Canmore XTERRA

Racing season will be starting soon, well not very soon for me...but it's coming up, and I am still catching up from last season's races!!
In August Shawn and I went to Canmore to compete in the 2nd Canmore XTERRA, the inaugural one, was won by Yours Truly the previous year! That was a unexpected win for me, but I loved it!! I loved the race, it was my first off-road triathlon, I had so much fun and felt good...and of course I loved winning!!
And this year, of course I was wanting to win again!
I had seen that Danelle Kabush was registered in this event (we raced together several years in the Pro mtb xc circuit) and of course her XTERRA career has been extremely successful!
But having just had a baby a few months before this race....maybe I would have a chance! I felt bad using this for a possible win...but....
Canmore is amazing! I love going there. The mtb course this year was 100% turn around from last year. Last year it was non technical-dbl tracks..but still fun to race, this year, it was technical single track climbs, a few steep chutes, super rooty routes through the trees and twisty rooty corners! And with the rain that Canmore had been getting 2 weeks prior to the race, this made for a very challenging course, but I was hoping that this would be to my advantage...I am not the best technical rider, but pretty darn good!
I didn't have my best swim....improved by 2 minutes from the first year, but not as fast as I wanted to be...
Feeling good on the bike, Shawn telling me after the first lap that I was catching Danelle, and sure enough I eventually saw in heading into the longish climb, this gave me a bit of a burst as I climbed past her, unfortunately I there was a bit of a strait stretch shortly after this just before heading into transition and she took the lead back just before the ride finished.
Of course Danelle is a great runner, and I wasn't able to catch her on the run (but my run was only a minute slower) and I finished second!
Disappointing for sure, but was happy with my ride (fastest ride split) and somewhat happy with my run (I really haven't been getting in much run training this year, really finding it hard to squeeze in)
Next year!