This will be my final post in regards to Tri reports for some time as I have officially finished up for the season.
The road trip to Murray Bridge was a cracker with Dennis, Princess, Benny and Pistol and I look forward to many more of them next season.
I finished my season on a high with a good result for me over the 2km swim, 60km bike and 15 km run.
Pb the swim : 29min 16sec,
Had the 6th quickest bike time for the day, which enabled me to make up some good places, and
as per normal plodded along like a diesel train in the run.
The bike course was a tough one with the weather, road surface and course in general. The run was flat, except someone put this nice (well not really nice!!) hill on the course in which we encountered 3 times, once per lap. Ever seen a fully loaded semi climb a hill, well that's me, very slowly!!!
Finished up in 3 hrs 12mins which fit in the bracket that I set for myself, so happy days!!
The wheels, well what can i say, travelling 50+ kph comfortably on the return trip speaks for themselves, was very very happy with them. The only thing now is the price tag, a lazy $4800!
Might leave that decision til next season.
From here, a few weeks of to enjoy the "offseason" with a few functions coming up that I am going to let the hair down for.
The road season starts this weekend and have a little itch that is going to drive me to be competitive in A grade by the seasons end, another tough ask.
For now....
X-Man
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
1 More Race for the Season.
This weekend bring a wrap for my tri season for 2008/2009. I know that I am ready for the end also.
I am heading to Murray Bridge with Princess, Benny, Pistol and Dennis to race over a 2km swim 60km bike and 15 km run.
This is also the last chance for me to accumulate points to qualify for the worlds in Perth later in the year.
I have also decided that this will be the last race in which I will be on a structured training program as I am going to "bring back the fun" into my training. I will be training but doing what I feel like at the time for a while to have an "offseason" for 4-8 weeks before I get back into it.
Back onto this weekend, I have organised to ride a set of Zipp 808's for the weekend, which excites me as if I am happy with these wheels, I look to purchase a set for the new season. The lads at SALTER CYCLES have been generous enough to lend me the wheels to test. Cheers Adrian.
With all the talk about Zipp Wheels, I will be curious to rate their performance against my Token 85/50 wheels and my Gravity Zero Disc/ 5 spoke......To be discussed after the weekend.
Once completed this race, the road season kicks into gear, so as they say: One door shuts, another opens!!
For now..
X-Man
Ps. My running has been coming along ok, and swim squad has already found improvements in my swim stroke/time.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
32min 40 sec for 8 km is a starting point.
I completed an 8k fun run this morning with Dennis and Princess and above was my time.
I was happy with my run as it was 2 & bit laps around the tan track in Melbourne which has a cracker of a hill (Anderson St) which sorted me out on the second lap.
Managed to get around the 1st lap in 16min 05 sec which was satisfying and then to hold on to run 32min 40sec was a good starting point for my winter of running.
Princess cruised around in 30min 20sec and Dennis in 31 odd min (can't remember exact time).
The time I ran today gives me an indicator for future runs around the same course to see if/how much I am improving along the way.
From the run, the three of us jumped on our steads and cruised to Frankston and return with a few efforts along the way. Was a good solid morning of training.
Tomorrow morning will probably sort me out a little as I am going to play in the hills with a few mates.
For now..
X-Man
I was happy with my run as it was 2 & bit laps around the tan track in Melbourne which has a cracker of a hill (Anderson St) which sorted me out on the second lap.
Managed to get around the 1st lap in 16min 05 sec which was satisfying and then to hold on to run 32min 40sec was a good starting point for my winter of running.
Princess cruised around in 30min 20sec and Dennis in 31 odd min (can't remember exact time).
The time I ran today gives me an indicator for future runs around the same course to see if/how much I am improving along the way.
From the run, the three of us jumped on our steads and cruised to Frankston and return with a few efforts along the way. Was a good solid morning of training.
Tomorrow morning will probably sort me out a little as I am going to play in the hills with a few mates.
For now..
X-Man
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Take care of your GEAR & your GEAR will take care of you.
GEAR = Body, Bike & Other relevant equipment.
