Sunday, May 24, 2009

Shawnigan - a good day


Kilshaw and Mensink with the wins.
James Fry 3rd (first on the left) and Rachel Kiers (2nd from the right)

I'm tired and I must go to bed but I needed to write a short one before retiring.
Today was the Shawnigan Lake 1/2 Ironman.
I was suppose to do a relay with Sara Gross. She was to swim and bike and I was going to do the run but last night but she got a stomach bug that kept her home so I was at the race with a coffee in my hand instead of sneakers on my feet.
I was disappointed to start the day but in the end it turned out to be a blessing.
I had several of my athletes out there and I couldn't have been happier with how things went.
I would not have been able to watch and support some great performances.
I had one athlete in the Olympic race today. Cathy Noel is a new triathlete with a goal of finishing Ironman Canada this summer. She's been working hard and making big gains across the board. She finished the Oly (with a 44k bike) 6th in her age group and about 5' faster than our predicted finish.
My newest athlete, James Fry, ended up coming 3rd with a 4:31 in the Half. A solid performance with lots of room for improvement for him!
Taking the win was Steve Kilshaw, a young man I have the pleasure to work with in the Victoria Elite Long Course club we have going here.
I've been working with Lysanne Lavigne for a few years now but this was her first venture into the long course. She's a full time massage therapist with a healthy attitude towards work and sport. 15 hours is a big week for her and her 4:56 was intensly satisfying for both of us.
Rachel Kiers was back defending her title. When she won last year, she did it with a 4:41. This year the competition was a little stiffer. The win would be more elusive. Olympian Lisa Mensink was vying for the title, along with Katya Mayers, Edmontononian Annett Kamenz and Miranda Alldritt to name a few.
Rachel came out of the water almost four minutes down from Mensink's lethal swim but managed to get off the bike almost a minute up on the crowd. Lisa overtook the lead and kept it but Rachel was able to hold onto 2nd place and finished a full five minutes faster than she did last year.
It's days like today that make coaching so worth while.

2 comments:

id* said...

Why bail on the run when you could have done the whole thing? I'm doing an oly in 3 weeks. It's gonna be sweet! Cuz I'm gonna get smoked!

Skippy Two Shoes said...

And you know I would have but my team mate pulled out at about 10PM. I haven't had my P3 together in about a year and there was no way I was going to stay up another minute to get it road worthy. SOOOO I went to the lake with my wetsuit and sneakers thinking I might find someone to bike. Whitfield was there and said he'd do the swim but I failed to find a cyclist.
I regretted afterwords not doing the swim anyways - just to demonstrate to everyone just how out of shape I am!!!!!