Edmonton World Cup

Leeches are hematophagous creatures that feed on the blood of invertebrate and vertebrate animals. To feed on their "hosts", leeches initiate contact with their anterior suckers and then use a combination of mucus and suction to stay connected and snack on your blood. After going for a nice little dip in Hawrelak Park in Edmonton the day before my first World Cup of 2012 and observing a bazillion leeches swimming happily in the little lake, I dreamt of the start of the race...the horn blasts and the athletes jump into the water...there is chaos as everyone struggles to establish their position as the water churns and all you can see is a furious flash of arms and legs...and then someone stops suddenly and begins yelling...they are slowly being pulled down under the surface...as they disappear the crowd catches the smallest glimpse of a dark grey creature...the MOTHER OF ALL LEECHES!

The Mother of All Leeches

Thankfully, the Mother of All Leeches decided to behave on the day of the World Cup and there were no unfortunate victims. I did, however, flash all of the possibilities through my mind; leach in my suit, leech in between my toes, leech in my hair, leech in my ear, swallowing leeches. Needless to say, it was great incentive to get out of the water as fast as possible. 
Edmonton was a sprint World Cup - sprints are becoming increasingly popular on the world cup circuit as they make for fast and spectator friendly racing. A sprint has a swim of 750m, a bike of 20km, and a run of 5km. I participated in sprints all last year as I was in the "Junior Elite" category. This being my first year of U23, I thought that I would be participating solely in Olympic distance tri's (twice the distance) but I have already done a couple of sprints this year. 

Ready...

Set...

GO!!!

The race was in the afternoon, and after a morning of relaxing and taking in some of the Junior PATCO races, I headed down to the race site and completed my warm up. Before I knew it, I was on the starting pontoon, lining up, and waiting for the gun. I had a relatively good starting position and got off the pontoon (after jumping over the wall of leeches that wriggled in anticipation in the shallow water) and started towards the first buoy. The packs immediately split and I was caught in the middle and decided to go with the pack that had the more direct line to the buoy. In hindsight, I probably would have been better off veering to the other side, as that pack was much smaller and contained some fast swimmers. After about 100m I found myself caught up with another athlete, who I later discovered was my good friend Manon Letourneau. We kept running into each other and I was getting quite frustrated, as I would move over and she would follow me and it was almost as if we were tied together. I had no idea that she was also battling with someone on the other side of her, so as I moved over to giver her space, she moved closer to me in attempt to disentangle herself from the girl on her right. I knew that I was going to have to have a stellar swim if I wanted to even be in contention, but my swim ended up being very sub par and I was well back from where I wanted to be. I exited the water and booked it to transition. 

On the bike I was in a small pack with Manon and Chantell Widney and we caught up to the lead group after 5km. Flora Duffy from Bermuda was out front, soloing the ride, and we managed to reel her in on the third lap. My super speedy team mate, Dominika Jamnicky, and I managed to grab a bike prime on the third lap and I was feeling quite good and excited to run. 
When I got onto the run I knew right away that something wasn't quite right. My legs were not responding the way I would have liked. I held a good position up the hill but then got dropped on the way down and started to cramp and feel quite nauseous. On the two loop run, I made my way back up again on the hill, only to be dropped again and plod along to the finish. 
I returned home and did a couple of easier weeks of training in preparation for the Magog Continental Cup and U23 Nationals that was two weeks later. 
I have to say a huge congrats to my travel buddy and training partner Alexander Hinton and Coach Craig Taylor. Zander had an absolutely astounding race, placing second in his first World Cup, and made everyone extremely proud. More great things to come.