I write this blog after noticing that a little TLC goes a long way. After spending the weekend with Komo a few weeks back and seeing how he goes about looking after himself and his equipment, I thought that I might just give it a go.
My TT bike has been getting all the love of late and after riding my roadie on Tuesday morning in the horrendous conditions and wanting to race on it tonite I decided to give it some love.
First of all, I got my body treated last night by Jason (my myo) and got put some pain to which I felt like vomitting. I can say that I felt terrible last night but was spot on today, Thanks again Jas!
I turned to my roadie today and under close inspection, I was disgusted at the 5mm grime that was covering my chain, jockey wheels and cluster. Out came the degreaser and after totally covering the named parts and washing it off, I actually saw some light at the end of the tunnel. After repeating this anbother time and getting the trusty toothbrush and giving the chain a good working over I was quite pleased with my efforts. A few drops of lube and I was set to take on the crit tonite.
As soon as I heading off on my way, I noticed the difference instantly of no resistance in the pedal stroke, compared to previous. So getting a good warm up in I felt satisfied that I would finish the crit tonite.
As always the 1st lap is under control and once we started the race proper it didn't take long for the pace to increase and the race was on. My plan was just to sit tight and get around in one piece. After seeing a few harmless attacks take place I thought I would give my legs a good test to see where I was at. I had a hard attack which was reeled in soon after, but I was satisfied with how my legs and bike were feeling. The race continued with a few more unsuccessful attacks by myself and others and when there was 1 lap to go I decided to attack into the wind to see if I could gain enough advantage to hold onto the finish.
One guy jumped on my wheel and upon peering behind us and seeing a good 50m gap I thought at worst I would place 2nd. So I continued to "lead" the other guy out hoping the bunch wouldn't catch us into the head wind in the final straight. I gave up the room for him to pass and take the win and for myself I felt like I had just jumped onto a mag trainer cause I was going nowhere fast. With 100m to go another 2 guys passed me and I held onto 4th, which was a very pleasing result considering I hadn't finished with the bunch on my last 3 attempts.
My point to the story is that if you take care of your GEAR it goes along way in getting the most out of your performance. Lesson learnt for me and thanks KOMO for showing me how easy it is to look after your GEAR. Regular maintainence makes the job a lot easier.
For now..
X-Man
PS. My running is coming along ok and my weight is down below IRONMAN weight. Good signs for now.
I write this blog after noticing that a little TLC goes a long way. After spending the weekend with Komo a few weeks back and seeing how he goes about looking after himself and his equipment, I thought that I might just give it a go.
My TT bike has been getting all the love of late and after riding my roadie on Tuesday morning in the horrendous conditions and wanting to race on it tonite I decided to give it some love.
First of all, I got my body treated last night by Jason (my myo) and got put some pain to which I felt like vomitting. I can say that I felt terrible last night but was spot on today, Thanks again Jas!
I turned to my roadie today and under close inspection, I was disgusted at the 5mm grime that was covering my chain, jockey wheels and cluster. Out came the degreaser and after totally covering the named parts and washing it off, I actually saw some light at the end of the tunnel. After repeating this anbother time and getting the trusty toothbrush and giving the chain a good working over I was quite pleased with my efforts. A few drops of lube and I was set to take on the crit tonite.
As soon as I heading off on my way, I noticed the difference instantly of no resistance in the pedal stroke, compared to previous. So getting a good warm up in I felt satisfied that I would finish the crit tonite.
As always the 1st lap is under control and once we started the race proper it didn't take long for the pace to increase and the race was on. My plan was just to sit tight and get around in one piece. After seeing a few harmless attacks take place I thought I would give my legs a good test to see where I was at. I had a hard attack which was reeled in soon after, but I was satisfied with how my legs and bike were feeling. The race continued with a few more unsuccessful attacks by myself and others and when there was 1 lap to go I decided to attack into the wind to see if I could gain enough advantage to hold onto the finish.
