Race Report - Challenge Penticton, Aug 2015

View from one of the hotel's restaurants.
Penticton is written on the hillside with
gabion baskets of white stone.

See the C-swoosh used as the o in Penticton?
It's covering the mis-spelling of the town name
as Pentiction.  They had miles of signs to fix.

Penticton was the site of the first Ironman triathlon outside of Hawaii, running from 1983 through 2012, when the city decided to not renew Ironman's contract.  Ironman Canada then moved to a new venue in Whistler, and the Challenge Family picked up the Penticton race to the sound of vacant echos, as far as I can tell, because few people in North America had heard of Challenge and people here have been conditioned into thinking Ironman is the only company to put on quality long course triathlons.  I'd wanted to do this course for years and signed up thinking, if I only do one more iron distance race, this would be the one.  Good thing too, because it won't be run as an iron distance race in the future, moving instead to an ITU long course championship format of 3 km swim, 120 km bike, 30 km run, for a total of 95.1 miles instead of the old 140.6. 

The red mark pointing to Penticton obscures the
name of the neighboring town of Keloona.

-- Getting to Penticton is a challenge.  This location in British Columbia is about 4.5 h from Vancouver (267 mi), 6 h from Seattle (345 mi), 5 h from Spokane (225), or 8 h from Calgary airports by car (428 mi).  Alternatively, for an exorbitant price it was possible to fly into a neighboring community (Keloona, 1 h by car (45 mi)) and now it seems possible to fly into Penticton itself (via Jet West), but I can't imagine the cost.  I guess this isn't very different from Lake Placid, which is also remotely situated relative to large airports.

My plan was to fly Southwest to Spokane so I wouldn't have to worry about flying internationally with my bike, rent a car and drive to Penticton, then fly out of Calgary with a one-way car rental.  Tickets booked months in advance, I thought I was all set until I sat down to book the car.  Despite being able to select various pick-up and drop-off locations via the websites, it is not actually allowed to rent a car in the US and drop it off in Canada.  Doh!  We booked new, last minute flights to Vancouver on United and re-booked the SW flights for a future vacation.  Unfortunately, United charges $200 for an over-sized bag on some international flights after applying the 2nd bag charge of $35.  Thankfully the bike bag isn't also overweight, or I might have needed to sacrifice a kidney to cover the bag fee.

We stopped to see Bridal Falls (nearly
washed out of the photo by a sunbeam), 
up a short walk that gave us a chance 
to stretch our legs.

-- Our Itinerary went like this.  Wednesday afternoon flight to Vancouver (via Chicago) had us landing at 10:05 pm.  Getting through customs was a snap, as was baggage collection and shuttle transport to a near-by hotel.  We grabbed late night 'snacks' (read wine, beer, & ice cream) and got to bed ~12 p.m. local time, which was 3 a.m. E.D.T.  In the morning we shuttled back to the airport to pick up our rental car, and after brunch headed over to Penticton.  We did some sight seeing on the way and ultimately spent some 6 h traveling to the host hotel (Penticton Lakeside Resort Convention Centre & Casino),

Penticton Lakeside Resort sits between transition
and the finish area.  Our room overlooked the
lake and the very end of the run course.

which was conveniently located between transition and the finish line.  Friday I assembled my bike (more on that later), did race check-in, scouted the bike course, and joined the athlete dinner.  The food was disappointing, ziti and boiled chicken, and the entertainment was so-so.  Joke was on me for paying extra for Ed to be there too.  Saturday I took a short ride on the bike, scouting part of the run course, and a short swim in the lake (cold and bouncy), before bringing my race gear to transition.  FYI, nothing fancy about the racks (no personalization).  Sunday was race day.  Monday was the athlete breakfast, which was actually terrible.  I mean terrible.  Cardboard, or what they thought of as pancakes, sausage links, and fruit.  For another $25 (again, for Ed), this was an abomination, though it's possible my expectations for food have been distorted by the really great spread found at Challenge AC.  We checked out by noon and made our way to Banff for a 10 p.m. arrival, having stopped for a minute of sight seeing and dinner at Lake Louise.  

