Penticton Super League, 2018

The signs were ominous as I left Seattle for the drive to Penticton for the inaugural North American “Super League” racing: the visibility due to smoke from forest fires was really restricted. Even with no fires in Western Washington, the air was thick. And this continued all the way to Penticton.

The race schedule was set up like this:

Friday: 15KM bike time trial

Saturday: swim/run/swim/bike/run, all at short distances, multiple laps (except swim), draft-legal riding.

Sunday: swim/bike/run/swim/bike/run, essentially 2 sprint tris back-to-back, totaling to an Olympic distance race, and draft-legal riding.

Sounded like lots of fun, something new, no wetsuit swimming (a challenge for me!), and a chance to return to Penticton, a place that I really love. Managing all those transitions was a challenge I was ready to take on. And, finally, it wasn’t just pros like other Super League races. The race was fully opened to amateurs.

The Friday bike time trial was held at a newly built car-race track about 40KM south of Penticton, near Oliver. I got there early enough to ride a practice lap (5KM) and it was unbelievable: absolutely smooth asphalt, big wide road, and NO CARS. A couple of short, steepish climbs and one really tight turn, with some downhill straight-aways followed by a quick turn and some uphill. Fast, fast, fast on the straight-aways and downhills and steep enough to gear down and stand for the hills. Great fun.

We were started at 20-second intervals, based on race number. Being the next-to-oldest guy in the race I was the second to last man to start. If you do the math you can see that it takes a while to get 150 or so riders going at 20 seconds apiece. The only saving grace was that as the evening progressed the air temperature dropped from insufferable to pleasant. I didn’t think that I’d be quite so excited, but my heart rate went way up as I pulled up to the line and heard the final beep-beep-beep-beep-braaan of the start clock.

I loved it.

I loved the chance to go as fast as I could and maintain that balance of being able to finish strong. My finish average speed was almost 37 KM/hr, very good for me and a solid AG first. This time would be added to our time for the Saturday race for placement in the ‘Equalizer’ phase.

Saturday morning the race officials announced that all the multi-lap portions of the race were to be shortened to a single lap due to concerns about air quality. Now the race was a ‘super sprint’ with an extra swim leg thrown in! Swim 1 start was supposed to be a rolling start, based on our finish position from Stage 1, but you know triathletes: eager to go, so there was just a herd-like rush to get into the water, men first then women. I had the honor of being the last man to step into the water.

Here you can see how the air changed over the weekend. The beach picture is on Thursday with sun and a weird, orangish light. By Saturday, the smoke is thicker and the sunlight much reduced (picture taken at mid-day).

My poor swimming really came to the fore as I headed out on the first run with streams of runners coming back. On the way back to T2 I could hear Steve King announce that the first competitors were out of the water on their second swim and out onto the bike course. You can’t imagine how weird it feels to change back to swimming after running hard. Even though I’d been practicing this summer, practice never seems to match race conditions.

Anyway, through the swim and out onto the bike. Just a few hundred meters into the race, we were faced with a stairstep hill on the road towards Naramata. I managed to pick up a few places up to the turn-around when I was able to get on the wheel of another rider (draft legal, you know!) and get a pull to the top of the final downhill to T4.

Put my wet running shoes back on and headed out on the final run leg. It felt good. I never pushed too hard because I’ve been nursing a gimpy hamstring all summer and I don’t want to re-tweak it. Just down Lakeshore drive to the Sicamous, turn and run back (1.6KM in all). I was flooded with memories of the many, many Ironman finishes I’ve had in Penticton ‘running’ down this same stretch of road. This was very different as I was really running.

Final finish time was just a couple minutes over an hour. I was astounded when I looked at my watch because it felt like I’d been out for much longer. I guess that’s what happens when you’re focused on the moment.

Then the air gods breathed foul. The pro races scheduled for the afternoon were cancelled due to poor air quality and I woke up this morning to find out that all of today’s races are cancelled. Boo hoo. I really was looking forward to trying it out. But, my lungs are precious, so I thank the officials for their good sense.

Anyone out there who gets a chance to try this out, DO SO. It’ll be like breathing new life into multi-sport for you.