One guy jumped on my wheel and upon peering behind us and seeing a good 50m gap I thought at worst I would place 2nd. So I continued to "lead" the other guy out hoping the bunch wouldn't catch us into the head wind in the final straight. I gave up the room for him to pass and take the win and for myself I felt like I had just jumped onto a mag trainer cause I was going nowhere fast. With 100m to go another 2 guys passed me and I held onto 4th, which was a very pleasing result considering I hadn't finished with the bunch on my last 3 attempts.
My point to the story is that if you take care of your GEAR it goes along way in getting the most out of your performance. Lesson learnt for me and thanks KOMO for showing me how easy it is to look after your GEAR. Regular maintainence makes the job a lot easier.
For now..
X-Man
PS. My running is coming along ok and my weight is down below IRONMAN weight. Good signs for now.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Challenge is ON!!!!
After reviewing my race results over the passed 4-5 races there is one common thread, and it goes like this:
When i have a good swim for me, I am competitive, usually top 20 - 25 in my age (around 3-5 mins behind the age group winner)
With my cycling, I am in the top couple in my age, anywhere from 3rd fastest (Shep 2008 to 8th Fastest Huskisson 2009) sometimes less than a minute behind the fastest and at worst 3-4 minutes.
Now this is where the Challenge comes into it:
THE RUN
Well, my run, even though it has been improving from just under 5min km pace (shep 2007) to 4min 33sec km pace (shep 2008). So a significant improvement there. On the weekend at Jervis Bay, I got my run time to 4min 22sec km pace.
Yes my improvements have been great and I hope that they continue to do so, however this is where I am losing most of my time in the race. For the previous 1/2 Ironmans and WA Ironman where I have got of the bike anywhere from 2nd in my age (Ironman) to 10th in my age (Geelong 2009), things go backwards from there with massive time gaps occuring.
For example, at Jervis Bay, I ran 1hr 27min for the 20km, the best in my age was 1hr 8min.....A time difference of almost 20mins.
Likewise at Geelong and Shepparton, with 19min and 17min being the time differences respectively.
Bearing this in mind with my size and strengths, I am never going to run these times.
The challenge that I am setting myself for the winter is to drastically improve my run times.
Off the bike I want to run around 85 mins and for a normal 1/2 marathon sub 80mins.
You might say at 6'3 and 90+ kgs this will be hard, let me tell you, it will be very hard. But for me to start making inroads into the leading age groupers, this is where I have to be on the run.
I have earmarked a min 4 1/2 marathons this winter and will be spending alot of time on the track inproving my 1k time trials - currently can do 8 x 1km time trials on around 3 min 50 sec - yes i have to improve my top end speed to improve my longer runs.
This will ofcourse be a work in progress will small gains and lots of hard work, but it is what I am going to do.
By doing this also, I am going to continue my riding and road racing to maintain the speed I have in that. I am even going to join a swim squad over the winter months to close the starting gap that I am giving......The main losses are the run, lets get the run right!!
I will keep you updated along the way.
For now
X-Man
When i have a good swim for me, I am competitive, usually top 20 - 25 in my age (around 3-5 mins behind the age group winner)
With my cycling, I am in the top couple in my age, anywhere from 3rd fastest (Shep 2008 to 8th Fastest Huskisson 2009) sometimes less than a minute behind the fastest and at worst 3-4 minutes.
Now this is where the Challenge comes into it:
THE RUN
Well, my run, even though it has been improving from just under 5min km pace (shep 2007) to 4min 33sec km pace (shep 2008). So a significant improvement there. On the weekend at Jervis Bay, I got my run time to 4min 22sec km pace.
Yes my improvements have been great and I hope that they continue to do so, however this is where I am losing most of my time in the race. For the previous 1/2 Ironmans and WA Ironman where I have got of the bike anywhere from 2nd in my age (Ironman) to 10th in my age (Geelong 2009), things go backwards from there with massive time gaps occuring.
For example, at Jervis Bay, I ran 1hr 27min for the 20km, the best in my age was 1hr 8min.....A time difference of almost 20mins.
Likewise at Geelong and Shepparton, with 19min and 17min being the time differences respectively.
Bearing this in mind with my size and strengths, I am never going to run these times.
