Lake Jakab Tri

Ok so it wasn't a real triathlon but it was a great simulated race for us to do. We had arranged to get up to Justin's folk's cottage about a month ago and run a race type scenario as part of getting ready for Miami. We got online with Google Maps and Google Earth and mapped out a swim course and a cycling and running route. I wanted to get distances that were longer than the Welland sprint we'd done and close to the Olympic distance race we're going to do next month but was aware of the very hilly terrain we'd be on and din't want to overdo it. It was more important to successfully complete what we'd set out to do rather then worry about specific distances. We decided on a 1200 m swim, a 35-40 km ride and a 5-7 km run. I arrived around 10:30 am and was promptly met by the official greeter, Shadow, a beautilful friendly black Lab who'd just had a swim in the lake and was drippng wet. Right behind her was my buddy Justin who may have secretly been hoping I got lost or had changed my mind about coming. Right behind him was his mom whom he introduced me to and then we made our way down to the dock where I met his dad. A quick tour of the cottage (ummm, let's call it a lake house), change into tri gear, grab the wetsuit and down to the dock. I brought my shorty instead of the full wetsuit figuring the water wouldn't be very cold because of the warm weather lately and also to compare my stroke between the sleeveless and full sleeve suits. I'd noticed during the last race that my arms fatigued in the swim and that's not something I want to happen in Miami. Justin's mom and dad will follow us in the kayaks and we pick out a point to head to. Into the lake and off we go. I try to hang with Justin and am doing ok for about 100 m but then I think we veered away from each other and I lost where he was so I just swam and sighted every few strokes to keep going in the right direction. Then at about 250-300 m I started feeling tired. Really? What's up? Did I head out to fast? I may have so I slow up a bit. No difference. In fact I am feeling even more tired. What the heck? I stop swimming so I can recover some but nothing doing. Then I realise I can't catch my breath, my chest feels compressed and it hits me, my wetsuit is too tight. I call Justin's dad over in the kayak and hang onto the side and ask him to unzip the suit. I strip it off which was no easy task in the water and whew, I can breath again. So I begin swimming again and several minutes later I meet up with Justin out by the point where I explain what happened. We ask how far we've swam and it was 640 m, turn around and head back towards the dock. I'm finally swimming in a good rhythm and not getting tired and even though I'm crawling and Justin is kicking my butt I don't care. I finally get back to the dock and Justin's been there for what seems like a half hour and my first instinct is to push his head under water. Then I think naaaa, we got the real torture coming up. Thankfully this wasn't a real race because it was the longest transition I've ever had, roughly 15 minutes but we're not practising transitions today right? On to the bikes and the first thing we face is what looks like a wall. In addition to that we've come out of the protection of all the trees surrounding the property and realize that the wind is whipping. More on the wind later, but first thoughts through my head are "This is going to hurt". Well the first 7 km we do are probably the toughest, slowest kms I've ever done and the other 33 weren't much fun either. The hills were so deceptive. What looked like level ground was slightly uphill. I couldn't understand why it was such an effort to pedal. It couldn't be my wetsuit, I wasn't wearing it. And what looked like an easy grade had me out of the saddle and grinding. Now I never ride in anything but my big ring but today I had to drop into my small ring AND into my granny gear in the rear ........ 3 TIMES! At one point on the ride Justin who was in front of me yelled "Did you see the bear?" which instantly brought back memories of my Grizzly encounter a few years back while I was biking in Canmore. I wasn't too concerned though because I was safe. I didn't need to be faster than the bear if it decided to re-appear, only faster than Justin. The ride ended with no more encounters and I have to say Justin did exceptionally well today. I know I found it challenging and am sure Justin did too but he was never too far behind me. Now we only had a hilly run left to contend with. No specific distance was set, we just ran and played it by ear. We had a couple of climbs to face but got them both done. There were no wild animal encounters but I did notice a pretty big pile of poop which I assumed was courtesy of a bear. I know horse poop and it wasn't that. Couldn't have been from a dog unless it was dogzilla and it certainly wasn't a cat unless someone in the area owned a cougar and I don't mean a 40 year old woman. So I kept my head on a swivel and made sure I kept ahead of Justin ... which wasn't that difficult. Sorry Justin I had to get that in. Justin finished up at 5 km and I ran a little further attacking that wall we started the bike on. Just because it was there. So I finished up at 6 km and was happy that the day was done and my groin survived unscathed. Now more about that wind I mentioned earlier. Justin and his folks took me out in the boat on a tour of the lake. Everything was fine until we left the protection of the inlet. And then there were waves. Big waves. With whitecaps. Wow, the wind was creating swells bigger then I've seen in the Pacific. At one pont the waves were so big I swear they had waves of their own but we made it around the lake and back to the safety of the inlet in one piece. A great day and a great training race. Thanks to Justin for having me up and many thanks to his parents for being such gracious hosts.