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!

New Name on Trophy

The racers were all set to go. Stoked to the limit and ready to race. Everyone was so excited they looked like animals!

The race was on.

Unfortunately, before even starting the race, Winston was tricked by Nathaniel. Winston’s aero-awesome bike had been replaced by a recumbent cycle. 5 minutes into the race – Winston realized the bike really “wasn’t going anywhere” even though the monitor read that he had gone 10km. Winston then jumped into action on his real bike to catch up with Nathaniel and others.

An unknown racer from the so-called “Island” had shown up and was seen taunting Seth Bluman down Marine Drive on the bike. Here’s a quick video to set the scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs . Replace the king with Seth and the annoying guard, with Kevin, and you have a clear picture of what was going on. Kevin crossed the line (literally) when he said Seth’s bike was a girl's bike. Luckily Theresa, a proud owner of the same bike was there to clarify that Seth’s bike was girly but clearly unisex. Theresa then went into hyper-speed passing Seth and Kevin. Seth’s anger and frustration had built up from all this taunting and bullying. An eye-witness account by Brendan Naef, who was on the scene to report: "Seth Bluman got angry for the first time ever. It was scary but somewhat relieving - He even started biting my bike!" Here’s an amateur artists take on the scene:

Unfortunately the anger of losing didn’t help Seth to transition because as he got angrier and stronger his bike “smashed” beneath his weight. Chris Hart,on the bike,was spotted being attacked by a bear that had leapt out from the Endowment Lands on the corner of 16th and Southwest Marine Drive. Chris came out of the battle alive, ate 5 gels, the bear, and proceeded to finish the race. His only regret was that the bear ate his post-race ham and cheese sandwich and left marks on his beautiful bike. Meanwhile, back in transition! Reaching the transition, Brendan stated, “I raced the whole bike part without looking behind me but feeling this heavy breath on the back of my neck” – turns out Vince had assembled some sort of bat-mobile contraption so they would be forced to race almost hand-in-hand until reaching the run. Another amateur artist was on the scene to illustrate this for us:

(Left: A less cool-looking version of Vince, Right: Brendan with an extremely deep voice) – The Amateur artist was applauded for his accurate use of spandex costumes to portray the racers. One racer didn’t even think it was worth it to do this whole “transition” thing so he didn’t change shoes or anything - he picked up his bike and started running. Supposedly Winston was spotted closing in on this bike-carrying, warrior-like man machine as they ascended the final hill. The bike carrying man, Sherwood, attempted to draft but then realized he needed to be on the bike to do so. The prize money won't quite allow him to afford a new pair of shoes but he did figure it was a great workout with the 2013 cyclo-cross season being just 11 months away.

Sherry, Theresa and Lyndsey all raced side by side for the run portion until reaching the HILL when things got serious… It was reported Sherry and Theresa started talking about the new marshmallow golden chocolate banana health waffles they had planned to post about for the next nutrition blog post…

Unfortunately this seemingly innocent conversation was done in order to DISTRACT LINDSEY… You see, Sherry and Theresa had made Lindsey so intrigued by the recipe she had to go run to Save-on, pick up the scrumptious ingredients, and then cook theses waffles… Luckily, Lyndsey returned and by sprinting managed to catch up with Sherry and Theresa. All 3 ladies ended up crossing the finish line with similar times.

Coming up to the finish line there was a much more important competition than the brick…. A battle of BEST SMILES! Who won? – You be the judge: Featuring: Seth, Ryan, and Katrina

The winners were: Males: Brendan finished with a time of 19:57 followed by Vince A FULL 2 seconds behind. How embarrassing. The men’s close race apparently came down to aerodynamics. The full spandex as noted earlier, was definitely necessary for this epic race. Females: Victoria with a time of 22:06 and Tiffany up second with at time of 24:19 These girls are now being accused of using the Clif bars in the club office as performance enhancing drugs. If the case is upheld, Elise will be up next to be awarded with the win. A special congratulations goes out to Sherwood for being the first club member to complete the Brick in bike shoes and with a bike over his shoulder for the whole run… you will be astonished to hear he finished with a time of 22:46 – a hard record for any future member to tri(Get it - Ha – it’s a Pun!) and beat. Thanks for coming out. Get excited for the Beer Mile on Friday.

It must be acknowledged that 99% of this blog post’s content came from a guest contributor. The guest contributor may or may not have been criticized for not living up to the title of “most improved swimmer” in a previous blog post. Taking matters into his own hands, written things entirely himself (or herself) ensures that he or she is portrayed in only the best light. Minor grammatical corrections were made. "Triathlon" was spelled with four "R's" and "Marine Drive" was spelled without using any vowels before the first round of editing was complete. Also, the words "there, their and theyur were used interchangeably. Such horrendous spelling made Kevin shiver.

As for the new names on the trophy; in 6 or 8 months when somebody finally drags the Vincent Lavallee Cup to an engraving shop in North Vancouver, expect an immediate blog update as to who the winners were. Hint: Vince's name is already there (though not on the champions list) and it is not being added again.