Lake Louise, ~7 p.m. on a rainy day.

We took two short hikes and I disassembled/packed my bike on Tuesday.  Departing Wednesday at 6:30 a.m., we drove to Calgary for our 11:30 a.m. flight, with plenty of time to spare which was a good thing since my bike set off the chemical sniffing test and it, my carry-on luggage, and I were all treated to extra-thorough searches by security.  After a stop-over, customs clearance, and late-departure from Toronto we landed ~11 p.m. and got to the house at 1 a.m.  

Short recap: Penticton is a lovely place, but damned inconvenient to get to.  The whole trip had lots of beautiful scenery, which we saw either through the haze of smoke due to near-by wild fires, or through heavy clouds and rain.   

I don't understand why every 140.6 doesn't provide this
kind of map.  It's helpful for the racers and spectators alike.
Note - I never would have entered the finish chute at
Lake Placid prematurely if they'd bothered to share one.

-- Bike Pre-amble.  I had trouble airing up my front tire when assembling my bike.  The Zipp valve stem has a weird shape/size that wouldn't fit my travel pumps' fitting so I had to find a bike shop (strangely, the expo did not have any bike service).  The bike shop was able to air the tire up with a compressor, but not a hand pump, so it seems the fix-a-flat goop I put in at home messed stuff up.  I traveled with new brake pads, intending to install them when I unpacked the bike.  But I didn't realize they required an allen wrench size I didn't have with me, so I bought another allen wrench set, bringing my collection now up to ~1 million of them.  I also purchased rim tape (in case I needed to change my tubular tire on course), tire irons (same reason), and 3 x CO2 cartridges (since you can't fly with those).  Next morning, the front tire was still rock hard but the back was flat.  This is sorta normal tubular behavior so I aired the back up and rode/scouted the run course with no problem.  The rear tire was low again when I racked which was mildly concerning since only ~7 h had passed.  Race morning, both tires needed air.  I pushed 105 psi with a pump in transition.

After my newly-installed tubular tire flatted in Boulder last year, and then confirming the difficulty for finding 650 tubular tires at the last minute, I vowed to travel to A races with a pre-stretched tire in the event I’d need another last minute pre-race fix.  But I had not yet committed to carrying it during the race since I’d never changed one of this kind out before and figured I’d be fucked if I really needed to.  But at the bike shop in Penticton I realized I’d better carry all that was needed because without it, the in-race bike support wouldn’t be able to help me either.  Conceptually, I do know how to change the tire, but I did not know how much trouble I’d have finding the spot where the tire wasn’t glued so I could begin to pull it off, or how hard it was going to be to rip off a glued-on tire.  Then there was the issue with the new valve extenders, that I was also carrying with me, which I straight up did not know how to install.  The black bottle contains my rim tape, caffe latex, tire irons, CO2 and adapter.  The tire was folded in half then thirds around the rear bottle cage mount and secured with two velcro straps.  All told, I found myself at the last minute with too much weighing on my mind regarding the readiness of my bike for this race.

View of Okanagan Lake from our room.
Top, sunset through a light smokey haze.
Bottom, daylight through heavier smokey haze.

-- Weather.  Temps were in the lower 70's leading up to race day.  Rain was predicted for overnight so all my stuff was double bagged (like at CAC this year).  Race day temps were supposed to be 58 in the morning and then climbing to 72 F, with some morning rain possible.  Normally I don't look forward to rain but I think we were all looking forward to an improvement in the air quality, since the smell of campfire was otherwise ever-present.

Held in Okanagan Lake, the 
course was a single loop askew triangle
with the starting line maybe chest deep,
which saved us the long shallow run in from
shore.  The smaller triangle was for the half.
At swim start winds shifted from 5 mph
NNW to 8 mph S with gusts to 20 mph.

