Timmins Triathlon Recap

A little over a week ago, I raced in the Timmins Heart of Gold Triathlon. This being only my second triathlon ever, I had big expectations going in compared to the first time I competed in a sprint triathlon back in 2013. Leading up to the race, I had spent more time in the pool and more hours on the bike than ever before. I also practiced running off the bike, which helped me enormously come race day.

The Swim + T1 (13:55):

This part of the race was probably the most nerve racking for me. I know for a fact that I am not a strong swimmer so going in I knew I would already have to play catch up once I got out of the water. When the gun went off, I went out relatively hard to give myself a chance of swimming a decent time. I felt a little fatigue on the second loop of the swim but I was confident that the swim wouldn’t hurt my bike or run. Exiting the water, I glanced at my watch to get a rough estimate of my swim time and saw that I came out around 12:50. The first time I raced, I swam around 15 minutes. I was surprised and happy with my time but knew I wouldn’t be able to see my actual split since the timing was set up to include the swim, a short run up a little hill, and finally the time it took to transition to the bike. The transition itself was pretty good. Racing in a tri-suit saved me a lot of time not having to put on a shirt after swimming and I’d guess I was in and out of transition in about 30-40 seconds.

Running the small uphill after the swim.

Bike (35:56):

My main focus on the bike was closing the gap between all the swimmers who were ahead of me. With Timmins having a challenging bike course, I focused on maximizing my speed on the flats and working pretty hard on the uphill portions of the course. Near the turn around, I was sitting in 9^th (forgetting once again that there were relay teams and duathletes in the mix). I think I managed to pass one or two athletes on the way back. It was nice having people ahead of me as it gave me motivation to reel them in while keeping my mind off the fatigue that was slowly setting in. Overall, I’m happy with my performance on the bike and managed to take off about three minutes from my previous sprint triathlon.

T2 + Run (21:19):

With running being the strongest of the three disciplines for me, I was hoping to run under 20 minutes for the running portion of the race. However, that did not happen. The second transition went just as smooth as the first one and I was out of there in less than 45 seconds. Once I got out on the course, I focused on tracking down anyone who was ahead of me. I saw that my main competition and eventual winner Matthew Mahaffy had a good 5-6 minute lead on me off the bike so I was pretty sure I would not catch him. I tried rolling at a solid pace for the first loop of the course but started cramping up as I began the second loop. With a bit encouragement from another competitor, Rick Demers, the cramps eventually passed and I was able to continue running as I was prior to the cramps. About 500m from the finish line, the cramps came back and I slowed right down to a walk. Being so close to the finish, all I wanted to do was cross that line and hopefully salvage a decent run. Before that happened, I stopped to throw up the gel I had pre-race and went on to cross the finish line in 1:11:11. Good enough for second place overall in only my second sprint triathlon and a huge personal best by roughly 7 minutes.

Probably the best photo of me on the run.

On the podium.

Moving forward to the last bit of summer and the fall, I have shifted my focus to running again and am training for the Timmins Golden Trails Half-Marathon on August 12^th. I have just under 4 weeks of training left before I make my half-marathon debut. Hopefully this will get me a good base for the upcoming cross-country season and in good shape for when I head back to school to start training with the cross-country team once again.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

Humble Beginnings to the Present

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I've been contemplating trying this whole blog thing for a couple of years now and I'm not too sure where this blog will go. I'm hoping this blog will be a place where I can document anything interesting happening in my life with my training, school work and other shenanigans. So let's begin!

First off, I suppose an introduction and a bit of background is necessary. My name is Daniel Fournier and I am a third year Kinesiology student at the University of Waterloo as well as a competitive long distance runner. I have always been a runner (starting in the 4th grade when everybody ran cross-country) but I didn't start training seriously until I got into high school. For five years, I competed for École secondaire catholique Thériault and managed to come away with two OFSAA silver medals and one OFSAA gold medal/team championship, which to this day is still one of my most memorable seasons as a runner. When I began training in the 9th grade, I remember running my first 5K race and finishing in about 22:30. It wasn't a very fast time compared to what my teammates were running (at least sub 20min.) but it was a good starting point. As that season progressed, I started noticing improvements at every race and at my first OFSAA cross-country race, I ran 18:46 for 5K and could not believe the improvements after just one season. I'm fairly certain that is where I got hooked on running. I am lucky to have been a part of a team with such a rich history for the sport of cross-country running and cannot imagine where I would be today without everything that the sport has done for me since the beginning. 

Skipping ahead a couple of years, I now compete for the University of Waterloo Warriors on their varsity cross-country running and track & field teams. My university career started off great with lots of personal bests over a variety of distances from the 1500m to 10K cross-country. However, injuries started to take their toll on my body after my first year and I have been in a slump since. It's very frustrating for an athlete to not be able to do the sport they love because their body won't let them. There would be times after a couple of weeks off that things would start looking better and I could resume training but either the same injury or a new one would force me into another period of time off.

This spring, I finally got a hold on the whole injury thing and I have been able to do some consistent training during the warm summer months. So as of right now, I am injury free and back on the grind. I am currently back home for the summer on a work term at Rehab Plus Rehabilitation and Fitness Centre here in Timmins, ON, and things are going pretty well on the work side. I'm learning lots and applying a lot of things I have learned from my previous school term. My work schedule makes it hard to train consistently with my work hours being all over the place but I think I'm making it work. Lately, I have been training for the Heart of Gold Triathlon that takes place in one week (July 12th) here in Timmins. I did this triathlon a couple of years ago and did not perform to my best as I was not running due to injury. I managed a pretty slow 5K at the end of the race and I know I could easily take a couple of minutes off of the run. This time around, I have done equal training for all three disciplines and have been practicing running off of the bike. I think it is safe to say that this year should be an improvement from my first attempt at a triathlon. When I completed the triathlon in 2013, I managed to beat my long-time friend and old teammate Matt Mahaffy. I was not expecting to come out on top since he had been doing triathlons for a couple of years before I decided to try my first one. This year, we will both be competing again and I am looking forward to this rematch. His latest results show that he is in shape and that I'll have to bring my "A" game next weekend.

Well I think this is sufficient enough for a first post. I will most likely have a nice little race recap next weekend after the triathlon.

Thanks for reading,

Dan