ITU Pan American Cup Monroe, Race Morning

Sitting here on race morning, looking outside the windows at the weather, I'm feeling this pit in the bottom of my stomach.

Rain.

Cold.

Being from the Lower Mainland, you would think this doesn't phase me. Maybe it doesn't, maybe it does. I just finished watching last weekend's ITU World Championship Series Kitzbuhel, and THAT was rain. Kind of puts the rain here into perspective, as it most definitely isn't raining THAT hard! It brings back a concept that someone told me, when I first started triathlon, that if it's raining on race day, it's not JUST raining on me, it's raining on EVERYONE! So everyone is gonna get wet, and affected by the rain. Some deal with it well (think Alistair Brownlee in Kitzbuhel, blazing away from the field in the pouring rain,) some not so well (memories of ITU Pan Am Cup Kelowna last year, for myself!)

After watching some videos and listening to some music to get myself amped up about the race, and to ignore the fact that I'll be getting wet, I decided to jump over to the faithful Weather Network, to see what the weather might hold in store for us later (our race doesn't start until 2:45pm, which is generally the norm for ITU Elite Men's races. A fellow I talked to yesterday said he's started a race as late as 4:30pm!!!!)

Holy JUMPIN' JEEBUS!!! What do I see, but something that put's a smile on my face, and brightens my day (literally!!)

Approx. weather at race start!!! WOOHOO!!!!

So perhaps the weather just might cooperate after-all:)

Looking at the ITU website's start list, and seeing the competition at the race briefing yesterday, it's going to be a FAST field! With some of Canada's top athletes, like Andrew Russel and Andrew McCartney, as well as some high ranked ITU elites (Hunter Kemper,) there will be some devastation on the course today for sure.

The goal for today? Try and keep my loss in the swim minimal, and keep within a certain percentage of the overall leader (try not to get lapped!lol) Realistically? With the 44 dude field, I'd like to finish top 20. We'll see how it goes, as I pulled my right shin/calf muscle running on knobby grass two days ago, while jogging an easy 30 minutes (really, who pulls their shin muscle? What's with that?!?!?) It really depends how it holds together on the run, as to how well the race goes. With a two loop swim, 8 loop bike (5km loops, that gives me only a small margin of error in the swim, as I can't get lapped on the bike!!) and a 4 loop run (an absolutely beautiful run course, it's a 10,830m course, on a perfectly paved course around a man-made lake (you can actually watch the ENTIRE RUN COURSE from transition, such a spectator friendly course.)

Time to get everything together, and get ready to head down to transition to watch the start of the Elite Women's race (including Vancouverite and fellow Lifesport athlete Martina Wan.)

Best of luck out there to everyone today (including Elliot Holtham, a friend of mine with a TON of talent, competing in his first ITU Pan AM cup.) Happy racing, and happy training!!!