The challenge that I am setting myself for the winter is to drastically improve my run times.
Off the bike I want to run around 85 mins and for a normal 1/2 marathon sub 80mins.
You might say at 6'3 and 90+ kgs this will be hard, let me tell you, it will be very hard. But for me to start making inroads into the leading age groupers, this is where I have to be on the run.I have earmarked a min 4 1/2 marathons this winter and will be spending alot of time on the track inproving my 1k time trials - currently can do 8 x 1km time trials on around 3 min 50 sec - yes i have to improve my top end speed to improve my longer runs.
This will ofcourse be a work in progress will small gains and lots of hard work, but it is what I am going to do.
By doing this also, I am going to continue my riding and road racing to maintain the speed I have in that. I am even going to join a swim squad over the winter months to close the starting gap that I am giving......The main losses are the run, lets get the run right!!
I will keep you updated along the way.
For now
X-Man
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Australian Long Course Report - Jervis Bay 22nd Feb 2009
Well, after enduring 20 hours of travel within 3 days to Jervis Bay and return, I was very happy with my performance.
Komo, Princess, Gaffer and myself made the long journey Friday afternoon to Jervis Bay to compete in the Australian Long Course Triathlon Championships.
What turned out the be perfect conditions to race (besides the large amounts of jelly fish!!), awith no wind and favourable weather also.
The swim was in waves consisting of a 2km bay swim in which I was very happy with my swim after Geelong by having a clear path in front of me. This probably cost me a little bit of time as I didn't seek any advantage by following someone. I just wanted to regain some confidence by getting throu the swim.
Swim time: 31min 34 sec
The bike course consisted of three 27km laps with rolling hills and no flat section whatsoever. This type of course suits me, however with the amount of drafting that occurred some bike times were well and truley favourable compared to the riding ability. On the last lap, I saw a minimum of 6 riders get done for drafting!!!
Bike time: 2hr 08min 58sec (8th in age)
Onto the run in which I really wanted to have agood one.
This consisted of two 10km laps with two short sharp rises, only about 50m long, but they took some sting out of my legs each time.
I managed to "red line" the run and get throu with my heart rate above 180bpm for the entire run.
Run time 1hr 27min in which I was very happy with.
Overall, my time 4hr 11min (18th Age) was only 1min behind the time i wanted to go, so a good day for me.
My heart rate for the day averaged 178bpm with a max of 193bpm, so i sure had a good crack.
And I can say that the only thing that went wrong was that I was not fast enough!! Man there were some really fast athletes there, a real eye opener for me.
Also after this race, I have decided to have a real crack at running this winter to see if I can get my run times down to a competitive level as my bike is there currently.
Apart from an enjoyable race, I enjoyed the weekend with the boys and seeing how a true professional prepares for his race (Komo) which taught me a thing or two regarding prepartion. The other two boys also put in cracker races with Princess coming across the line in 4hr 9min and Komo 4 hr 16min.
From here I am heading across to the Murray Man Triathlon at the end of March to compete in a long course race, which will bring a wrap to my season and also give me an indication if I will apply for the World Long Course Championships in Perth.
For now...
X-man
Komo, Princess, Gaffer and myself made the long journey Friday afternoon to Jervis Bay to compete in the Australian Long Course Triathlon Championships.
What turned out the be perfect conditions to race (besides the large amounts of jelly fish!!), awith no wind and favourable weather also.
The swim was in waves consisting of a 2km bay swim in which I was very happy with my swim after Geelong by having a clear path in front of me. This probably cost me a little bit of time as I didn't seek any advantage by following someone. I just wanted to regain some confidence by getting throu the swim.
Swim time: 31min 34 sec
The bike course consisted of three 27km laps with rolling hills and no flat section whatsoever. This type of course suits me, however with the amount of drafting that occurred some bike times were well and truley favourable compared to the riding ability. On the last lap, I saw a minimum of 6 riders get done for drafting!!!
Bike time: 2hr 08min 58sec (8th in age)
Onto the run in which I really wanted to have agood one.
This consisted of two 10km laps with two short sharp rises, only about 50m long, but they took some sting out of my legs each time.
