August was a busy month with the K2O paddle race followed by an extremely hard 3 days of trail running racing at xc de la vallee. We luckily had the chance to escape to Mexico where we were able to relax for 4 days before racing again. After taking a whole week off it was time to get back into training but I just started a new job with AgriCan working on my feet all days lifting bags full of grains. So except from my 1h15 of commuting a day I had been able to do nothing but work.
On Friday just before racing I had been asked to do some overtime. Let say that I was fried before getting to the start line. Saturday morning I was feeling relatively ok but had heavy legs.
The Raid Pulse started in La Peche near Wakefield on the bike. From the start on James and Adam Malory left ahead and I tried to hang out with the next pack behind them. I manage to do pretty well on the first bike and did a quick transition on foot. I put on my altra shoes and I was gone. I don't know why but I always end up with the same duo male in the trek in raid pulse races. And once again I got to hang out with those guys. We ended up doing the whole trek together. First time that a raid pulse trek goes super well for me without me getting lost for an hour or so. I was very happy and left the guys while running to the TA to get on the bike. I did a super quick transition and I was gone...or actually I thought I was gone but realized my back tire was totally flat. This was a brand new tire tubeless and it was flat :(. After struggling to get the tire off I had to ask Tanya's help to put it back on with the tube. I am usually petty fast at changing flats but I could not get this tire back on. After lots of effort from both of us it was on and I was pumping as fast as I could. I was ready to go, turned around, put my helmet on and realized the tube went flat!!! That was it, I was out!!! Tanya convinced me to pump it up to the max that maybe it would work. So I did and it seemed to work. We heard the tire popping which meant it was getting back in place...so I thought. I jumped on the bike to do the 6km to the next transition and after 4,5km saw my back tire becoming flatter and flatter. I ran the last km or so to the transition. I saw the RD Thierry, explained the situation real quick and jumped on the kayak. I had missed the cutoff to make the advanced CP on the kayak at that point (which added about 2km all up of paddling). I went around, struggle a little with the under water CPs but found them thanks to other people, and got back to transition. Thierry had taken his MTB off his car and asked me if i wanted to ride it to finish the race. Thanks to him I was able to go get the last advanced CP and get to the finish a few kms further.
This could have been a very good race but ended up being challenging because of the bike. The course was great with just enough optional CPs to get everybody on the course for the full 4h. There was also a pretty cool part in the caves.
I still managed to come 5th in the solo category (1st female and in front of female teams and mixed teams too) and 7th overall.
Now it was time to go back home and fix the bike for the CATARAQUI Adventure Trek the very next day in Kingston.
We ran into MEC that was about to close and managed to get a brand new tubeless kit which ended up not working. Not sure whats going on with the valve but it doesn't work. James managed to put a tube in which seemed to not deflate (for once) so we would see the next day how it would hold up.
We drove to the race early with a very nice sunrise.
The race was more of an off road triathlon composed by a 2.1km trail run, a 800m paddle and 6.2km bike course. The aim was to do as many laps as possible within 4h. Any lap started but not finished within the 4h would not count.
We could both feel the fatigue from the day before but our 2XU shorts and socks helped a lot forgetting that. I had decided to try and do the entire race in my pearl izumi bike shoes since it was a bike heavy race and there was only 2km or so of running but it was foggy and humid and the cleats were making me slip a lot.
The start was a Le Mans start on foot. We had to go and pick up 3 items in 3 different corners of a field then get into the course. Some people didn't listen just before the start that going over or under the fence was not allowed and many people ended up cutting up time by doing so. But most important for me I didn't know now how many girls were ahead. I knew that one girl was just ahead of me and she was the only one who had gone around but I saw a few pony tails entering the run course ahead of me. I decided to run hard the first lap to try to be in a good position. By the end of the run I had caught up all but two girls and after the paddle I only had one ahead that I passed as we were starting the bike section. The bike section was mainly twisty single tracks that would lead up to an open field that was hard to ride on then back to single tracks to the end of the loop.
By the second lap my running wasn't as fast. My paddling was strong and my biking was good in the field and ok in the single tracks. On that second loop I had a bit too much confidence and before I knew it I flew off my bike and landed on a tree. My shoulder was screaming in pain but nothing was broken so I kept on going. For the 5 laps I did I was surrounded by the same two guys who kept on passing me on the run and in the technical MTBiking but I would catch up paddling and in the field section. Phil from Strongbars saved me after lap 3 giving me a banana. It was hot and only fruits and water were going down. It gave me a boost for my 4th lap and the competitiveness in me made me start to accelerate. By the end of the run of the 5th lap I still had one of the guy I was racing against the whole race just ahead of me and we started the bike at the same time. He said "catch me" so I tried to hammer that last lap and managed to catch up to him in the field and put the hammer down to the finish line finishing a few minutes ahead of him. I was happy :). The last two laps were very hard physically as my week and week end were starting to get in my legs. I finished the race with 5 laps in 3h37. James did 6 laps in 3h40. He won the race and I won the women by one lap over second place. I also placed 8th overall (in the men) which included some relay teams too.
Very nice race..we will be back :)
Nat
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