Again, much like my first 2 races this season, I have approached
this race a little blasé… this time though, I think despite the result ie 3rd…
I was found out within my own race.
Gear – spares
Nutrition – gels
Nutrition – hydration
Bike mount
T2
All areas to improve on going forward… or simply to re-focus
on.
Hahaha too funny, I arrived on race morning, checked in and
saw him… Ben Richardson. Psyched out, gone… any grand delusions I thought I had
of winning a race with such low numbers was gone and out the window… my hopes
were packed up and halfway home already… Benny Richo, the fella who I could
take any time out of on the run in Canberra last December, and the fella who
recently crushed Port 70.3 in October.
2nd Hahaha… actually more of a Bahahaha… hahahaha…
aaahahahaha!
After setting up T1 and deciding to go with the shoes on the
bike (with the rubber bands again) I was all set. Transition for me now looks
remarkably barren to what it has in previous years. I have my helmet ready with
the straps out, I have a water bottle, my running shoes, some socks depending
on the race… and my running hat and sunnies (and gels if necessary) in a bag or
bundle ready to be snatched up and donned on the go.
Anyway, I exit and meet up with the CCTRI boys… Chris Fuchs,
Terry Calves Mulcahy, Hayden Cowan and John Young. Fuchsy wastes no time in
letting me know Calves is gunning for me… he has to beat me. My only response
was to laugh… and point out I couldn’t care less how Calves goes as long as he
is happy with his race and I am happy with mine. We are in different age groups…
so I’m not racing him at all…
That said… you wave a red flag at me…
The swim
All good from my perspective. 2km, which is not the usual
1.9km for a longer event so it’s hard to compare the swim time with other
races...
Never the less, I’m not too perturbed on the watch after the
swim these days… I basically only wear it to keep track of my bike heart rate
and power and then my run pace… oh and the time of day for an Ironman event… so
I cant tell you what it said. I thought it said 37mins something upon exiting,
and 39mins when I was getting on the bike.
Official race results will forever show 35:22mins for the
swim and 36secs for T1 though, so that’s what I’ll go with. I started the watch
about 10secs early but that’s about all I can think of in regards to any
discrepancies… the Garmin shows I travelled 3km… yeah ok. I’m not a great
swimmer, but I’m not that bad!
All in all for the swim I was happy with my line, my
sighting, my effort and my stroke. I’m far from perfect but far from rubbish…
all I wanted to achieve was constant effort and I think I did well in that
regard. I had my goggles knocked off once, funnily enough on the 3rd
turn of the 2nd lap… but apart from that, all good. Oops, I put my
feet down too early when on top of a small wave coming in… nothing there… cramp
in foot for my effort… 1 more stroke, then touchdown successful.
I ran up the beach, wetsuit came off easily… half off and
goggles n cap removed before I got to the top of the beach.
T1 was simple. Helmet on, then rest of wetsuit off… squirt
sand off feet and go. 36secs is very realistic.
The Ride.
Rookie’esque but not a disaster. Andrew Mildren, you will be
shaking your head in a minute…
First off, as I have only done it in a couple of races so
far… and I was being very blasé about it all… I stuffed up the rubber banded
shoe entry. Stomp, trip, fumble, spinning shoes… I just couldn’t get my feet in
my shoes... the bands had snapped and I had fcked it. It took me a few moments
of frustration but I finally settled on composure first, foot entry second.
Calm down, feet on shoes… away we go.
Theres a short straight before you turn left to head out to
the first main turn, so I got the feet in at that point in the first km or so.
I then took the left hand turn and got some speed up before
reaching down to tighten up.
WHACK!
A few minute tree roots in this small part and I hit one I
think… either way I thought for all money I had flatted within the first 3km…
and my front bidon had come flying off… yes that’s right folks… it was my one
and only bidon and I hadn’t even had one sip from it yet… and being only 60kms…
there were no aid stations.
I stopped to inspect my tyre… as I had flatted on a practice
ride the day before… and then then tyre had popped off the rim… so I thought it
best to run the wheel around and look for the same thing… nothing. I then
rolled back 10m or so to collect my bidon… gone. Lid off… empty.
