Storm the Wall 2013!!!!!!

Well, what a beautiful week for Storm the Wall. Clear skies and temperature highs made for an awesome few days of UBCSTWC dominance. The club swept the podiums in every category entered; if anyone saw the 'it’s ours' ads out last year, well it looks like it is ours!

Big congratulations to Drew and Daniel for successfully SUPER ironmaning the wall! Chris, Nathaniel, and Brendan also participated and were just inches away from reaching the top.

Thursday was a particularly busy day for many tri club members.  There were a few individuals, such as Sebastian and Chris, who not only had some large number of races in a combination of ironman, super iron man, men’s team, coed teams, semis and finals, but were also wall men for the iron women final!  I don’t know what the record number people that anyone has lifted over the wall, but it must be held by one of these guys.  Others like Nathaniel and Brendan ran from one race to another I don’t know how many times, and still managed to win them all! 

In the co-ed race, ‘Brendan and the Bellybuttons’ had a tremendous lead and took 1^st place. Behind them was another tri club team, ‘Live Fast and Tri Hart’, who took 2^nd. (I think you can guess who the team captains of these teams were!)  The following coed teams to come in also consisted of many tri club members. 

In the men’s race, ‘The Real UBCTC’ had a huge lead coming to the wall and then speedily got all members over the wall. The second tri club team ‘Bro, do you even tri?’ came in 2^nd  (officially 3^rd but the other team should have been disqualified for not doing enough laps on the bike course)!

Nathaniel took 1^st in ironman, with Brendan and John close behind with a respective 2^nd and 3^rd place finish- podium sweep! This made for a triple win for Nathaniel, el presidente. In the girls heat Jenn and Keely came 1st and 2nd respectively, with a significant lead on the others. Lise and Theresa fought over the 4^th place position with a synchronized wall climb. Megan was missing from the final race but it was awesome to see that five of eight iron women finalists were UBCSTWC members!

Thanks to everyone who came out to cheer and take pictures. It was great to see so many people out racing and supporting each other. Kudos to Winston for even taking time off work to come watch! We must have been the largest team out cheering on campus last week- AWESOME JOB TEAM!

Yay Transitions! - Aquathon and Brick

Considering the cold and wet on both race days, we had some great turnout at this year's transition events! Let's start things off with the Aquathon (it was first).

After Nathaniel and Brendan were finished with their bid to become professional video-coaches (and what a great job they did!) was a great race for both the men and the ladies!


First out of the pool for the guys was Nathaniel after 7:11, and within 30 seconds Brendan and Karin were off on the chase! Not far behind was.... actually everyone. All racers were out of the pool by the 12:30 mark, meaning that there were a few PB's and many competitive times. Kudos to Seth for smashing his previous best time by over two minutes, and to Bryan for coming through in 12:00 after not having raced in a swim ever.
Fastest transitions go to Theresa and Speedsuit-Winston. Now, let's go for a run!

Two 1km loops around the pool concluded with Nathaniel holding off Brendan and Hugo for the Male win, and with Karin pulling in a win herself. Within two minutes was the pack finish of Lise, Keely, Lindsey, Ryan, Theresa and Jen M.

These were the final times: (Swim Split, Total)

Nathanial           7:11, 16:21
Brendan            7:24, 16:41
Hugo                 8:04, 17:47
Winston             8:51, 18:53
Karin                 7:38, 19:02
Jen                   8:52, 19:43
Ryan                 9:43, 20:00
Elise                 8:32, 20:30
Theresa           10:01, 20:40
Lyndsey            9:30, 20:49
Keely              10:10, 20:59
Lise                  9:47, 22:03
Bryan              12:03, 22:45
Seth                12:27, 23:19





                                                 
The next weekend was the Brick, again, to the chilly and ugly wet that we are all pretty used to. 

Before the race started was an intense best of one rock, paper, scissors battle between Chris H and Nathaniel. Chris lost, and therefore was relegated to being the official bike watcher.

