Listen to your body… that should be the moral of this story…
Either that, or to avoid trouble in the first place sit back and ask yourself the age old question that every good Triathlete should ask themselves when at the crossroads… What would Matt Porta do?
Without further ado, sit back.. and as that famous fellow Matt P would say, grab a coffee, some bickies… a comfy PC chair.. and enjoy.. hopefully.
My preparations for Yeppoon 70.3 and Las Vegas 70.3 had been going very well the last month or two since having a short recovery from Port Mac and Club Champs. I was running well, swimming well enough to not drown and having done 3 weekends in a row (plus a couple of mid week sessions) in the punishment chamber that is Finesse Cycling… I was feeling strong on the bike and ready to fire.
Then it hit. As I was spinning down from my Yeppoon test ride at Finesse one week out from Yeppoon I felt faint. All the blood had rushed from my face, I felt white as a ghost and thought I was headed for a trip on the good old porcelain express bus of fun!
A few minutes passed and I came good… so of course… I popped a Dextro bar down and headed off for my run off the bike… all 10kms of it.
Saturday afternoon I grew very tired
Sunday I got worse
Monday I couldn’t move and pretty much slept all day.
Tuesday I shouldn’t have, but I went to work… what a long day!
After that, improvement started to occur over the next few days and apart from a few headaches and feeling tired, I felt like the illness was passing.
Saturday, the day before race day arrived and Amanda, Eli and I boarded our flights for Rockhampton. Still tired and still getting headaches, I slept most of the way to Brisbane, then again to Rockhampton after our connection.
We arrived, found our lodgings (after a few wrong turns)… and it was rest time. Well, it was time to build the bike, then it was rest time.
Late afternoon we headed over to register and check out the expo J
Great work Yeppoon on the blacks hoodies instead of tech tshirts… great work on some of the crazy cheap prices for some of the stalls… not so great work on the other 70.3 gear that looked very poor quality, including the singlets and “headsweats” that looked very shabby in construction… and not so great work on the late race brief that went way over time and had Nick Munting and some other bird repeat the exact same information twice. It left a lot of people shivering in the cold after a brief that had originally started with a glimmer of sunshine remaining.
So with flying green ants dropping from the trees and carefully placed feet we walked our way out of the poo riddled briefing area just before the brief ended.
Off to Woody’s Foodworks to buy my pasta and other sundries for my race prep… then home to cook and rest. There was no pre race swim, ride and run happening today. No time, headache, tired and a little boy to look after meant I was quite happy to head home, double check the bike, eat and rest up for the next day. Good thing I did at least check the bike… as I hadn’t tightened the handlebars properly and they were loose!
Ok, enough with the background noise, wake up race day and head off to transition… we arrive with just 20mins to spare for me to set everything up.. plenty of time! Haha… lucky for me the race director hearded everyone back into transition for the race brief. I was pretty much set, but it gave me time to finish up and get a few pre race photos with Eli.
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Off to the swim. The swim looked pretty standard on paper… walk up the beach… then swim back. For starters, the walk up the beach is a psyche out! It seemed like a 10km walk instead of 1.7km… and the whole time all I could do was look at the rough swell that awaited me. There was supposed to be a good current out there so times would be quick… if you had a surf background and had no issue with swell. This is not me of course and I bumbled my way out through the breaking waves from the shore start and managed no rhythm by the turn of the first buoy. From there I did find some sort of rhythm… but could not find any feet to drag off… instead, some clown thought it would be best to sit on my toes. Why? I don’t know. The swim felt like it went forever in the rough swell.. swimming along and just bobbing up and down the whole way grabbing glimpses of the buoys whenever I could. Every buoy I was looking left to see if everyone was heading to shore… alas though, it went on. Finally I got there and headed in. I tried in vain to catch a wave or two on the way in, they just didn’t seem strong enough to hold a human though and no one was able to get one that I could see.
300m run to transition, stop the clock at 31:30… a PB for me in 70.3.
Transition was uneventful. I got my stuff, had a dash of caffiene and headed out… uncharacteristically I had my shoes already clipped in. I normally put them on and run in the them but new cleats made me go the other way so as not to ruin them straight away. Onto the bike I jumped, took a few pedals, got up some speed and went to put my feet in… BANG! Some thoughtful clown had decided a bloody big tangerine was the best thing to leave on the road just after the start of the bike leg… brilliant. I was dislodged from the saddle and landed heavily on the rough road with my bare feet. Not cool. I feared I had cut the bottoms of my feet to shreds but just chose not to look and jumped back on… little did I know there was possibly a little relative of Pearso’s in the bush giggling away to himself seeing me hit his carefully planted fruit… I wonder how many more idiots hit it…
The ride.
The course was almost pan flat… just a couple of changes in gradient here and there to make you think about that heavy gear you were in, but other than that, it was the flattest course I’ve ridden. It would have been a whole lot better had the road surface not been extremely granular and rough (no pot holes though).. and has there been no wind. But it was rough for most of it and wind covered about 70% of the bike leg. If it wasn’t a head wind, it was a cross wind… there was one section at the far turnaround though that put it fair and square in your back and I was loving it cruising back at 45km/h at one point.