I rode on. Not annoyed or cranky… it was what it was.
Calculations would have to made on how I am going to survive with the result I
wanted… with no water.
Bugger it… I just went for broke. If I was going down on the
run due to poor nutrition… then I was going down!
I tried to hold as normal a HR and Power that I had intended
to… between 80%-85% heart rate… and based on Yarrawonga (40km & 243w) and
Forster (90km & 226w), a Power reading of the mid 230’s would have been
good enough to satisfy me. I rode to HR though, not Power.
I sat up in the SMC for the uphills and then went to BCR for
flat and downhills… and gave every downhill a throttling instead of getting low
and rolling. Of course I rolled a couple of small areas for recovery, but by
and large I gave it a go. I didn’t expect to ride with Chris F, Benny Richo or
even Calves… but as long as they didn’t get too far away I would be happy
enough.
Hayden Cowan was my bunny on the bike. 5mins ahead of me out
of the water, I saw that I had made decent ground on him after the first lap…
which included my stop… so I gave him a run.
On the second lap I felt just as fresh as the first. Again,
I stopped… this time for my saviour… a fellow competitors bottle that had also
come off just a few km up from where mine did. 500ml green Gatorade bottle
about 4/5th full of water. Done, good price, I’ll take it and get
any antibiotics required later on…. I now had some hydration and I hoofed down
half of it within seconds as it was quite hot and humid down there in the bush.
This lap was much quicker than the first… momentum, no shoe
issues, only a quick stop, and experience of having just raced the first lap as
well as my practice lap the day before… I rode this one smarter and chased
Haydo down. Not sure he saw me coming or not, but once the pass was made with
about 4km to go, he was toast and I didn’t see him as I entered and exited
transition.
Just a quick note on the bike course… Calga is the perfect
training ground. Not as flat as I had been informed it would be… but no “blood
hills” or mooney climbs… just quite a few short pinchy rollers. The flats were
either slightly ascending or descending… there didn’t appear to be an flat flat
sections apart from right at the start and end of each loop when back in town.
Rookie errors and comedy aside, I was again, happy with my
ride. As the time keepers will show, 1:42:50 for the 60km… and as the Garmin
shows 1:43:09 & an average Power of 241w with a Normalised Power of 255w. I
don’t quite get the gist of Normalised Power just yet… but it is what it is and
I will continue to monitor it from now on.
T2 was pretty straight forward again... the delay only in
trying to get my socks on for the run whilst standing up… a tactic wrought with
the danger of cramping and I could feel the legs weren’t happy.
Why socks? The socks decision is easy… its socks every day
of the week for me for anything over 10km and/or if the weather has included
rain in the day or so proceeding.
A disastrous Canberra 70.3 in 2011 put paid to running
without socks when wet… blisters everywhere. Why risk it when you can spend
20secs putting on socks and not have to worry about it? I train in socks so I
may as well race in them!
The Run
I was looking forward to the run… 15km SHOULD be doable in
under 60mins if I am on.
While I started out well enough, I knew pretty early that I wasn’t
ON. A bit of dehydration from the missing electrolyte water on the bike, and I
had also made the blasé decision not to buy more Powerbar gels or UCAN for this
race.
I have been racing on Powerbar gels for the most part of
races with my high caffeine Zipvit’s as boosters to start and end the race…
160mg of caffeine in each Zipvit, I take them normally before the swim, then
one before the run… and I have one spare for emergencies…. For this race
though, it was all Zipvit. One prior, then 3 on the bike meant I was pumped
full of Blackcurrant and caffeine… and it got to me… no UCAN on the bike and
the gels were bubbling away inside. I didn’t feel sick or anything, I just didn’t
have the get up and go that I would expect. First km I was out of the blocks in
sub 4min pace… then the 2nd km I was over… then under again for the
3rd km… then over for all bar the last 3km after that.
