Friday, June 13, 2008

Finally Home

There has been a lot of commotion post worlds and things have been a little hectic, but the main reason i have not done a race report yet is that i have gotten lazy. So worlds did not go as i had hoped. I was probably in the best shape of my life going into the race and i had the potential to get a top 10 result if everything went to plan, but that never happens.

I was surprisingly calm going into race morning, I woke up, shaved down, ate and made my final race preparations. We drove down to the race site and watched the end of the Junior Womens race. It looked like it didn't go to bad, it wasnt as good for the canadians as last year, but they still put in some solid results.

My warm up went on uneventful. I felt alright during the run, and pretty good in the swim. I would have liked to do a longer swim warmup, but the water temp was pretty cold and i didnt want to stay in there for a long time. So i was number 48 going in, so i was right in the thick of things. The way the swim was set up was a huge atvantage for the lower ranked athletes because to first bouy was on the far right, and everyone off to the left had to swim all the way over. I also noticed that the swim looked incredible long, which could play out to my favour if i had a good swim.

It was now time to go onto the start line, and i was much less nervous than i was last year. I know that i have a really good beach start due to my long legs and good start speed. The gun went off and i ran in. I didnt have as good as a start as i would have liked, but after the first minute i was swimming clear of the field around me. I ot to the first bouy where i felt like i was in a good position, but in the act of swimming my way to the right, i was met be a pack, and it was an all out brawl around the bouys. I remember swimming beside number two, but somewhere along the line of swimming back in i went off course and lost their feet. As soon as i started to head back in, i headed straight for home, without realizing that there was another bouy. I ended up doing an almost 90 degree turn to make to bouy, which caused me to be father back out of the water. So i missed lead pack by 15 seconds.

I tried to bridge up on the bike, but the two guys with me did absolutely nothing to help. I rode the first 2.5 km pulling them before the chase pack caught me and the two wheel suckers. The bike was uneventfull, we lost a lot of time on the leaders during the first lap, but not much after that. I did get incredible cold during the bike. My hands got so cold that i could even shift gears. I could shift up easy becasue i could use most of my fingers, but when i wanted to shift down, I had to use my thumb, even though it had no feeling.

T2 came with bad results. I couldn't ge my helmet off for the longest time. Luckely my strap streched in the rain so I was able to slip it over my chin. I started to run but had absolutely no bounce in my legs, i couldnt even feel my legs. I was so . I was so cold i was shaking for the entire run. No matter how hard i tried to pck the pace up, I just couldn't. My body was so cold that I just wanted the race to be over a quick as possible so I cold get warm. I had some stomach problem again, so I will have to find the source of the problem before my next race.

Once the race ended i went straight into the medical tent there I got all of my went cloths off and had 5 blankets wrapped around me. They gave me some warm watered down gatorade, but I was shaking so much that they had to feed it to me. i couldn't even dress myself. I had to get someone else to do it for me becaus ei was so cold.

This Worlds was a experience that I will not forget. I have learned from my mistakes, and now I know that I cant just man through it, but I have to take to precautions of protecting myself with warm clothing so that my body just doesn't shut down.

Next year worlds are in Australia, so the two aspects that have impeded my performance at the last two worlds will not be there, a wetsuit, and cold weather.

So until later,

CH

6 comments:

Lindsay Acheson said...

Hey Connor,
Glad to hear your home and enjoying it. Have you been accepted to University yet?
Lindsay

Connor Hammond said...

I was accepted but not to the university that i wanted too, so i am victory lapping to get my grades up.

Lindsay Acheson said...

Well, good luck. Will you apply next year or for sem 2

Anonymous said...
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Connor Hammond said...

You have absolutely no right to say that. You don't even have the balls to write you name down so everyone can see what kind of jackass you are, trash talking a 17 year old who put everything he had into this race, but in 11 degree water, 10 degree air and pissing rain, his body goes completely numb and doesnt function. Just saying something like that means you will never acomplish anything by shit talking people when you are too afraid to put yourself out there and take a risk trying to make yourself into something. Have fun amounting into nothing.

len gushe said...

Hey Connor,
what an anonymous ass eh?
Or is that G for Gutless?
It sure isn't Paul or Simon or Kyle or Colin out west who trained with you for the 6 weeks prior to worlds, they and the rest of us can't wait to see what you can do when you're not frankly hypothermic.
the only kind of guys who write crap like this are guys who hate looking in the mirror to see the pitiful lack of strength and courage that is, and has been, looking back at them all their life...
we'll see if he's got any guts at all to change (ie. name, address, invitation to meet.....to get his head kicked in). I highly doubt it though...once gutless, always gutless....

keep up the good hard work, the future is bright, and a couple of unfortunate races doesn't diminish the 50 good ones that you've had. you're going to be a great triathlete, the rest of us know it!