It wasn’t that bad though and the course was pretty good. Good enough for me to lodge another PB for a 70.3 90km ride. 2:39:00
Going well here I thought, I headed into transition and did my usual methodical break in putting my socks and shoes on while sitting down… hey, I’ll take a seat if it gives me a little extra recharge. Quick dash of Caffiene, grab a dextro bar and out I went.
I started well I think… the first 1km was a touch slow due to transition time, but after that I was lapping my km’s at 4mins or there abouts… which is par for me at the start of my 70.3 runs. After that I slow down and get into a rhythym at around the 4:20 per km range… with the target being 1:30.
One lap of the course down (7km), I felt ok… well, maybe a bit heavy in the legs and a sore back… but pretty much ok. Looking at my watch I was on track for a race PB if I just pulled out a stock run and didn’t do anything stupid.
Each lap consisted of a start by running through the crowded pool area (with a few twists and turns and bridges and rises), then out onto a dry unshaded unforgiving flat road, followed by a bush track (with many twists and turns and little rises to give you a sting), then finally some flat grassy oval areas out the back before coming back to the crowds. It was lap 2… when I came to the bush area that I came undone.
I didn’t know what it was but I started to feel very weak… there was no spring in the step anymore… and the watch started spitting out some very ordinary lap times. I battled on though and at the end of lap 2 I was still close to PB time, but possibly just behind now. I’d made up 30seconds on the swim and at least 7mins on the bike… and that time had been eroded. Lap 3 was all about hanging on.
Lap 3… lets be honest here… I was in all sorts. I was weak, my legs were wobbling, my back was burning…and I was getting very cold.
Would Matt Porta stop at this point and save himself for Vegas?? Probably. Did I? nope. I didn’t want to DNF… I reflect back to Pearso again here… a man who has told me he has never DNF’d ever… so neither was I! Fact is, he won’t race is there’s even a hint of DNF… but that’s beside the point. It is a perfect record I’m not ready to tarnish! I want my medal and I want my towel.
Anyhoo, I was now walking about 50m after each aid station and I was taking on board anything I could each time. I didn’t help and by bush time on lap 3 I was goooone… it was walk time… normal walk time too, not fast walk, just a normal walk to the shops pace walk time. I did this for about 1km and watched the time slip away.
Looking at the watch as I came near the exit of the bush I saw that I had limited time to get home if I still wanted to finish in my new target of under 5 hours. So I cracked the jog up again and somehow trotted back at 5-5:30min pace and made it in 4:59:00 flat.
I crossed the line (not wanting Amanda to take any photos of me coming up the shute) and sat down immediately in a recovery chair at the finish line. I did not move for a long time from here… I was freezing, my hands were shaking, when I tried to get up my legs wouldn’t hold me and bugger it… even my eyes kept welling up and my head felt void of any blood… in short, I was in all sorts of trouble.
What felt like 30min of sipping coke with my head under a towel later I finally managed to find my feet. I’d waived off numerous calls to get me an Ambo and stumbled over and gave Amanda my towel and medal. I turned and headed to the food tent to get some sustenance… only to find all they actually provided for the race was ice cream with fruit… and nothing else.
I needed more than that after such an ordeal!
Anyhoo race over, lessons learnt about listening to your body and knowing your limits. On reflection I will take a lot of positives from the result. I don’t look at 4:59:00 and think beauty, sub 5 hours, I gotta be happy with that… because no, if I had raced well and healthy, then that course is a lot faster than that and with my prep for Vegas in mind I was on target to go a lot quicker. What I am very pleased with is the swim PB… it shows my 5am sessions 3 to 4 times a week in Gosford are paying off… Zim, Pearso and the Honky Tonk man are getting me there… my ride was also fantastic time considering the wind, the road surface and the early mishap I had with the Tangerine…
I don’t mind falling apart on the run. I was not well and possibly shouldn’t have been racing. A trip to the docs on Monday confirms I had a high temperature and should have taken it easy… so to get that far is ok by me.
The downsides and questions though… I didn’t give my health and the race enough thought prior to the actual event.
What would Matt Porta do?
In hindsight I reckon he would have taken stock and looked at the main prize… Vegas. If I must race… and most Triathletes will say they must… then I should have toned it down a notch or two and just swam comfortably, ridden a steady ride without ripping in and saving my energy so I had enough in the tank to finish in good health.
I didn’t do this though and as a result I have been laid low most of the week post race. I am still pretty tired and am still getting headaches and I have another appointment with the doc to see how to speed up my recovery. I have started training again, but only light… perhaps if I’d been more careful I could have been back into it by now?
Apologies for the long report guys, just a couple of thanks to get through… that Angry Little Man again, Pearso, Brett “Zim” Isaac and “Roo” Mildren for helping with my training recently as well as the “Honky Tonk Man” Porta for the advice and tips… and the bike suitcase! Also to Club Sponsor Mick Hull of Finesse Cycles for flogging me silly for the last month (see you this Saturday Mick!), Rod for the program I try to stick to!… and to Amanda and Eli… I tell you what, if those two weren’t in attendance in Yeppoon, I really don’t think I would have finished the race!