OBB has been supporting Triathlon Code, a triathlon development team, for a few years now and we’re super excited for Matt riding his first ever World Cup this year. He sent over this race report:
I recently returned from my first ever World Cup level Triathlon, which took place in the small resort town of Huatulco, Mexico. Located in the South of Mexico I knew going in it was going to be a scorcher, so for the two weeks leading up to the race I set up my downstairs bathroom as an impromptu heat chamber. After a number of sessions in 35 degrees I was starting to feel a bit more comfortable in the heat and gained more confidence leading into the race.
I arrived six days before the race to leave enough time to become acclimatized to the temperature, but it still wasn’t enough! Eventually you just give up trying to stay cool and just embrace the heat and stickiness that comes with 35-40 degree temperatures and 100% humidity. Overall though, in the lead up to the race I started feeling sharper and confident knowing I had done as much as I could to succeed in the tough conditions.
I jumped into the water at 10:45AM with 60 other guys, all looking to have a good position to the first swim turn. After the first loop which involved a cap removal and goggle disintegration (took an elbow to the left eye and the goggles just collapsed like they were made from sand) I found myself about 20M back from the front pack. I turned it on for the next 200m and caught on to the back end of the main pack.
Going into the race the bike was a big worry of mine, I had never raced this calibre of athletes before and with the tough conditions of the hills, heat and humidity I thought I could potentially wind up in a “reverse breakaway” position. Much to my surprise I was quite comfortable in the pack and even managed to lead the group up the hill (which was about 400m and 24%!). Although I was feeling quite hot on the last couple of laps I was pretty stoked to stay in the whole time.
After the ecstasy of the ride, the agony of the run set in. The heat started to get to me and my legs were pretty fried, thankfully they had plenty of water/ice on each loop to keep us cool. I was able to come back a bit on the second 5k but it still wasn’t anything special.
I finished up my first World Cup in 34th place, mostly happy that I was able to finish at all.
My next scheduled race is the Edmonton World Cup on July 8th. In the meantime I will be putting in a solid block of training to build into the summer which will include some criterium racing over at Newton Heights and Caleb Pike, and with the nice weather upon us it is definitely easy to get excited for the next phase.
Cheers,
Matt
Congrats Matt, good luck in Edmonton and we’ll see you at Newton & Caleb Pike!