-- The Swim.  At the 6:30 a.m. start, the water seemed calm and the 70-71 F temp felt great, being warmer than that of the air (56 F).  For the outbound 1600 m I found myself between two lines of swimmers.  I didn't want to veer to try to join either but found myself crossing them anyway.  There may have been a slight cross current, and I ultimately felt like I was zig zagging here.  Rounding the first turn for the short 450 m segment put me closer to another swimmer that I could easily keep up with.  This tells me I missed the window for latching on to faster swimmers.  I got on and off this guys feet repeatedly, finding that I couldn't hold him unless I stared at his feet, which put my head up higher than I usually keep it.  This both changes what I think is my best body position and also makes the wetsuit touch my throat more, which leads to a sensation of being strangled.  After the last turn for the 1800 m stretch home I settled in, got over the wetsuit-on-throat sensation and locked onto those feet.  I thought about how hard I was (not) working and took a look to see if anyone nearby seemed to be moving faster, but stuck with the same guy who was now on someone else's feet.  I was definitely not working hard here and whenever I took a look to see if we were any closer to shore, it really seemed we weren't.  Eventually another swimmer latched on to me and I finally got that experience in a triathlon of both tapping feet in front while being tapped from behind, but in a calm pace line.  The swim exit was over some rocks that were luckily not sharp.  Don't know how I missed these getting in 'cause they were a surprise.  Afterward, Ed tells me the wind was pushing the water away from the shore all day, which would have made the inbound trip against a current.  I had my Garmin set to record 800 m laps and the early lap paces support there being a current away from the start area.  S: 1:25:53 (2:16/100 m), rank 121/176 individual starters.  My prior best time was 1:33:27 at IMMT in 2013, so I started the day feeling pretty good about hitting my first goal, mostly.  (Let's be honest, I wanted to go lower 1:20's).  

-- T1 was smooth.  I finally swam with a good enough time for the tent to be crowded when I got there.  I found my pony tail position was too high and it really fouled with my helmet fit.  I stared at my long-sleeved top and decided against wearing it - this was a mistake.  T1: 5:39, achieving my 2nd goal of <7 min.  

The single loop course with 5470 ft elevation gain had only a very small out-and-back segment near mi 69 to see competitors ahead of and behind you.  Between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., temps ranged from a low of 58 to a high of 65 F, and the winds ranged from a steady 5-11 mph (S) to gusts of 17-26 mph.  Verbal reports cite gusts to 40 mph at Penticton's airport but I can't find confirmation.

Taken on Eastside Rd, along Skaha Lake.

Same road as above, taken during course scouting.

-- The Bike.  Oh dear god, the wind.  No lie, worse than the first year at CAC.  The bike course follows the shoreline of Skaha Lake with almost no shoulder and no guardrail, and the hilly coast line's twists & turns seemed to shift the direction of the wind in an unpredictable manner.  This was the first time I'd felt the wind strongly grab my helmet and blow my head sideways.  There were cross-winds at CAC this year, but this action on my helmet didn't happen there.  The wind and direction shift of gusts was so bad that I was under eating and drinking b/c I was literally afraid to take my hands off the aero extensions and didn't want to sit upright at all.  It was also raining lightly and I was cold, and to top it off my bike was making a weird clicking noise, like maybe something was hitting a spoke, and a vibration sound that I determined was rattling coming from my right brake lever.  

South of the lake I was passing people consistently which required crossing a rumble strip to join the auto traffic, as the shoulder was only wide enough for single-file riding.  By the time I made the turn from Osoyoos to start climbing up Richter Ascent (1/3 of the mileage, 60 km) I was already at 2.5 h.  Say it with me, oh dear! 

The climbs on this course were fine, no problem at all.  But the descents were a big problem.  I needed much better course familiarity to compensate for the proximity of fast moving traffic on this open course.  We drove the course but the shoulder, where I did the bulk of my biking, was not the same degree of smooth.  Coming down the first big decent I was literally scared so got out of aero and moved to a tuck on the bars, and I don't know what I hit but felt a hard bump on the back wheel.  After this I felt slower in places where I don't think I should have been moving so slowly, let alone for my target wattage.  I kept looking and didn't think the tire looked flat, but the ride felt jarring.  I guess it was windy here, too.  There was a period of maybe 20 min (?) where my right hip was really feeling terrible and my pedaling fell off then as I tried to stretch it out.  Luckily this passed.  I started taking the big descents in the smoother car lane but, in general, the bike felt a little squirrely on descents and I was concerned about the potential for sudden cross gusts.  

