Let’s make it clear from the beginning; my little brother Francis beat me last Sunday in his first triathlon.
In January while being home for his university co-op, Francis asked me to coach him for his first triathlon. He is already a great mountain biker and a natural runner so his challenge would be the swim and the transitions. He decided to do the full distance at “mine over matter” since it fit his skills and he wouldn’t have to fight as many people in the water. Another thing you need to know is that everything my brothers tries, he will succeed in a few tries. So every Tuesday and Thursday we would go for the 5:30am swim and Tuesday night would be our brick workout and our dad would join us for a long spin on Saturday mornings. When the month of May came and Francis was going back to school, I knew I would have to work hard if I wanted to beat him (that is what big brothers do, right?).
But things didn’t go as planned, and my wife and I not only bought a house, but also managed to move the weekend before the race. While I was packing, painting and moving Francis had his feet up studying. The day before the race we went to Kelso to try the wetsuit Francis rented and I got a bit nervous because he seemed fast and I knew the swim was the only place I could get a good gap on him.
On race day we got ready and when the horn went on everything was going good but I went a little bit too wide and covered more distance then I should have. At about 300m mark I saw Francis floating on his back I first started to worry a bit, but then I realized that this could be my perfect chance to get ahead of him. So I continued swimming, there were lifeguards after all. I got into transition after an okay swim to my standards just to discover that my little brother was already out on the bike course. My bike went good considering how muddy it was, I wish I switched my tires to my mud ones but it was too late at that point. I was able to pass many people on the bike especially while climbing the Glen Eden hill twice.
I got into t2 where my brother’s bike was over all my stuff so I thought about making a formal complaint considering that one of the officials was looking at me the whole time. On the other hand, it was not such a great idea since he was my ride home. The run was even muddier than the bike and quite slippery. Many racers including myself pulled some strange dance move while going through the trails. When I was heading into the forest, my dad told me that Francis had 3 minutes on me and I knew he would just pile on that with a crazy run that he can easily put together. So I enjoyed the challenging run course and made my way to the finish line. One of the reasons the run course was fun was because I was getting cheered by fellow TCoC members. It made me run a little bit faster each time, too bad you couldn’t be in the water.
In the end Francis finished 2nd in his division, but as a big brother I need to point out that there were only 2 people in his division and I finished 3rd in a division of 6 people. “Mine over matter” was in my opinion another great race and this year being the Canadian Championship there was more competitors which was pretty cool. We both enjoyed our race and qualified to go to Germany next year which I’m seriously considering and Francis might join me depending how university goes.
So in the end, I might of not beat my little brother on the course, but I ended up with my first house and a little brother that wants do more triathlons.
