Kelowna Race Report (SHANE)

I had a great race yesterday in Kelowna. It was the best race to date. I guess all of that struggling all year has paid off and I am still getting better. Now onto the race, I swam pretty average but still came in at a decent time. Swim:22:20 and transition was not bad except that I could not get my wetsuit off, that was a little frustrating. And then on the bike it was lots of fun. It took me until about the 5K mark to find my legs and get going. In addition there is one major hill at about the 3K mark (approx. 600m long and fairly steep). I just took the hill steady everytime I went up it and tried not to toast my legs off on it. I also had a lot of fun with 2 guys on the bike course, every lap they seemed to catch me going up the hill and then I would catch them going down or on the flats. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time. Bike Time: 1:09:08. And then came the run. I also had a good time on the run, it hurt but I felt good doing it. My legs on the run did not feel like they recovered until about the 2K mark and then I was in business. From this point on I started picking people off on the race course. On the second lap my legs started to really hurt from approximately the 5.5K mark to the 7K mark but I pushed through it and talked my way through it. Then at about 7.5K (my watch beeped - reason was that my watch was full on memory and I had remembered that just before the race that it was going to do that at the 2 hrs and 7 minute mark), don't ask me why but then I realized that if I can run 4 minutes kilometers for the last 2.5K, I will set a huge personal best. So I then had it in my head that I had 10 minutes of pain left and left everything out on the course. And yes I think I can back in around ten minutes of less. What a great feeling. I set a personal best on the run at 42:29. And to my surprise I came in at a personal best time of 2:17:13.
In the words of our friend, Jason Warrick, "What a great day to be me!!!"
I am still on cloud nine and it was a great way to end off the season.