ITU Worlds Race Report – Jay Krieger
Race Report, hum never written one before….
What can I say, does a race ever go according to plan? Definitely not last year for me at Challenge Penticton. I raced with severe back pain which turned out to be a bulged L1 disk with protrusions, after a long recovery I was ready for redemption. I came into ITU Multisport World Championships with high hopes as I was feeling much better and traveled up to Penticton with my family a few days early to settle. On the Thursday Emily and my two children Austyn and Gray ran the fun run to kick things off for the Krieger family. On Saturday Gray raced the kid’s triathlon in the 6-7 age group and had a fabulous race crushing the bike and run. I need to learn to do bike mounts and dismounts like him!! Gray placed 1st out of 33 kids in his age. I was a very proud Dad to say the least. Race excitement had started to build.
My plan going into this race was be consistent in effort, don’t go too hard or too slow. I had my heart rate numbers nailed down and I was going to stick to them. This was a long race and I wanted to make sure I felt strong the whole way through. Race morning I felt great, I had a good sleep and was not nervous at all, no race nerves…. Weird right? I felt prepared. I toed the line on the swim start and off we went. The water was quite shallow for the first couple hundred feet. Most people around me were dolphin diving, not me I ran out dove in and swam. It worked out well I saw the same guys going up and down out of the water for ever. I knew that my goggles would fly off or heart rate would jack from doing this. The swim out was good I had a great pace and found some feet for a while. At the U shaped turn it was very hard to spot so I was looking up way more than normal plus my cap was sliding off. I even stopped twice to pull it down. FYI, don’t ever look back at the pack in the swim it’s frightening to see all those people wanting to run you over. I came out of the water pretty much on my expected time. 00:49:08 and for some reason my wetsuit zipper got stuck which really slowed my transition time, This also might be why I had the worst wetsuit neck rash ever.
I had one of the helpers un jam it and I was off, so I thought, I went to grab my bike change bag but all the numbers looked the same, omg race brain. Finally found it, changed and off on the bike. Bike went pretty much according to plan maybe a bit slow but I stuck with my planned HR and navigated around all the illegal drafting packs. I usually find that I have a good swim than half way through the bike I get passed by some very strong cyclists. And this was the case again, I said to myself stay with your plan strong and steady follow that HR. As I came off the bike I was feeling amazing 03:31:11 so much left in me for the run. T2 went easy in and out no problem. The first 8 kms were going great pace was faster than expected but my HR was bang on. At around 9 km mark I started to feel hot, 32+ deg no wind was starting to affect me. Glancing at my watch my HR was now at 172 and my plan was to not let it go above 168 so I eased up. I think this is where my race turned for me. The next thing I knew my HR was way low and I could not bring it back up, it was weird, I wasn’t tired but for some reason my body would not let me go. My pace was much slower now so I just set in for the long run, I walked a lot of the aid stations to make sure I got in the fluids and nutrition I needed to feel good and finish. Ice Ice Ice! 02:34:48
Looking back after the race I am happy with my result but I was hoping for better. I wanted to finish under 7 hours. I came in just over at 7h37sec. It’s funny after the race I was not as tired as I have been in the past. Did I not push hard enough? Was I too conservative? Did I lose focus on the run? I don’t know. I think I was so wrapped up in being consistent, finishing strong and feeling good that I forgot to race. That won’t happen again. I’m Getting Ugly next time!