As for the race, it was sure a quick one, with many people beating their previous best times! Congrats to everyone who did! Anyways, after 10km of mud being flipped in Anthony’s Glasses-less face, the bike concluded with Elise and (later) Chris in the lead. Yes, Seth, unfortunately no bear attacks this time around.

Special mention to Karin`s what-seemed-to-be two second transition, and Anthony’s “no-care” 2minute shoe change. Next was the 1-mile run.

Huge congrats to Theresa and Mike for winning their categories! Theresa put in an incredible run to erase a more than 15 second deficit on the bike and battle to a one-second win, while Mike built on his solid bike with an untouchable run of his own. Very competitive times, with 1st through 3rd in the Female's category only separated by 12 seconds.

Overall, there was some great improvement the Fall Series! Final times below:

Theresa                 23:42:00

Jenn B                   23:43:00

Elise                       23:54:00

Lindsey                 24:28:00

Karin                      25:42:00

Mike                     21:10:00

Nathaniel            21:41:00

Chris H                 21:43:00

Winston               23:28:00

Anthony               24:52:00

Mile Run

This spring’s mile run saw some of the fastest race times this year!  The race was close between Nathaniel and Carl, Nathaniel winning by just less than a second!  Perneet came in third behind them, closely followed by Ryan and Hugo in a tie.  Jen M. won the girls, destroying the past club record!

Almost all the girls got PBs and every time was faster than in the fall.  Jenn M. ran 24 seconds faster than last fall, Theresa ran 16 seconds faster than last fall, and Lindsey running 21 seconds faster, amazing improvements!  One theory is that this semester the girls and guys all started together and the girls proved they could much faster with the guys pushing them.

The guys were also running faster than last semester, Ryan taking 13 seconds of last semester’s time and Perneet 15 seconds!  Overall, some very fast times times this semester!  With so much improvement, in both the 500m swim and the mile run, we can expect to see some great results from tri club next weekend at UBC tri!

Nathaniel: 4:49

Carl: 4:49.5

Perneet 5:01

Ryan: 5:03

Hugo: 5:03

Thom: 5:04

Liam: 5:08

Jen M.: 5:17

Winston: 5:28

Mirka; 5:33

Theresa: 5:33

Jordan: 5:48

Jorg: 5:50

Tiffany: 5:59

Lindsey: 6:00

Emily B.: 6: 03

Jenn B.: 6:08

Karin: 6:09

Vivian: 6:38

Bryan: 7:59

500m Swim

This semester’s swim went out fast with Nathaniel swimming a 6:48.  Theresa had an amazing PB, swimming more than 30 seconds faster than last year and Tiffany swimming 28 seconds!  Brendan also had a PB, swimming 7:00, an amazing improvement of 12 seconds from last semester!  He was seen racing up from the back of lane in the last 100m, with an incredible finish to catch Jenn and Karin (who had a head start in the lane).  

There were some very close finishes as well, from the times, it is hard to tell who really won. Tiffany and Alex came in within a second of each other, and so did Jessie and Tom.  There is some close competition going on in the pool!

Despite being a Thursday evening, dark and probably rainy (rainy is always good guess if I can’t remember), the UBC pool was a busy place with lots of fast swimming going on!  It was great to see so many people out racing hard and so much improvement in the pool! 

Nathaniel 6:48

Brendan 7:00

Jenn B 7:04

Karin 7:15

Hugo 7:41

Joerg 8:19

Anthony 8:32

Winston 8:37

Tiffany 8:47

Alex T 8:47

Derek 8:55

Jessie 9:04

Tom 9:04

Lise 9:14

Ryan 9:17

Theresa 9:28

Alec 10:00

Keith 10:34

Liam 11:27

Alex 12:08

Clinton 14:09

Mirko 14:58

First Event of 2013

As the new year kicks in, what better way to get the ball, er wheel, moving again, than with a nice hard effort up a hill. Some say this hill is haunted with the forgotten dreams of aspiring tour riders. Others say Lance secretly started his doping scandal here. All we know is that it's one hell of a lung buster.