I managed to "red line" the run and get throu with my heart rate above 180bpm for the entire run.
Run time 1hr 27min in which I was very happy with.
Overall, my time 4hr 11min (18th Age) was only 1min behind the time i wanted to go, so a good day for me.
My heart rate for the day averaged 178bpm with a max of 193bpm, so i sure had a good crack.
And I can say that the only thing that went wrong was that I was not fast enough!! Man there were some really fast athletes there, a real eye opener for me.
Also after this race, I have decided to have a real crack at running this winter to see if I can get my run times down to a competitive level as my bike is there currently.
Apart from an enjoyable race, I enjoyed the weekend with the boys and seeing how a true professional prepares for his race (Komo) which taught me a thing or two regarding prepartion. The other two boys also put in cracker races with Princess coming across the line in 4hr 9min and Komo 4 hr 16min.
From here I am heading across to the Murray Man Triathlon at the end of March to compete in a long course race, which will bring a wrap to my season and also give me an indication if I will apply for the World Long Course Championships in Perth.
For now...
X-man
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Week Ahead.....
After a rather enjoyable weekend of training and paintball (luckily no bad welts, unlike Jimmy D!!), my mind feels alot fresher and am now looking really forward to the upcoming week. Was out running with Princess this afternoon and had a good laugh and yarn about the paint ball proceedings and about the forthcoming race at Jervis Bay. Princess, Komo and Myself are racing whilst Ross is coming up for a weekend away as our official "handler" (would write bitch, but hey, they would not be nice!!).
Princess did ask the question about the course if it was hilly or flat, and myself not really up with gradients, except anything above 8% makes this diesel train battle. The ride course has a profile of:
http://www.eliteenergy.com.au/images/maps/09_huski/profile_long_bike.pdf
Whilst the run is as follows:
http://www.eliteenergy.com.au/images/maps/09_huski/profile_long_run.pdf
These two profiles mean very little to myself and working out the gradient means 9 tenths of nothing, just give it to me in words: Flat, Undulating or Hilly!!!
The four of us are making the long road trip on friday and there should be many a funny story to tell. Throw in a few beers for the return trip sunday and I am set for a cracker of a weekend. I hope to be relaxed for the weekend and really enjoy it.
A short note goes out to all those who have suffered during the fires around Victoria and to my good mate Rod, who has the horrible task of removing the deceased. Thoughts are with you mate and you are during agreat job no doubt. I look forward to spinning the legs again when you return.
For now....
X man
Princess did ask the question about the course if it was hilly or flat, and myself not really up with gradients, except anything above 8% makes this diesel train battle. The ride course has a profile of:
http://www.eliteenergy.com.au/images/maps/09_huski/profile_long_bike.pdf
Whilst the run is as follows:
http://www.eliteenergy.com.au/images/maps/09_huski/profile_long_run.pdf
These two profiles mean very little to myself and working out the gradient means 9 tenths of nothing, just give it to me in words: Flat, Undulating or Hilly!!!
The four of us are making the long road trip on friday and there should be many a funny story to tell. Throw in a few beers for the return trip sunday and I am set for a cracker of a weekend. I hope to be relaxed for the weekend and really enjoy it.
A short note goes out to all those who have suffered during the fires around Victoria and to my good mate Rod, who has the horrible task of removing the deceased. Thoughts are with you mate and you are during agreat job no doubt. I look forward to spinning the legs again when you return.
For now....
X man
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Where's your head at??
After being away on the Gold Coast for a work conference the last few days with minimal training on the body, my mind decided to do some training for me.
Listening to a Motivational speaker/ comedian (funny combo, but hey it was fantastic!!), a few thoughts started to run through my mind about what was being presented to me.
What stuck in my mind the most was the discussion about the brain.... The brain takes up approx 2-3% of your body weight however uses around 20% of your bodies energy, more than any other organ!!!!
Where am I going with this you ask??
Well, I am a practical joker who hasn't stressed to much about the triathlon caper to much so far. My motto has been to enjoy it, because once the enjoyment has gone, I might as well give up.
