The Wonders of Euclid

The Wonders of Euclid
Shawnigan Lake Half Ironman
2008.05.25 - Shawnigan Lake, BC, Canada

One of the rules that forms the foundation of Euclidian geometry is "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line." In the case of racing, there is a modern corollary which is "the shortest distance from start to finish is on the course." Now, before everyone does a gasp and shakes their head in disbelief, I did stay on course, for the third time in three races this season, and again it proved to be a much more successful race strategy than that which I employed during several races last season.

The race itself took place on a course that Coach Joel sends out to ride quite often - the 22km loop around Shawnigan Lake, which sits down in the Cowichan Valley, northwest of Victoria (mostly west). It's really a beautiful area, one that I forgot to take pictures of. So just imagine a typical lush forest surrounding a lake in the Pacific Northwest, and you've got the idea.

I felt quite fast and strong during the swim, but unfortunately, the clock revealed that perception really is quite fallible, since what I thought was a pretty good swim turned out to be rather slow. I'll just tell myself the course was a bit long (despite the fact that the lead swimmers went fast enough to show that it really wasn't). I have ordered Joel to make me a faster swimmer, so let's hope he listens. If I start coming out on the swim closer to the front, you'll know that he did.

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