Along Hwy 3, taken during course scouting.

I finally stopped to check the wheel at the 115 km turn around, and found it really low.  Like, I was worried I may be trashing both my rim and tire, low.  I pulled out my CO2 and aired up to seriously firm as the cartridge seemed to put out a higher PSI than I've experienced before.  Got back on, rolled maybe 200 yd before a pop and hiss.  Now I had a hole I could see.  I put my finger over it to meter the air flow, rolled the hole to the ground hoping the tire goop would pool there (following what I read on ST about how to deal with flats in tubulars), rolled it a bit but it still seemed to be leaking.  I pulled out my caffe latex and tried twice to put more goop in, but it just sort of detonated everywhere instead of going into the tire upon which the child volunteer who was watching exclaimed, "Cool!".  (Uhm, yeah..., awesome.)  I wondered if the tire already had too high a pressure in it for the product to deploy correctly but couldn't bring myself to intentionally deflate the tire.  At any rate, I decided to roll on with a soft-ish tire.  I figured

Taken by a spectator and shared on FB!

if I flatted completely I could at least be closer to the finish.  Plus I couldn't possibly drop out of a race for which I had dedicated my efforts to a friend.  Whenever the ride started to feel jarring again, I stopped to add more CO2.  The knock on effect was that I was more conservative on descents, hoping my rim wasn't going to break or the tire roll off the rim.  I stopped a total of 4 times for this (~140 & 170 km) and would love a do-over for this bike ride, even with the same conditions.  After the fact I hear that this was the worse wind ever on this ride, reportedly adding an average of 1 h to most people's times.  And I don't know exactly how many mph riding on a non-firm tire costs you, but know the answer is: more than you want!  My moving time was 7:31:30, my segment time was 7:44:42, and the race recorded it as 7:53:43 (22.8 km/h), having included both transitions, rank 109/176.  This is most definitely not the result I was prepared for.

The run course had 2 legs of out and back.  The first turn-around was at 7 km, the 2nd at 27.7 km though it was reported by folks on SlowTwitch that the location was not correct, and I observed the cone to be beyond the spray-painted turn-around mark on the road.  By this time of day, temp was 64 climbing to 69 F and then dropping to 66 with steady 8-12 mph winds (S) and 17-26 mph gusts.

This run path along the Okanagan River was used for the
shorter, western out-and-back run segment.  There were a
bunch of horses on it during my scouting ride.

-- T2.  Well, I felt great coming off the bike, so that was a plus.  T2: 3:33, nicely below my goal of 5 min.


-- The Run.  I came out a little too fast and over slowed down as I turned into the wind.  I checked all the bib #'s of women coming toward me (they would have been up to 7 km ahead of me) and saw none that looked close enough in number to be in my AG.  I figured that with the flatting there was no way in hell I could place, but I felt really good.  Fatigue started to get me at the 10 mi point, and now the bib #'s running toward me had me convinced I wouldn't place.  I won't say I gave up, but knowing I wasn't going to PR also kept me from giving that extra effort and I'm not proud of that.  Garmin data shows I dropped ~1 mi/min around this time :-(  I thought to increase my foot turnover and people told me I looked great but somehow my pace was slowing anyway.  

Not yet 1 mile into the run, I was
feeling like a million bucks.  Okanagan
Lake is in the background.

