Canadian Nationals

On Sunday I competed in Kelowna at the Nationals Champs, which is one of my favorite races of the season. I’ve done this race for the past 5 years, ever since my first year in triathlon, so I’m always excited to go back to a familiar course. The weather was much cooler than it has been in the past, and it was very windy on race morning. I saw whitecaps in the water on my walk down to the beach and was immediately terrified. I’ve never had much success swimming in waves- I can’t breath properly and my stoke completely falls apart. Waves and no wetsuit = potential disaster. I chose my start on the very far right and had clear water the whole way, a very nice change from my past few races. I got on Dorelle’s feet and stuck there the whole time. We got out with a group of 6 girls about 90 seconds ahead of the chase pack. The steep hill separated the group a bit, and after a lap it was down to Kirsten, Flora Duffy and I. We took short pulls and worked really well together, but having only 2 other girls to work with made it a challenging ride. I proceeded to have the slowest transition of all times (WHY can’t I get better at this???) and had to close a gap to Kirsten right away. My run was feeling great and I got about a 10 second lead by the first lap, but I knew that Kirsten was coming on strong behind me. The crowds were so great and I could hear people cheering my name along the whole course, which made the time fly by. There was a really strong head wind on half of the run and we ran the last 2 laps in torrential downpour. I started to get cold, but I felt worse for all the people watching the race!

I felt like I had lots of expectations on me for this race so I was very relieved to have a good performance. Now we have 2 more weeks in Victoria before heading to Budapest. Can’t wait!

Congrats to all of the other girls and guys that raced this weekend, and thanks to the Apple triathlon crew for putting on another fantastic race.

Paula