Buses, Planking, Crunchy Pillows....Oh and a Race

This past weekend part of the team went to Ottawa to race the Junior Series race #3/Elite/U15 Ontario Provincials. The group stayed in the Carleton University residence which was one the street from the race course. Madison and Darian were on their first Big Trip Draft Legal Race Triathlon and Ben and Charles were racing the Junior Series Race. Stevie and Sarah got to join the fun and join the juniors as part of Ontario Provincials.

After a few unexpected travelling delays, the team made it to Carleton on Wednesday but waited for Sarah on Thursday to go explore the university grounds (AKA go planking).

This one got an A+ grade.

Our new friend. He informed us Carleton is a No Planking Zone. Especially for people wearing too much spandex.

After a full day of pre-race training which included a trip to the pool to avoid the ecoli infestation in the lake and some confusion trying to follow course maps we bused our way to the pre-race meeting. Darian’s dad gave us step by step instruction which didn’t seem to be enough since we had to ask every 2^nd person we saw for extra help. And we still missed our transfer. Luckily, we forgot all our troubles when the bus had an accordion centre we could play on. East Side Mario’s provided us with a lovely dinner after the short and sweet meeting. We splurged on the way back home and taxied back to Carleton. We informed our driver that a triathlon consist of swim-bike-run and NOT Swim-bike-run-swim. The pillows created quite a conundrum with the Team. Some of them were crunchier than others

Charles with the “pillows” to the front desk lady: Can I exchange these for pillows?

Front Last Lady: These are pillows.

Race morning came too quickly. A 7AM start for the boys meant 4:50 wake up time. Ben’s mother donated a toaster for our pre-race breakfast which greatly improved its quality. We biked our way to the course and everyone warmed up together. Before we knew it, the boys were herded into the water with no respect for pre-race rankings for their deep water start. The girls followed 3 whole minutes later and the Minis went at 7:30 and 7:33 respectively.

The deep water start on the boy’s side was really rough and everyone was fighting for positions even before the horn went off. With all the U23 athletes in the race, the field was big. Charles and Ben were in the middle but eventually kept getting pushed back. With about 20 seconds until the start Charles decided to move all the way to the end to have a clear start which really helped. Our turn around was a kayak which was…different. Coming out of the water Charles just missed the lead pack and ended up in a group of five that were very close to lead pack and chased hard. Ben had a strong swim and came out a bit further back than Charles. The bike went without any trouble and with all the U23s pulling hard in lead no one caught them and Charles’s pack got caught by a bigger pack. All the other packs stayed fairly stable throughout the 20km. Charles and Ben had a strong run on a rather hot course with no water being given out and finished 8^th and 23^rd junior respectively.

The swim start was the same for the girls. There were only five Elites entered in the Junior race, but it still increased the quality and depth of race. Sarah and Stevie came out of the water together just a few seconds behind the lead group of swimmers. They also caught a few of the Junior guys at the end of the swim. The bike was very challenging with all the guys on the course. Sarah nearly crashed going around the first 180 turn because of a huge pack of boys that we going around the cone at the same time. Sarah, Stevie and four other girls formed the lead pack and all worked strong together and battled with the other gender to keep there own lines. The run course was hot and was very challenging, but in the end Sarah ended up with the win for the day and Stevie ended up third.

In the U15 race Darian and Madison represented very well! Darian missed out on the lead pack because of a sighting error that made him swim wide. He soloed the bike and ran himself in to 2^nd place! Madison had a swim that was expected for only starting swimming four months ago. She biked strong with one other girl and they ended up with a pack of four after catching two other girls. Coming in to T2 she had trouble locating her spot, which resulted in a slower transition. Fierce competitor that she is, she chased down the girls ahead of her and placed 2^nd!

The team is now very split up across the country. Good luck to our WCG teams heading out to Kamloops next week. The athletes racing are Riley, Unger and Tyler for the guys; Ashlyn, Janessa and Jane on the girls’ side. We’re sure they’ll do a great job! Ben is at his Grandma’s cottage in the middle of nowhere with no running water. Hope you catch lots of fish Ben! The Brault’s are heading to their home province and decided to bring Stevie along for a solid week of training with the Quebec team. Hopefully her french will improve a bit... Darian and Madison are back home for a solid block of training before Kelowna. Enjoy everyone!

here is a link to Bramwell's photos
https://picasaweb.google.com/102356770393916246846/TeckJuniorNationalSeries3OttawaON?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Sorry Forgot to mention Ben was at Folk Fest last weekend!

Hope he had a good time!


According to worldweb.com it is one of the top 10 festivals in Canada!

Last weekend's racing and on to this week!

Last weekend athletes from MNTC were racing all over the place. We had Tyler, Unger, Charles, Riley M and Janessa racing in PATCO. Stevie and Sarah racing down in San Francisco and a few of the younger athletes (Darian, Ashlyn, & Madison) made there way down to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the youth event at the Lifetime Fitness triathlon. Here is a link to some results from the weekend.

Most of MNTC met up in Kamloops, BC in between the races last weekend and the race in Penticton this weekend. We picked Kamloops because it will be the site of the Western Canada Summer Games triathlon in a few weeks. It was a very beautiful place to spend a few days and do some training. We were staying at Thompson Rivers University and have been swimming at a very nice pool near by. We checked out the site for the races at WCSG and it looks like it will be a interesting and challenging race.

