Kyle's Canmore race report

I was a little uncertain of how Ironman training would play out on an Olympic course. My day started off rough. As I was heading out the door to ride up to T1 I realized I had a flat in one of my race wheels. Since I was running late I decided to toss one of Carrie's wheels on my bike and off I went. It seems I wasn't the only one having a bad morning- at the pre-race briefing we found out the race would be delayed because a moose was taking his morning bath in Quarry Lake.
The race started with a crowded group trying to squeeze into the small lake. I tried to push hard through the first 200 m but was constantly hitting different body parts. At one point I was sure I hit the moose! After 10 turns and going slightly off course a few times I ran out of the water only to be partially tackled by a random 7 year old. In my effort to avoid him, my hamstring cramped up and I hobbled the rest of the 300 m to T1. Wasn't pleased with my swim time nor running into a small child.
After fighting with my wetsuit for a while and slipping off my pedal at the mounting area, I finally got on the road. I worked on moving up the field trying to get as close as I could to a 1 hour ride. That would be tougher then I thought as each hill seemed to become longer and steeper on each repeat and my bike computer had decided to pack it in. I pushed hard but felt the effects of the hills at the end of the ride.
At T2 I was in the top 15 and could see 2 people ahead of me. I had a much better transition and was mentally looking forward to the run. Unfortunately my legs had alternative plans. After 2km of marathon pace I finally convinced them that we were running a 10 K and we better get going. I put in a few sub 4 min kms then I hit some more hills. The good thing was that there was no wind... the bad thing was that I had to do those hills again on the second lap. I picked off a few people but soon realized that I would have to run alot faster to match the speed of some of the other racers (One racer did a 33 min run!). I finished hard and felt I left it all out there.