So, Sunday was a pretty big day for Jeremy. Originally, back before he won the entry to Ironman Canada, from Sugoi, Jeremy had a different plan. For 2011, his plan was to complete an Olympic distance open water triathlon. The very race he planned this to be was the Lake Chaparral Triathlon. So, funny enough, that's the race I signed him up to do, not realizing his original plans. Once he won the ironman entry, that was no longer a concern for him.
Personally, I felt it was important for him to do an open water triathlon before Penticton. I also thought it was important for him to do a bit longer of a race. This way, he'd get a chance to practice swimming with a bunch of other people. To know what it's like to get kicked and hit etc with so many people starting to swim at once. It also would give him a chance to swim in a race in open water. Up until the race, his open water swims were all swims where he would break etc which isn't really ideal in a race. It would give him a chance to practice siting, and just see how he felt overall swimming for a long period of time in the water.
Signing him up, he instantly got nervous and wasn't sure doing the race was the best idea. He was sort of figuring, "go big or go home". He didn't want to do a race that would possibly make him nervous about swimming ahead of time and potentially scare him off the big race.
Well, in the end, he did great. He was in the water in his wetsuit warming up when I got there with the boys. And he was excited and ready. And the race started and off he went. We watched as he swam off (okay, who am I kidding, I watched, while the boys were playing in the sand). I kept on watching and eventually saw him come around for his second lap. He went on to finish all 1500m and didn't even need to take a break (I knew he wouldn't). Happily, after the fact, he reported that his pace for the swim, matched his pace in the pool. His objective going into the swim was to pace himself and he did exactly that.
I stayed behind at the beach for a bit and saw another friend head off for her sprint triathlon while the boys played in the sand and water. Eventually though, we moved on to the road to try and catch Jeremy on his bike. And, we did. We saw him go by twice (he had to do 4 laps to get to 40 kilometres). He looked happy and strong on the bike. He reported later that he did push on the bike and wouldn't push like that for ironman.
After that, we waited for him to go past on the run. He took forever to pass by and reported after that his transitions were slow and it might be an area to work on in the future. We chatted about how for an ironman, a slow transition is really okay. If you spend an extra five minutes to eat a snack, or body glide all the important places, it's better than crashing your bike trying to eat as you ride or the chafing that might result or whatever other things you might have done in transition.
We were waiting for him to go past for his second lap and ended up on the other side of the fence seeing him as Sebastian needed a pitstop at the portapotties. From there, we headed to just before the finish. Sebastian wanted to run in with his dad, and Jeremy happily allowed this.
The boys were great. We brought our bells and a few other noisemakers. Sebastian was yelling things like "looking good guys", and "nice form" and "run this way" and all sorts of other little things. Soooooo cute. And Sully had fun ringing the bells. Next up we are getting a couple cow bells though, because they are cool too and louder and for those ironman athletes, that's important!!
So, there you have it. Jeremy finished his first open water triathlon. And now, we are less than three weeks away from his epic event... I can hardly wait!!
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