As I approached the final turn-around and the porta-potty located there, I contemplated how badly I needed to go to the bathroom and decided I could probably finish the race without stopping.  I then wondered, as I was now running back and away from it, how much faster I might be able to run if my mind wasn’t pre-occupied with abdominal pressure, and decided to let go.  I figured this was probably only going to be a small amount of fluid anyway, and if this was my last full iron distance race it would be my last chance to be the kind of badass that would make this decision.  Much to my surprise, and then growing dismay, this was not the ¼ cup of liquid I was expecting, but more like a gallon of fire-hose strength flow.  It ran out of my shorts as anticipated but then actually splashed off the top edge of my calf sleeves and become a splashing spray as I continued to run.  I was careful to not make eye contact with any passing motorists as I now felt like an idiot for fowling myself only to earn a mid-to-low age group finish, and I was thankful there were no people around for legitimate fear of splashing others.  Inconceivably, the continuing flow was now saturating my shoes and it was at this point I was finally grossed out as I thought about having to pack them up into my luggage in the morning.  I grabbed two cups of water at the next aid station and tossed one down the front of my shorts and the other down the back, and continued on.  However I wasn’t satisfied I’d gotten a good flush of my shoes so I asked for lots of water at the next aid station and happily took the bottle they offered me, wearing an apologetic grimace on my face as I used it for repeated squirts down both the front and the back of my shorts while thinking, "Ok, that has to be enough."  But the fun didn’t quite stop there.  Now with wet clothes, chaffing in the shorts began.

I took my last gel at around 17.5 miles, prior to my 'running potty experience' and as per game plan, but in the low 20's I felt like I was starting to bonk.  At this point I was unsure if I should eat more or just push through.  I ended up grabbing some oranges, hoping that would be enough.  Around the time my watch died (mi 24-25) I was a bit dizzy and moving so slowly that I considered walking.  My guess is that I had too little nutrition since I was on the bike longer than planned.  Right around this time one woman who had been way behind me came steaming along for a strong finish.  I thought of trying to catch her, hoping she wasn't in my AG (thankfully, she wasn't), but I didn't think I had it in me.  I did work to pull myself together though with some air boxing to make sure my arms had some life in them.  I finished with 2 cartwheels in the finishing shoot and forgot to even check the clock!  It wasn't what I was going for, but I managed to post a new IM run PR with 4:51:59 (6:56/km), rank 66/176; my prior best was 5:01:54 at IMWI in 2012.  

The fist pump followed my

enthusiasm over NOT wiping

out from doing cartwheels

after >14 h of racing.

-- Results.  
     S:   1:25:53 (2:02/100 yd)
     T1: 5:39 
     B:   7:44:42 (14.5 mph)
     T2: 3:33
     R:   4:51:59 (11:08/mi)
     Total time: 14:11:34

I was 89/176 individual starters, 
147 of whom finished within the 17 h cutoff and
151 of which are listed with a finishing time.  
I was 4/11 in my AG but got bumped to 3rd for the awards since 1/11 was the 3rd female to finish the race.








Overall, I get that it was a hard day and I'm totally fine with not having hit my goal time of 13 h.  But I still wish I had manged to do a better job and nail the run.  I also think I made a tactical mistake on the bike by not putting out more effort in the first 60 km of wind and by not eating enough.  Of course I'm thrilled to have placed (!!!) and should probably point out that I only beat the woman behind me in my AG by 1 min 52 sec, which might be less time than it would have taken me to scope out the porta-potty for cleanliness and to use it.  ;-)   

-- Additional Observations of the event, in no particular order:  

• I was surprised the expo had no bike mechanical support.  The two represented bike shops weren’t far away, but still – unusual.
• The transition bags aren’t the plastic things I’ve gotten at every other race.  These are nylon, I think.  I get that Challenge is not Ironman and wants to distinguish itself, but can we please agree that Red is for Run and Blue is for Bike?
• The race bag ‘gift’ for registering (for the full) was a solidly constructed evocsports 55 L transition bag with plenty of pockets and various ways to use it: duffle or back pack, stuff from both sides or from the top.  It actually looks too nice to use in a race but might be good to use as a carry-on while flying?  (Presuming everyone can stomach the smell of the running and cycling shoes contained inside...  Come to think of it, it was probably my cycling shoes that set off airport security in Calgary, not the bike.)  The race swim cap was silicone instead of latex and I will continue to use it regularly.

  

  Ye old bag give-a-way happens to be a really
  well-made-looking gear bag with pockets and
  content access points almost everywhere.  It
  also has a folding out transition mat (on right).

