Well that was fun! On Saturday we held a LOST Race in the Quarry!
In fact, I wasn’t even really involved in the organizing of it… which was awesome! Let me tell you, it’s a lot more fun and easier to participate than it is to organize! So with that, I have to thank Barrie Shepley, Miguel Vadillo and C3!!! (Canadian Cross-training Club).
For those of you who don’t know Barrie Shepley, he is pretty much the most credible, accomplished and well established person in triathlon in Canada!!! He runs his own personal coaching (http://www.personalbest.ca/) and coaches the elite group at C3 in Mississauga (http://www.c3online.ca/index.shtml )… here is a little bio I got off his coaching website, :
“Personal Best President and co-founder Barrie Shepley has been Canada’s National Triathlon Team coach since 1991 (the year that the company was formed). In that time Barrie has coached over 500 people to national championship titles, Pan American Games medals, World Championship medals as well as successful completion of the Hawaii Ironman and the Boston Marathon. Barrie was selected to go to the 2000 Sydney Olympics where Triathlon made its debut as a full medal sport. Canada’s Simon Whitfield won the gold medal in the men’s event, a performance no one will ever forget.”
Anyway, this particular race was our first “joint-venture” with C3… kind of like the race we do with the tri club on the other side of us, TCOB and the annual Pier to Pier race we do with them! Nice to have a couple of great tri clubs on either side of us!
Interestingly, Barrie and Miguel know each other because Barrie was key in helping Miguel with his Lake O Crossing 3 years ago, which is when I first met Barrie too! Anyway, triathlon and open water swimming is a pretty small world in southern Ontario… and it’s pretty cool that we all seem to work together and there are such good people involved… a nice culture and community.
And as an fyi… I’m bringing Miguel more into LOST to A) take a bit of the load off me, much like I did this year by introducing our great LOST Board… and B) because he will not only be able to help with the existing LOST swims, LOST Race and the running of LOST, but we are planning on bringing in a few new things like this swim into the fold! So expect to see more of Miguel and watch for more new swim things to come!!!
Back to the race. After getting lost on my way to the Quarry… yes, I know it was supposed to be “LOST in the Quarry”, not “LOST on the way to the Quarry”… but I just couldn’t resist the double entendre… but I finally made it anyway (after getting an email from Claudia who got lost too… a true LOSTie!)
(fyi… it is about an hour drive from Oakville to Caledon… a bit longer if you blow right through Caledon and don’t admit you are lost until you get to Orangeville!… but the Quarry is about 100m south of Caledon on the east side… by a large fleet of cement trucks! Easy to find after you’ve been there once… and good to car pool to!)
I got there to find about 30 swimmers ready to go… about half LOSTies and half C3.
I had to laugh though… we LOSTies are pretty tough… even in the world of triathlon. I got there and heard Barrie saying on the PA system that the water was 13C… very cold! First of all, every LOSTie knows only my “special” LOST thermometer gives the “proper” LOST temperature. It was 62F… which is 16C. Mmmm… toasty.
But I was even a bit worried that it really might be cold. The overcast and chilly air temp didn’t help any either mind you. The air temp was only about 15C. Everyone, even most of the LOSTies were getting a bit psyched out. But once we all got in the water… it was fine. Definitely 62F. No problem. Really.
The Quarry was pretty cool. C3 has a pretty sweet set up there. They have a group of buoys set up all summer… and more importantly… the water was great. Crystal clear and flat. It’s not quite a scenic as where we swim in Lake O… but the water is fed by a spring and great all summer long! I’d take it over Gulliver’s or Kelso any day! Apparently they had over 1000 organized swims there this summer!
So off we went. I decided to try and draft off of Lisa (fresh off her O Till O conquest!)… Tara Norton (former pro Ironman!)… and Natalie (former varsity swim star!)… much like I tried to draft off of the same three girls at Steve’s Toronto Island Lake Swim. Similar result too… they dropped me after one lap (which is about 1km). I felt pretty good, but gradually had the privelage of being passed by the very unassumingly fast, veteran open water swimmer, Gary Lebine… and then by the 20 year pro triathlete Beth Primrose! Interestingly, it was the first 4k race Beth had ever done… she was an Olympic Distance pro! Long and short of it was I ended up with a pleasant 1:02, 4k swim. Given my training, or lack thereof… I’ll take it.
More importantly, it was good fun and great to meet a whole new group of swimmers at C3… and find a nice, new swimmin’ hole!
Thanks Barrie, Miguel and C3!!! Looking forward to doing more with you guys next year too!
Cheers,
Rob
PS. thanks for the pics Daniel!