Now we have moved down to Penticton which is the site of the race this weekend. There are 2 girls and 5 guys taking part. The race has a chilly swim in Lake Okanagan, a 8-loop 20km bike along the lake and a 5-loop 5km run. Briefing and relaxing is on the schedule for the rest of the day and then tomorrow the girls race at 10 and the guys at 11:15.

Cable Cars and Buses and Bikes OH MY!!!

The MNTC had to split up this weekend to attend various races (PATCO, Minneapolis race, folk fest) and Stevie and I got the best part of this deal as we’re chilling in San Francisco for a few days before we race a Pan-American Cup on Treasure Island on Saturday. We made it to our hotel with all our belongings yesterday. We took the BART train from the airport to the heart of San Francisco where our hotel was. We had to be quick to get all our luggage and bikes out before the doors closed, but we made it!
We’re quite impressed with the biking skills of the many commuters zooming through the downtown streets here. Although it’s hard to really pay attention with all the cars, other bikers, buses, streetcars, cable cars, taxis, pedestrians moving about.

We found food – (Whole foods store!) and we made it out to the course today. We had to take the transit bus across the bridge to get to the Island. We got to rack our bikes to the front of the bus and hope that they would be safe will we drove out. We sat in the front of the bus (where handicapped and/or elderly people are supposed to have priority seating) to make sure nothing would happen to them. We did realize that there wasn’t much we could do if indeed something horrible happened, but it still made us feel better to be able to see them.

The bike course is rather twisty but our superior map-reading skills allowed us to successfully navigate the old naval base. It’s quite the location for a triathlon. All military buildings are shut down so our half of the Island is very much empty (which made it great to bike around, especially after the crowds of downtown San Fran).

Our next challenge was finding a pool to get some swimming in. We decided the best way to get there would be, again, public transit! We got on the bus with about 1000 short Asian people. After driving throughout Chinatown (who needs to fly to China when you can go to San Francisco and get the same experience), and little Italy, missing our stop and going around the building twice to find the pool door we got in and were told it was closed for another hour. But we were ready! We went for a run instead, and we made the decision to go one after the other so that one could watch the bags while the other ran. We both ended up going approximately in the same direction, by the fisherman’s wharf (which we plan on exploring Sunday after the race). Sadly, I decided to rely my sense of direction to get me back to the pool instead of following the logic that would say “take the same route out and back since you are all by yourself with no phone/money in a big, foreign city”. But no. I ended finding a cliff where the street I was following should have gone and had to go around the mountain. Stevie didn’t worry too much but it cut our time in the pool a little bit. The pool was quite crowded but we managed not to hit anyone and get most of our workout in, after being told to take a shower and to NOT jump in the shallow end (that was Stevie, she's a rebel). We also made a few new friends.

To get back to the hotel, we decided to go the scenic route and take the Cable Car. The terminal is right below the window of our hotel so it was perfect! Except for the long lines and the rather relaxed drivers who took quite the eternity to get everyone loaded, payed and ready to roll. We got a great “driver” who made everyone on the trolley aware that Stevie was Stevie. She got applause after NOT falling off the wagon during a particularly sharp turn and got a nice goodbye from everyone once we got to the terminal. Great experience.

Also, there are enough weird people in San Francisco that walking around in the summer wearing a tuque and drinking tea out of biking water bottles (to warm up from the cold ocean breeze on the cable car) will never get a second look. That’s not surprising when we have to compete with bongo playing bike riders (playing and riding at the SAME time!)


Pictures and results to follow…

St. Malo - Race 1

Just yesterday all junior elite athletes competed in the first of four Junior Teck National Series races. It was slightly cloudy, although humid and warm. Luckily, the water was warm enough that wet suits weren't an option. After a successful start the men were off, quickly followed by the women. It was obvious from the start that the swim would not break into that many small groups. Onto the bike it turned out to be one lead pack containing fifteen athletes, some stragglers, then another chase pack a couple minutes behind containing seven athletes. On the female side it looked like a lead group of three or four girls, followed by some stragglers, then another small pack or two. The run was fast in both races. It tough to say how things played out there. It was a hot and long run though.
Congrats to Tristan Woodfine and Ellen Pennock for clinching their first victories in the junior series. Also congrats to Francis Lefebvre, and Marc Christin for second and third place finishes. And also Christine Ridenour, and Gabrielle Edwards for second and third as well.
It was a great effort by all the athletes competing.
Congratulations are also in order for all the MNTC athletes. Tyler leading the men in seventh place, followed by Riley Mac in tenth, Charles in thirteenth, Unger in fourteenth, and Ben in nineteenth. On the female side we had Janessa finishing with a strong twentieth place finish. Also a congrats to Patrick Naylor for placing twenty-sixth, and Kevin Macduff of Manitoba for thirty-third place, and Kaitlyn Weins for a solid twenty-sixth performance considering it was their first draft legal race ever.
Age groupers are never to old to be forgotten.... Sarah-Anne Brault. Congrats for the easy victory in the age-group sprint distance. We promise not to judge you to harshly...
Let us not forget the KOS athletes of MNTC that competed on the Saturday. Congratulations to Ashlyn and Madison for finishing first and third, respectively. Our best wishes go out to Darian for a speedy recovery after a bike crash on race day, we wish you all the best.
That's all for the race report! I hope I didn't forget anybody. Check back in a week or two for the Penticton race report!