b) It was my first official big race win!! Well, I have only won 1 club race as well... so even then it is only my 2nd EVER win.
To say I was surprised was an understatement as I did make some rookie errors again... as I did last year in the same race. Surprised good though... surprised great... I won my Age Group fair and square, and by a good few minutes too :)
Here's a quick race report. Bare with it... I actually wrote 2 reports. An immediate post race report based on how I felt it went... and then further thoughts the next day. Hopefully it makes sense!
Run 1 - 2.8km (the swim had been cancelled due to poor conditions during the week. the Water was full of debris... logs, sticks etc...)
POST RACE - Done in an absolute canter. Not sure on time as Garmin includes transition and start of bike but I was cruising easily @ sub 3:20 pace. 5th overall.
UPDATE – reflection on this run has given me great confidence. I seriously did this without breaking a sweat… and to think the first 2 kms were sub 3:17’s on the Garmin is great food for thought.
I held the pace easily. Others bolted out of the blocks straight into the headwind where as I stayed about 15 back, hid from the wind and checked out the pace before unloading after the first turn and had the wind in my back. Not poor tactics from the others, just mine worked better… I had already gone and done my warm up on the exact same stretch of road as the race start so I kinda knew what to expect. I didn’t hide from the wind on purpose, but my plan was not to bolt and it worked.
Bike - 40km of pure ugly.
POST RACE - I did NOT learn my lesson of last years HED3 wheel selection and got blown from pillar to post. Overtaken by plenty but still managed to drop a few that I started with. I asked one mate who I dropped later on what had happened… 185km of Saturday Ironman training was the answer. That’ll do it I guess. I still rode 155-160 on Saturday though so wasn’t exactly fresh myself and this ride hurt.
what else did I drop? I also dropped my one and only water bottle without realising... BANG... the whole bike done with zero hydration.
Slower than a 30km/h average I think.
UPDATE – I can’t reiterate enough that I just didn’t learn from last year apart from the fact I actually took up spare training wheels to put on if I thought it was too windy.
Fail. I got out of the car on a sheltered side of town where the breeze was only very light and thought it was fine. Fail 2 was that I walked around to registration and felt that the wind was a little more brisk than I first thought… no problem I thought, its still nothing like it was last year.
Fail 3 was using brand new bottle holders… nice little lightweight carbon ones… trouble is; they couldn’t handle the bumps of the course. I reached back on lap 2 of the bike to grab my drink only to find it gone…
Fail 4 – That was my only bottle of fluid I had available for the entire race. I didn’t even leave one in transition… gees my transitions were pretty fast though!
All in all, when I was shielded form the wind I rode well… when the wind was at my back, I was punching well over 50km/h.
6 laps though, 3 tough climbs into the breeze each lap, with a 4th for good measure that was wind assisted… makes 24 short sharp climbs within 40km… this was not a fun ride people. On a couple of occasions I had to swerve at least a metre when hit from the side with wind and thought I was going to come off.
I also dropped my tool kit that was in a small canister in the other bottle holder… I stopped to get that though.
All in all, this was a roadies course 100%. If I race again, I will not even bother taking the race wheels no matter how good the weather is, as the lure of the good looking TT bike with Zipps was too strong to resist!
Run 2 - 10km of bloody awful wind.
POST RACE - A 4 laps 2.5km circuit. Transition was a good one. A quick second to locate the black Avanti... as I have been used to locating my now dearly departed blue Cervelo. Bike found, it was s uper quick transition. I headed out of the poorly signed compound, around a few grassy corners and it was straight onto the Breakwall heading out to the lighthouse. Down the break wall was fast, damn fast. Wind bellowing at your back, at least 22km/h fast... the way back up it was NOT. The wind so fierce the sand was whipping my face, legs and arms and I had to turn my head just to shield away. Still, I just concentrated on small steps / fast cadence. Kept telling myself it’s only wind and that can't stop me from running.
I THINK I did sub 4min pace which was tough going. Garmin reads 39min and that included a small walk at aid station 1 just so I could put 2 cups of water down after my dry bike leg AND it included the time spent in T2. Had I had a bottle on the bike and it not included T2, that was easily a 37-38min run.
UPDATE – 10km of not nice. I did manage sub 4min pace after all. 39mins does include bike to run transition apparently, so it was quite quick.
Description above is pretty apt… I just kept reminding myself its only 10km. I found so many people were just packing up stumps and slowing to a trudge when faced with the wind and sand… sure, its not comfortable and if it was a training day I would simply go and run somewhere else rather than run in that cr*p… but please… its only wind and sand people! Wind and sand don’t curtail ones ability to run…
Conclusion - very glad I now have a race under my belt. Disappointed not to have a full Triathlon but with the water as it was, it was the only call they could make.
I can't wait around for the preso as they are taking ages but I will be VERY surprised if I'm not top 3 in my age group.
UPDATE – Chuffed. I won my Age Group!! J
I’m pretty sore in the quads and glutes today, so today is 100% rest day apart from a slow walk around the park at lunch.
Obviously I looked online later and saw that I had won… surprised for sure as I knew I wasn’t in the top 10 for the overall honours. I knew I would have to be top 3 though… its just a shame no one gives you a tap on the shoulder to let you know. Had they done that, I would have absolutely stayed and claimed my glory in front of the masses. Turns out the preso was at about 1pm though… 4+ hours after my race.
It was quite funny seeing Tim Lang come second overall… well not funny he came second... but he must have been 1 run lap in front of me as he was running past when I exited transition (gees that fella can ride!)… I actually thought he was battling big time because I came out and just went past him and ran away from him. If only I could ride! I beat him in the first run, but he beat me out of transition by only a metre or so… and BOOM, he was gone... in an absolute instant! No wonder others are riding well on that coaches program!
Onward we march, TEAM BSR hasbeen represented and represented with a win!
The Zoca Gear kit was super comfortable the whole way around the course and I cant wait to get it out and do some training in it before the big day on May 5th... Next Stop, Ironman Australia!
