Guelph pro triathlete Taylor Reid has a perfect start to his season with a win in his only race, the Olympic triathlon at the Subaru Triathlon Series’ Guelph Lake I meet.
It should’ve been two races for Reid, but the Ironman 70.3 Mont Tremblant event last weekend was cancelled due to poor air quality caused by the wildfires in Quebec.
The Guelph Lake race was run a week after wildfires in Ontario had reduced the air quality in the area, but it had cleared up a few days before the first day of the two-day meet.
“We got really lucky,” Reid said after the Guelph Lake race. “It was brutal and if it had been last weekend, we would have been in trouble.”
Ironically, the 32-year-old hadn’t raced at full steam in Guelph as he was using the event as a tune-up for the Mont Tremblant event as he’s pretty much specialized in 70.3 races. They consist of a 1.9 kilometre swim, 90 km bike segment and a 21.1 km. run.
Raised in Caledon, Reid has been based in Guelph for just under a decade. And there’s a girl involved in that move.
“I actually started dating someone who lived in Guelph and she had a condo so I moved over here,” he said.
That relationship worked out as they got married a couple of months ago and now live about 10 kilometres from Guelph Lake.
Reid also moved to the area to work with Craig Taylor and the Guelph Triathlon Project, a group that was formed from the remnants of the national regional triathlon centre that had been based in Guelph.
“I was working with a coach in California and that relationship had sort of come to an end so I looked around and I knew that Craig Taylor was here and he was a very renowned coach,” Reid said. “I'd wanted to work with him for a couple of years.”
When Craig Taylor decided to retire, Reid moved over to the Guelph-based Loaring Personal Coaching (LPC) triathlon team run by James Loaring. It was a no-brainer move for Reid as he’d already been training with a few of the local triathletes including Cody Beals and LPC’s Jackson Laundry.
“It wasn't too hard because obviously James was local and I'd been training with Jackson Laundry,” Reid said. “I had been training with (Laundry) and he had been doing some very good results so it made sense. I'd already been doing half of his workouts anyway.
“When Craig said (he was) going to retire I asked him what he thought about James and he said he's a great choice. He has similar training philosophies so there wasn't a huge change which is really nice. It was just enough to get that new stimulus, but nothing crazy.”
Reid’s been competing in triathlons for half his life after transitioning over from cross- country running. He would also join his parents for mountain bike rides before that.
“It's been in my blood for a while I would say. I’ve been through the junior ranks and had some early super races and then was the U23 national champion.”
Reid has found triathlon to be the ideal sport for him.
“I really just love getting out there and pushing myself, to be honest,” he said. “I'm personally dyslexic so I found that I gravitated a lot more to the individual sports. I was able to not worry about the team aspect and just rely on my own effort. Focusing on what I can control is really exciting. Just getting out there and when you're in the hardest, darkest part of the race you really find something of yourself. It’s like am I going to go harder or am I going to crumble so it's pretty exciting.”
And practising for triathlons is sort of like cross training all the time.
“We're always trying to juggle the three of them. Where do we put our effort? Where do we relax and it's sort of like an elastic, you're being pulled in opposite directions.”
And Guelph is almost a perfect location for a triathlete.
“Guelph is one of the top spots in Southern Ontario,” Reid said. “We've got enough pools. It's quiet enough. The roads are quiet. We've got Guelph Lake which is great three to four months of the year so it's a great location.”
Being a pro athlete means Reid has to be aware of the financial income he can generate.
“It takes a lot of people supporting me and I have multiple sponsors which is huge,” he said, listing many of them. “A lot of them have some kind of connection to Guelph or personal connection in some way to me so it's like very much building a family, not just like a brand that I'm just shilling. There's very much a family atmosphere there.
“It's difficult as you have to win races or your career is done and this year is one of those years for me where it's like I’ve got to go win some races or retirement may be on the horizon and I'm okay with that. I've had great years but I want to keep going for as long as I can.”