So, with MOST of my races to date taking this approach and recording a PB in just about all of them, and enjoying being racing, looking back I noticed one significant difference about the Geelong 70.3 race.
I was the only one that was stressed out of the group, and what happened?? Didn't race as well as I expected, nor did I enjoy the race as much as others!!
So, going back to my topic, "Where's you head at?". Where was my head at?
Did I place to many expectations on myself, or have I raced to much this season with 5 Olympic distance tri's or more under my belt (with 4 races remaining) so far and around 10 crits at Footscray. Or was it just the fact the I didn't sleep to well the night previous and had basically raced the race in my mind before the start line??
When I look at the other athletes that I regularly race with, they were all very relaxed this race....Komo had beer and pizza the night previous and recorded a 7min improvement from previous year (my standard pre race dinner), Crash hadn't trained much in the previous weeks due to work commitments, so had no expectations about the race 10 min improvement(no stress!!) Pistol had only been training where he could around renovations on his house, over 18 min pb (Congrates on making Clearwater!) and KP looked a lot more relaxed pre-race than I have seen him before. (Congrates also on Clearwater!)
So with looking back at this, how much energy did I waste in the top 6 inches??
With this in mind, I am going to revert to my "normal" pre race routine this weekend at the National Long Course Titles at Jervis Bay and hopefully ENJOY my race and let the result take care of itself.
Hopefully I have uncovered "Where my head was at".
X-Man
Listening to a Motivational speaker/ comedian (funny combo, but hey it was fantastic!!), a few thoughts started to run through my mind about what was being presented to me.
What stuck in my mind the most was the discussion about the brain.... The brain takes up approx 2-3% of your body weight however uses around 20% of your bodies energy, more than any other organ!!!!
Where am I going with this you ask??
Well, I am a practical joker who hasn't stressed to much about the triathlon caper to much so far. My motto has been to enjoy it, because once the enjoyment has gone, I might as well give up.
So, with MOST of my races to date taking this approach and recording a PB in just about all of them, and enjoying being racing, looking back I noticed one significant difference about the Geelong 70.3 race.
I was the only one that was stressed out of the group, and what happened?? Didn't race as well as I expected, nor did I enjoy the race as much as others!!
So, going back to my topic, "Where's you head at?". Where was my head at?
Did I place to many expectations on myself, or have I raced to much this season with 5 Olympic distance tri's or more under my belt (with 4 races remaining) so far and around 10 crits at Footscray. Or was it just the fact the I didn't sleep to well the night previous and had basically raced the race in my mind before the start line??
When I look at the other athletes that I regularly race with, they were all very relaxed this race....Komo had beer and pizza the night previous and recorded a 7min improvement from previous year (my standard pre race dinner), Crash hadn't trained much in the previous weeks due to work commitments, so had no expectations about the race 10 min improvement(no stress!!) Pistol had only been training where he could around renovations on his house, over 18 min pb (Congrates on making Clearwater!) and KP looked a lot more relaxed pre-race than I have seen him before. (Congrates also on Clearwater!)
So with looking back at this, how much energy did I waste in the top 6 inches??
With this in mind, I am going to revert to my "normal" pre race routine this weekend at the National Long Course Titles at Jervis Bay and hopefully ENJOY my race and let the result take care of itself.
Hopefully I have uncovered "Where my head was at".
X-Man
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Going more aero!!
I have decided that after reviewing a few pics of my riding position and having a few comments about my road bike, that I am going to set my bikes up more aero!
Above is my current position on my bike and I am going to lower my front end by 5-7mm to help into the wind. Hoping that this will not affect my running off the bike at all. Time will tell.
I will be out on my bike on sat morn to see what difference this change will make.
Any comments would be appreciated.
X-Man
Monday, February 9, 2009
Glass 1/2 Full or Glass 1/2 Empty - Geelong 70.3 Report
I write this race report with mixed feelings about my race at Geelong. The reason behind this is because I really didn't have a good race, however I was only 3 min off a PB?!?!
