Getting Firsts at Cultus

Last week two of our Triathletes went out to compete in the Cultus Lake Triathlon. We all drove out early at 5am from Vancouver in the morning to make it there on time for package pickup and bike drop off.
It was pouring rain on the way to Cultus Lake. The lake area was dry in early in the morning but looked like the storm clouds were going to catch up to us.
Our cheer squad consisting of 3 members set up flags for our nutrition sponsor F2C, who were serving recovery drinks at the finish line.

Open water swim seemed cold, with only three or four people in each race distance doing the race in just a tri suit or swim suit. Being a lake, there was potential for the water to be a wide range of temperatures, but participants later confirmed that it was relatively warm.
The drizzle turned into a constant rain, which was less than ideal for our club cheer team, as our jackets began to soak through. This would later become a downpour during the medal ceremony. The weather ensured that our racing athletes would stay soaked through the whole race.
Before this race, no one on our team add ever heard of strippers at a triathlon. Yes, there were strippers, for your wetsuit. Pretty nifty idea. All you had to do was bring your wetsuit just below your waist and sit down on the floor. A wetsuit stripper would yank the suit right off your feet and you were good to go. It’d be pretty cool to see at other races.
Cultus Lake’s naturally flat roads are a relief for those triathletes who have a disdain for hills. The catch is, you’re biking in mixed traffic.
Our athletes were really hauling it to get through the run, being careful about the uneven sand and gravel which could cost you a win.
The end result was a gender category 1^st out of 123 athletes in the sprint by Jimena Salinas with a time of 1:18:56, qualifying her for Worlds.
Pam Villavicencio got a gender-age category 1^st in the standard, and an overall gender category 5^th with a time of 2:37:09, also grabbing a qualifying spot for Worlds.

This happily concludes the triathlon season for 2018. For more races, we’ll see you in a few months!