop. Ang (Angela) must have been already out of that area because I saw Amanda, who was out of the transition area later. I was hoping that I might be able to catch them, but they were too far ahead.
I got out onto the road, man it was hot I could feel it coming through my racing flats! Just before the race, a couple of the guys said something about hills. I asked there's hills? Pat said, you just wait! Now I could see this really steep hill in front of me. Just before the bottom we turned and I thought oh that's good. Looked further up, oh no where is the turn around? All I see are rolling hills. But kept on motoring, not really paying too much attention to keeping the 4:10 pace. People were saying good run as I passed them by. I wonder what they said to themselves if they realized I was relay.

Even at 8k I was feeling the heat and a little winded. The legs were ok. I made it up a few hills and saw Ange and Amanda on the way back. I thought the turn around can't be that much further. It was just after the 10k, duh! It was neat at the top of the hill, looking down I could see a huge crowd of runners, lined up and then up ahead a little was some good distance between runners, about 1 to 2 km away from my position. It kind of gave me some motivation to pass them to get to the open space. I kept going by feel and tried to keep a good effort going, not worrying too much about the times.
I could also see the front of Chris' green singlet, way back.. :-). Down the hills, up the hills, it was hard work. I was dying asking for gel's as I passed by the stands, they stared at me in this glazed look. At the bottom of the hill it was getting more difficult to pass the other racer's. A number of them were doing very well! It was very impressive, knowing they swam and then biked already for 3 or so hours and were still running at such a good pace! It was just ausome. I finally got a gel and I had trouble opening it. I ripped it off with my teeth and got a very small hole open. It was not easy getting the stuff out.

I was going through the parking lot near tiger island. Jesse yelled out here comes Rob, that gave me a great boost! I waved at everyone as I passed by, but I was going too fast for them(:-), they were busy setting things up. I passed the finish line to do the final quick loop of about 4k. On the cool grass near some trees. I was still passing people on the grass, I was coming up to the last turn. This guy just in front of me took off like a bullet, I was shocked. How could he be doing this after all, I was a relay guy. I tried to give it, but I was out of gas.

I finished with a PR of 1:29:22. Sub 3 hour marathon, in better weather, here I come and the hard training begins!

Break down of the run:
5k splits: 20:22,21:00, 21:12, 22:08, 4:45 for the last 1.1k