Swim - 28 min 25 secs PB
Ride - 2 hr 23 mins 54 secs (35th Overall - 6th Age group)
Run - 1 hr 37 mins 31 secs
Total - 4 hr 29 mins 51 secs
What a scorcher Sat was with the weather, with race registration and also the race organisers declaring that it was going to be a non-wetsuit swim. This would have suited me a treat and was happy about this fact.
Well the weather being nice and toasty on Sat night made my sleep very interrupted and therefore meaning that I was not well rested before this event.
I thought my nutrition went rather well on Saturday, however I prob had 4-5 to many beers Friday night.
Setting up my transition on Sunday morn, my pump split and had to borrow someone else's, not ideal but got the job done. The announcer said that wetsuits were going to be optional, which meant I was going to wear mine to try and swim on a level playing field as the others.
With the swim start, all the ETPA boys were going to try and use each other as an advantage in the swim as we know how each one of us swim. We were all located in a good position at the start and once the gun went off we went. The swim was definitely the roughest I have been in to date and had Princess tapping My feet to let me know he was there, which suited me as if we had got out of the swim together it would have been game on in the bike leg. I was swimming at a good pace until WHACK.........copped a nice kick to the head, don't actually know where it came from as I was arms length away from the guy in front, but geez it hurt. With this, my confidence hit rock bottom and had to pull off to the side to regain some composure. I watched as Princess swam away in to the distance and then heard Pistol yell some support in amongst his stroke. I then continued with discomfort and only managed to swim the last 1/2 in proper rhythm. I swam passed Benny Rob and Komo about 200m from the finish.
I think the swim must have been short or the current was rather strong to swim the time I did with the thump to the head.
I managed to get in and out of T1 without any hassle and mounted my bike looking to make up for lost time.
Once on my trusty rig, I saw Pistol and gave him encouragement as I passed him up the first rise. Heading out onto the course proper, I "turned on the turbos" and sat most of the first 10km sitting around 48-52km/h to try and make for lost time. Once again I was able to ride passed a lot of swimmers. On reaching the turnaround marker, the return trip was into the wind. This is where the ridiculous amount of drafting occurred. I managed to sit on 36-38km/h, with this people were drafting of me and decided to go to the front......Not just one but 5-6 who were sucking wheels harder than kids suck their dummies!! Once they hit the front, the pace dropped to the low 30's and mine to 30 trying not to be done for drafting. I continually tried to regain my tempo but the same happened over and over again. 46min 47 sec
The second lap on the bike heard my rear wheel start to rub which i later found that it was the tape covering my valve hole on my disk wheel. I repeated the above, the only difference on this lap was the different group that i managed to ride to and the torrential rain that fell for the whole lap, making conditions a lot tougher. 47min 15sec
The third lap being along the same lines as above with me riding away from the group that was drafting off me and into the group in front. 47min 42sec
I was happy with my consistent ride times and heading into transition, some muppet decided to stop 100m before the dismount area and a mate of mine Rhys Davie ran straight into him and there was a bingle. I managed to avoid this and get in and out of transition without any hiccup.
Onto the run my legs felt great and got into a good tempo for the 1st 3-4 km until my stomach decided that I hadn't punished the toilet enough before the race and had to use the facilities ( a tree) to rid of the remaining crap I had. On from this I found my run was ok for me considering my big diesel frame does not like hills to much. I ran around the same time as I did at Shepparton with the courses being nothing alike....This gave me a bit of confidence for future.
I crossed the line in just under 4hr 30min, only 3 1/2 minutes behind my Shepparton time.
With everything that went against me for the day, I am happy with the outcome.
This is the way I have assessed my race:
Preparation: 6/10
Nutrition during race: 5/10
Race performance: 7/10
Overall: 7/10
This has been the first race without a PB, something I am not used to but will put behind me and move on. From here am going to Jervis Bay for the Long Course on Feb 22nd hoping to Qualify for the World Long Course Champs.
Also: Congrates to KP & Pistol for getting a spot at Clearwater and to the other Boys who achieved a PB on the day.
For now I am going to make a few minor adjustments to my bike.
