5 Days Until my first race

I'm not really nervous, I would say I'm more excited. It's probably because I know I'm not going to be competitive, so there's no pressure.

The Toronto Islands Triathlon sold out earlier last week. That means 400 athletes for the main event, the triathlon (750m swim, 30km bike, 7.5km run). I'm doing the swim and bike in relay with a friend, who will do the running. It's going to be great to finally have an idea of what happens during this event. The only competitions I've been participating to before, were swimming (pool only), so it's going to be quite different!

Yesterday, we went to the islands to have a look at the course. Flat and Fast! I was able to average 30km per hour on my tri bike (when I didn't have to slow down for people walking around), which is pretty good for me, considering I haven't trained as much as I should have.

Also, it was raining and windy. It was my first training ride in the rain! I know, I'm a chicken, and I prefer to be comfortable! But at least I'll know how it is if we don't have a nice day on the 18th. I had a look at the beach where the swimming will be. Because of the wind, it was really choppy. Kinda ocean-like, with waves crashing noisily on the beach. Oh well, if it's like that, it's going to be like that for everybody else! :)

So far the forecast for next weekend is good, but we can't rely on that too much...

The islands are a huge park, where there are no cars, except for the maintenance crew. I suppose that there will be race officials clearing the path from people on race day. In that case I'm pretty sure I will have a good avg speed.

I'm a bit nervous about the drafting rules, but I think I'll be fine. Also, I'm more comfortable with the clipless pedals, I don't think it's going to be an issue. I might just look a bit weird mounting my bike after T1, because I still have difficulty to clip-in quickly, but at least I've got platforms to be able to pedal even if I'm not clipped in yet. :)

As for the position on the bike, I've done many adjustments to bring my weight back to center. It was too much forward and most of my weight was resting on my hands. That caused some trouble in my right index...you can read about it here. So I raised my handlebars, tilted my seat upwards a bit, and there's a huge difference. I still feel that my finger is not totally happy with that though (really not bad compared to the last time), so I think I'm going to tilt the handlebars to bring them horizontal (right now they're pointing slightly downwards).

Yesterday ended up being my first ride where I really enjoyed the tri bike. I still have to get into aero position, but I think I'll be confident enough to use them during the race. I was almost there, having my left arm resting on the aero bars, but I was a bit uncertain because of the people walking/biking around. I don't have brakes on aero position, so I'm being extra careful. It's something I might want to upgrade on my bike in the future.

Today is rest day. I did yoga, and the rest of the day is work, work work! tomorrow I have a swim planned, but I might cancel it to get to an open water swim on Wednesday. So maybe it's going to be bike tomorrow. I'll see.

I can't wait for next Saturday, it's going to be awesome! I will probably update my blog again before the race.