Looking back, it was a mental thing. I really put it on the
line at the end of the race when I was chasing Calves Mulcahy… why hadn’t I put
it on the line earlier… maybe I didn’t have it in the legs and I would have
blown up? Maybe I was just being beaten by myself… either way I wasn’t feeling
great and I just kept plugging away as best I could.
Half way through the first lap I did see Hayden Cowan had
made some ground back… gees I thought… he must be doing some fast kms… I
plugged away… I kept it at around 4:15 pace or under for the most part.
Lap 1 of 2 done, John had already told me Calves was 7mins
up at the start of the run and I could see despite my struggle to get going
that I had still cut about 3mins into him… so I perked up a touch... only momentarily
though.
10.5km in, we passed and I was still only just hovering
around 4:15pace for the most part… I was just starting to feel my legs a little
though… the Endura drinks and water at most aid stations seemed to be helping a
great deal… I past Calves … he still had about 3mins on me… maybe a little less.
I let him know he should be able to hold that advantage with only 4.5km to go…
I plugged away though. I got to a turn point after seeing Calves and saw I was
only 2mins behind…
Balls to him, he’s going down!
I mentioned I had started to perk up… I navigated 2 short
trail sections before coming to a long straight road part where you can see all
and sundry in front of you. Competitors coming out… and competitors ahead of
you. There you are Calves, its on.
Sub 4, sub 4, sub 4…
Got him with 1.2km to go.
A low five from Calves as I passed him and I hammered it all
the way home in order to hold off one other fella who wasn’t too impressed with
me overtaking him.
Could I have run faster? Not sure to be honest. I could have
tried and died… or I could have possibly made it. I wasn’t feeling great
though, didn’t think it was there so I didn’t push. Not happy with that to be
perfectly honest… it was only 15km… 1 hour… I would like to know I am someone
who will go for broke whether I am pushed to chase someone or not. Who is to
say I would have run that fast without Calves to chase?
The man in the mirror knows though that I did cross that
finish line absolutely spent. Absolutely knackered… doubled over, towel draped
over me and someone getting my timing chip off for me… I was done.
Anyway 59:05 for the run. On face value it’s a sub 4min run
for 15km… on the data though, I wasn’t 15km… it was short by about 600-650m. Not
much of course, but not sub 4 pace
As the stats go…
Higher bike Power than expected. Very happy with that
benchmark actually. Not sure I had done any races over 200w before this season?
Still 5.5mins behind the Age Group winner, Benny Richo on
the bike but I am happy enough with my progress, and my ride was good enough to
be 3rd best in the Age Group.
The run… I got him… got Benny Richo… by 5 secs… 59:05mins to
be the fastest runner in the Age Group for the 3rd race running. I haven’t
been totally happy with my running off the bike, but 1st is 1st
isn’t it.
The wash up / comments
* Time to rest up and recover. As of today, I do not feel
like lifting a finger… might even take the 5 days off until Saturday, but by
and large December will be filled with adhoc training just to stay fit.
* Focus time… Geelong and Ironman are next. No time for
games on nutrition.
* Fix the front bottle cage up… I’ve dropped 2 or 3 bottles
off the front on the Saturday rides recently… so why would I expect anything
less in a race? Amateur. I went without the xlab aero bottle due to the course
and potential spillage… if I am going to do that though, I need a Profile Design
P-Cage (the old school cages with the rubber bands) or I need another xlab Gorilla
grip.
* I got a flat on my practice ride on Saturday… and snapped
my tyre lever. I only had one lever… and 2 spare tubes… meaning I now had no
tyre levers and 1 spare tube for the race. I prefer 2 tubes for racing… and of
course I prefer at least 1 tyre lever!! Thanks to John Young for lending me a
pair of levers. After getting my flat on Saturday, I than had part of the tyre
pop off the rim so I finished off my ride with a bump… bump… bump… because I didn’t
want to risk losing another tube ie. my last one.
* Practice the rubber band shoe entry. I hadn’t done much (if
any) work on this since Yarrawonga.
* Stop being tight and buy the gels I need.
* Buy the UCAN I need…
* …and work on my T2 a little more. If I am going to wear
socks, I may as well be quick at it!
Cheers all!