X-Man
Swim - 28 min 25 secs PB
Ride - 2 hr 23 mins 54 secs (35th Overall - 6th Age group)
Run - 1 hr 37 mins 31 secs
Total - 4 hr 29 mins 51 secs
What a scorcher Sat was with the weather, with race registration and also the race organisers declaring that it was going to be a non-wetsuit swim. This would have suited me a treat and was happy about this fact.
Well the weather being nice and toasty on Sat night made my sleep very interrupted and therefore meaning that I was not well rested before this event.
I thought my nutrition went rather well on Saturday, however I prob had 4-5 to many beers Friday night.
Setting up my transition on Sunday morn, my pump split and had to borrow someone else's, not ideal but got the job done. The announcer said that wetsuits were going to be optional, which meant I was going to wear mine to try and swim on a level playing field as the others.
With the swim start, all the ETPA boys were going to try and use each other as an advantage in the swim as we know how each one of us swim. We were all located in a good position at the start and once the gun went off we went. The swim was definitely the roughest I have been in to date and had Princess tapping My feet to let me know he was there, which suited me as if we had got out of the swim together it would have been game on in the bike leg. I was swimming at a good pace until WHACK.........copped a nice kick to the head, don't actually know where it came from as I was arms length away from the guy in front, but geez it hurt. With this, my confidence hit rock bottom and had to pull off to the side to regain some composure. I watched as Princess swam away in to the distance and then heard Pistol yell some support in amongst his stroke. I then continued with discomfort and only managed to swim the last 1/2 in proper rhythm. I swam passed Benny Rob and Komo about 200m from the finish.
I think the swim must have been short or the current was rather strong to swim the time I did with the thump to the head.
I managed to get in and out of T1 without any hassle and mounted my bike looking to make up for lost time.
Once on my trusty rig, I saw Pistol and gave him encouragement as I passed him up the first rise. Heading out onto the course proper, I "turned on the turbos" and sat most of the first 10km sitting around 48-52km/h to try and make for lost time. Once again I was able to ride passed a lot of swimmers. On reaching the turnaround marker, the return trip was into the wind. This is where the ridiculous amount of drafting occurred. I managed to sit on 36-38km/h, with this people were drafting of me and decided to go to the front......Not just one but 5-6 who were sucking wheels harder than kids suck their dummies!! Once they hit the front, the pace dropped to the low 30's and mine to 30 trying not to be done for drafting. I continually tried to regain my tempo but the same happened over and over again. 46min 47 sec
The second lap on the bike heard my rear wheel start to rub which i later found that it was the tape covering my valve hole on my disk wheel. I repeated the above, the only difference on this lap was the different group that i managed to ride to and the torrential rain that fell for the whole lap, making conditions a lot tougher. 47min 15sec
The third lap being along the same lines as above with me riding away from the group that was drafting off me and into the group in front. 47min 42sec
I was happy with my consistent ride times and heading into transition, some muppet decided to stop 100m before the dismount area and a mate of mine Rhys Davie ran straight into him and there was a bingle. I managed to avoid this and get in and out of transition without any hiccup.
Onto the run my legs felt great and got into a good tempo for the 1st 3-4 km until my stomach decided that I hadn't punished the toilet enough before the race and had to use the facilities ( a tree) to rid of the remaining crap I had. On from this I found my run was ok for me considering my big diesel frame does not like hills to much. I ran around the same time as I did at Shepparton with the courses being nothing alike....This gave me a bit of confidence for future.
I crossed the line in just under 4hr 30min, only 3 1/2 minutes behind my Shepparton time.
With everything that went against me for the day, I am happy with the outcome.
This is the way I have assessed my race:
Preparation: 6/10
Nutrition during race: 5/10
Race performance: 7/10
Overall: 7/10
This has been the first race without a PB, something I am not used to but will put behind me and move on. From here am going to Jervis Bay for the Long Course on Feb 22nd hoping to Qualify for the World Long Course Champs.
Also: Congrates to KP & Pistol for getting a spot at Clearwater and to the other Boys who achieved a PB on the day.
For now I am going to make a few minor adjustments to my bike.
X-Man
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