• Penticton is known for its army of volunteers, and everyone I encountered was friendly and helpful.  However, hotel staff were overhead making fun of some guests – not cool.
• Race tracking was abysmal, with race staff overhead saying to one another that it was a complete failure and no data was being captured.  Apparently the only mats that worked were at transition and the finish line.
• Participants were announced as they came out of the swim, back in from the bike, I think when we passed by transition on the run, and of course in to finish.  That was seriously thorough, which I guess you can pull off with <250 participants doing the long course.  The take home for me is to use Philadelphia as my town name since almost no one seems to be able to pronounce Conshohocken (Con-sho-hock-en, just like it’s spelled) and no one knows where it is anyway.
• There were 11 aid stations on the bike course.  Eleven!  I was wondering if people just took cups from each station instead of carrying water bottles?  Also plenty of aid on the run.
• There was a turn on the run course that could have used a volunteer to guide people, which wasn’t a big deal.  However, neither out-and-back turn around point had a timing mat, which seems surprising given the high-profile incidents of cheating discovered among BQ’ers and KQ’ers alike lately.  The 1^st turn had people recording bib #’s by hand but the 2^nd one was a ghost town, with the diss'ed porta-potty my only witness to having honestly completed the course.
• After-race: post-race massage was nice, food was sufficient, but so far no one touches Mount Tremblant on this point.  No one took my timing chip, which I discovered when stripping for my shower.
• Finish line atmosphere: they were aiming for it to be festive, they just didn’t have enough people.  The music was too loud - not b/c I’m too old but b/c it was over amp’ing the speakers.  The lighting was enough for me to see where I was going as a participant, but not enough to see the finishers as a spectator.  The 17-hour mark came with no fan-fare as participants were still out on the course and they were going to let them finish.  After 15 or so min I gave up.  Last recorded time was 18:06:09.
• Participation by numbers: both of the Challenge races I did this year had few participants and appear to have possibly suffered from poor environmental conditions: smoke in Penticton and harsh preceding day wind/rain in Atlantic City.  AC also took a hit when the Prize purse was killed.  Penticton is moving to the international triathlon union long course format of 1.9 mi swim, 74.6 mi bike, 18.6 mi run for 2016 and hosting the ITU Multisport World Championship Festival in 2017, which as a 10 day event should hugely increase the number of athletes going to the area to train and race in the near future.  Meanwhile, we wait to hear what'll happen to the race in AC.
  
  
  

  Penticton	Individual	Relay	AB	Total
  Bib #'s	208	45	1	254
  Started	176	41	0	217
  Finished	147 <17:00:00 151 ≤18:06:09	39	0	186
  DNS	15.4%	8.9%	100.0%	14.6%
  DNF	16.5%	4.9%	100.0%	14.3%

  
  

  AC Pro Indiv Relay AB Total Bib #'s 30 214 31 58 333 Started 4 155 26 52 237 Finished 3 138 25 47 212 DNS 86.7% 27.6% 16.1% 10.3% 28.8% DNF 25.0% 11.0% 26.7% 3.8% 10.5%

-- Lastly, in a race of this length there's plenty of time for several kinds of thoughts to enter one's mind.  How my training went, what could have been different.  The hours spent in multiple pools trying to get as fast as Denise and Emily.  Remembering the excellent preparation obtained through Cadence's June training camp and the miles spent biking in gnarly headwinds with Mark.  The dedication to getting it done exemplified by Emily biking for hours inside a hotel room on a trainer and by Ashley under more weird traveling circumstances than I can wrap my head around.  The kick-ass results thrown down by all my team and training mates at Challenge AC this year.  Trying to channel the strength of Jill or Isabel and the perseverance of Kristy on the bike.  Remembering how lucky I am to be able to do this when others have health conditions that make simple daily living a challenge.  Hoping Ed was off doing something fun and not standing around for hours trying to find me when all my time predictions were so far off.  And I tried to wear a smile all day long, thinking of the grace and joy with which Leroy approaches everything, ultimately 'having fun while getting it done.'  Thanks for reading!