Sometimes, no matter how much you make well-laid plans and train hard, you can get derailed by a simple cold or just having a bad day on race day. It happens to everyone. Nothing to do about it but get what you can out of it, and head toward the next goal. Way to tough it out Lukas - we are proud of you! -A
ITU Canada
This race ranks up there with some of the worst pain I have felt in a race…not only physically but emotionally. I just thank God that this is the worst of my problems and that I am healthy and have the chance to move ahead with this sport..I’m pumped and hungry about that.
Its hard to compete at your full potential when the week before your focus race you were sick for 7 days. When I first got sick I knew the show was over, but I had been thinking about this race all winter and wanted it so bad that I talked myself out of the reality of the situation. The race was last Sunday and my first day of feeling normal was Friday. I told myself that maybe the rest did me good, but you’re not resting when your body is battling sickness. The race itself brought me back to reality real quick, here is a breakdown of what happened.
The horn went off and we dove off the pontoon in typical ITU fashion. Surprisingly everyone seemed to hold their line pretty good, we were able to swim right off the bat instead of beating each other for the first 5 minutes. After the first 300meters we swam into a pyramid formation. I nestled in mid pyramid and pretty much stayed there through the duration of the swim. The swim was a 1000m lap then climb out onto the pontoon and then dive back in for a smaller 500m lap. It’s a sweet atmosphere when you are climbing out after that first lap, you have the announcer shouting all the action out and the crowd cheering, it pumps you up as you dive back in. After the final lap of the swim heading into T1 I was actually in good position with plenty of boys around me to form a fast pack. My transition went smoothly and was looking forward to the bike. I did notice I was a little more tired than I should be at that point. The unnatural fatigue began to grow as I began to sprint with the guys around me. I began to feel weak and my race began to slip away from me right before my eyes. The pack that was forming dropped me, I made a weak effort to reconnect, but just began to fade all the more. I told myself to calm down there was another nice pack forming right behind me and all I need to do was latch on. I hooked in before the first 180 degree turn, but then got dropped around the turn. I thought to myself this sucks. I remembered the last time I was here and how easy it felt riding with these guys, I began to just get angry at the stupid sickness, I was just getting really frustrated. I knew there was one small pack left to latch onto to stay alive otherwise my chances of getting lapped out would grow big time. I slowed up caught my breath and got ready to give everything I had to latch on. As they got closer I got out of the saddle and gave whatever I had…I made it, I hooked on. We worked together nicely and made it through the 6 laps of the bike. Though I had people to work with my fatigue just grew stronger every lap and when I reached T2 I was totally wasted. I sucked down a gu and hoped it could invigorate me for the run. The gu worked! But it only worked for about 5 minutes. The rest was just a matter of survival as I ran the 10k about 6-7minutes off my previous best 10k split. I made it to the finish about 13 minutes off of last year’s pace. In a pro race that kind off performance will set you back a bit, that’s what I get for not accepting the reality of being sick, whoever reads this I hope you can learn from my mistakes and be all the wiser in your athletic endevours. As always wishing you all the best!
P.S. A big thank you to one of my cycling role models, Rob Scott for taking time out of his own schedule to help me prep my bike for racing.
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