Toronto Island - Tri Triathalon

It was a great day!
I didn't feel that way at 5 am when the alarm went off. Stumbling around Christine's place, in the dark, getting into a bathing suit, making breakfast because we have to have fuel. Buying a large Timmies (because I have to have fuel). Driving to Queens Quay, in the dark, and paying $30 to park. But I started to get excited as we took the 4 bikes off the rack and saw others doing the same and everyone making their way to the red tent beside the ferry terminal. We had been down on Friday evening and picked up our registration kits (bibs, swim hats, safety pins and some other loot) so all we had to do on Saturday morning was get our numbers marked on our arms, and our ages on our calves.
The sun was coming up as we waited for the ferry. There were extra ones to carry the race participants.

Showing our age painted calves, while waiting for the ferry.

When we registered we had to tell them any medications we were on, Chris
was not too impressed that on the bottom section of her bib it said: "anti
depressants, ADD, birth control"

I love taking the ferry to Toronto Island. The skyline of Toronto looks impressive and I
am amazed at the number of condos under construction

Upon arriving we biked to Hanlon Point beach area and racked our bikes. There was a large area fenced off with metal racks for the bikes. We chose a rack based on our bib numbers, put the seat of the bike up on the rack and next to it established a small space for the transition materials. For me this was a small folding stool to sit on (others in my area, all of us in the over 50 group, thought this a great idea), a towel to dry off, socks, running shoes, capris and a shirt (with the bib attached) and my helmet.
I then joined the others in walking to the beach where we got our timing chips and attached them to our ankles. Jason was in the first "wave" to start, men 25 to 35. The announcer described the route and the rules and then off they went. The course was marked by pale green tetrahedrons, we started standing in the water between 2 of them. There were life guards in boats and on paddle boards in case we got in trouble. A few people were pulled from the water during the course of the first couple of waves.
Jason had a great swim and we were all able to shout encouragement as he emerged from the water and started to run towards the transition zone.

Christine, Teri and Kendra were 2 waves after (women 25 to 35 and men 35 to 45). They all had good swims, staying in the middle of the group. I was in the last wave (women 50 plus and men 60 plus). I was able to front crawl about 40% of the time and the rest of the time did breast stroke. This group had a lot of breast strokers and some back stroke, whatever it took to get around. The water was crystal clear, calm and quite cold (in fact the previous day the organizers had announced that wetsuits were optional, but not mandatory).
So the race consisted of

• 400 metre swim (out to a tetrahedron, a stretch parallel to the beach to another tetrahedron and back to the beach.
• a run across the beach and along a broadwalk to the transition zone, to put on pants, shirt, socks, running shoes, helmet, and outside the zone mount the bike.
• 10km bike ride (nice and flat with some lovely views of the harbour and Toronto skyline - Oh was I supposed to be looking at that or concentrating on biking - oops).
• dismount and back into the transition zone and re-rack the bike.
• run 2.5km

Ready to start out on the biking portion

Afterwards there were burgers, fruit and chocolate milk (a sponsor), door prizes and awards to the winners.

Christine, Jason, myself, Kendra and Teri. We all successfully completed and said we would do it again next year. It was great fun. Thanks to out support staff - George, who took pictures, held bags and shouted encouragement.
My results ('cause next year I want to do better)
Swim - 14:39, Transition 1 - 3:59, Bike - 28:07, Transition 2 - .54, Run - 22:31 About 1 hour 10 minutes in total.
5th out of 6 in my age/gender group
248th out of 267 in total.