Even before the race started, Lindsey decided to do the uphill time trial in hardcore mode and do it completely on her big ring, just to show the guys up. It has nothing to do with the fact that she may have had a slight mechanical incident with her shifter... Okay, at least it was the front derailleur and not the back.

For the brave few who showed up that misty Saturday morning, nerves were quite calm, as if anticipating the worse a storm has to offer.

Derrick, who always manages to find the tri club on any given day on any given ride even after the crew flew the coop, managed to find his way towards the tail end of the warm up lap up the hill and decidedly gave chase. A valiant effort, but for a vain cause. It was not the only misfortune Derrick had this fateful day. On the actual climb, he too also suffered a mechanical failure, derailing off his big ring. Again, he fought as valiant as the brave Andy Schleck up the Pyrenees, bludgeoning through the hill as if they were rolled flat. Unfortunately,  his extraordinary efforts could not beat the fastidious pace of Jorge, Chris, and Eddy, all of whom, posted sub 5 min times.

The veteran, Jorge, made a blistering dash to the finish that would make Andre Greipel proud, probably clocking well above the speed limit. The new-comer Chris has shown that you should watch out for the new kids on the block. He is no slouch, posting the second fastest time of the day, but the king of the hill belongs to Eddy Wu.

As usual, Kevin needs his own section to himself. Having spent the good part of last night drinking, he "lost" a screw in his cleats and volunteered to time. I'm sure the whiskey last night had nothing to do with it.

For the females, an impressive performance by both Elise and Jen, who were right up there among the boys.
Pretty soon, most of the guys are going to get chicked by these girls.

After people had perforated their lungs riding up the hill, some decided it would be best to ride to horseshoe bay after. Just a casual 65km of undulations. No sweat, until it got warmer and sunnier.
Times are below:

Male:
Eddy Wu        4:52
Chris Bhatla   4:54
Jorge Winter   4:57
Derrick Lee    5:09
Hugo              5:12
Winston Guo  5:20
Sam                6:25

Female:
Elise Caron      5:04
Jen Bhatla        5:11
Lise Nicole      5:27
Karin Olafson  5:41
Theresa Price   5:41
Lindsey            5:47
Emily               6:20

Welcome Back!

Hope everyone had an amazing holiday!  I am very excited to be back to Tri Club and back running and biking and swimming outside (The rain doesn’t even seem so bad after some -20 days in Calgary over the break!)!  This semester is always an exciting one with UBC Tri and Storm the Wall which can become a very serious (and very fun!) event with tri club!  The wall always looks a little bigger that I remember it being, but tri club is always does very well.  We can also expect a buy night at the Run Inn in the near future and many other exciting events, including, of course, the spring fling race series! 

Practices are all up and running, same as last semester.  It’s exciting to see some new faces and I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone!  Hope to see you all at practice this semester!

Fall 2012 Wrapped Up

Why hello companions!

For the first time ever, the UBC Tri club has a female as the overall winner of a race series. After months of grueling effort and determination, Victoria has earned her spot on the coveted Vincent Lavallee Trophy as the 2012 fall race series winner in the female`s category. Joining her on the trophy will be newly crowned men's winner Nathaniel Janzen. We will soon be etching the names on to two solid gold plaques and placing them on the base of the trophy. Big cheers for the new names on the trophy, but don't worry Vince, your name will still be the biggest. Rounding out the top three in each category are Elise, Karin, Vince, and Winston.

To congratulate everyone on another successful race series, a quite classy celebratory function was held on the night of Friday, November 30th where all of us were being responsible as always. My memory may be a bit fuzzy about what happened afterwards,  but I am just going to assume that we jumped straight back into training mode at Mr. Heinz's house by hammering out a few thousand calories on stationary bikes. What else could we have been doing? We're triathletes!

On a closing note have a wunderbar winter break and we'll see you in January to start it all over again!