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| I'm going to blame a lack of caffeine for the delayed report... |
The beautiful city of Busselton hosted the 3rd race in the Telstra Tri Series. This was the first year that Busselton were
hosting this race with it having been in Mandurah previously.
With Busselton being 200kms south of Perth we decided to
make the most of a very generous offer by my parents to have the two boys
overnight and head down, just the two of us, the day before. Yup child free and
I was still in bed before 10pm on a Saturday night…the high life of triathlon
hey!
We stayed in a very nice little guest house and for the first time in our married life
together we slept apart in single beds…I will abstain from comment regarding
how high the quality of my sleep was on the grounds of risking my wellbeing at
home J
We scoped out the race location on the Saturday when we
had to go to packet pick up and I am glad we did as there has been so much
development there that the sat nav in the car had not caught up…it had us
driving across channels that have been cut in the development of the marina…not
the best move sat nav. After we collected the race number etc we decided to
drive the cycle leg of the race. What was really cool was we found a beach that
we had all to ourselves and we chilled there for 20mins with not a care in the
world! Needless to say I would need/use that happy thought the next day!
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| Managed to find a spot to hang out! |
Sunday morning – RACE DAY BABY!
No need for the alarm, strangely there rarely is on race
day mornings. A quick breakfast of my traditional porridge and we were off to
setup. There was a fair bit of congestion once we got close to the venue but
nothing to get overly stressed about. As usual we were there with a fair amount
of time to spare (I couldn’t cope with being late or even “on time”) so I made
my way through body marking and transition set up easily and painlessly.
The swim – 1.5km – 26:53
This was through the marina and was a fairly convoluted
course. All up there were 10 turn buoys. Given that they had announced that it
was not wetsuit legal when it came to the swim course description a few
people were over it and I witnessed a couple of grumpy strops being had.
I actually enjoyed the swim. I felt that I swam really
strong and was pleased that I caught stragglers from the two age groups ahead
of mine. I do however need to get some anti-fog stuff for my goggles as some of
the sighting proved difficult.
The ride – 40km – 1:19:35
Out of the water and into transition I was going well. I
took a little extra time in transition to
Then after my nap I was out onto the course. The first
100 metres were great then I made the left turn and BOOM…the wind!! Holy Cow it
was windy. Put it this way my first 5km out of town was in 10:40 and the 5km
back into town was 8:20! The problem was that the way the course was designed
it meant that we had a head or cross wind for the first 15kms and then a slight
tail/cross wind for the last 5 (TWICE).
It was passing the beach from the day before that I was
able to draw upon the happy 20mins and jokes/dreams of building a holiday home
on the vacant lot that was now acting as a funnel for the howling gale
wind that was buffering us. I ended up pacing with a chap who said he
recognised me from the Hillarys race and he kept me going for the two laps
(no…not drafting but we kept leapfrogging each other and pulling each other
along…thanks for that mate!).
Fuelling, I had a cereal bar (cut in half), some shot
blocks and a gel. I also had one bottle of water and the other of sports mix.
My thoughts were to have the sports mix every other 5km and the water and food
in between. Well I messed up. I nearly choked on the cereal bar, only had half
of the shot blocks and got the burps from the sports mix…So I took the uneaten
gel with me on the run.
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| Choking on the cereal bar part 1...but still smiling |
The learning from the ride is that I REALLY NEED areo
bars for my bike and I have to work on my fuelling solution.
The run – 5km – 1:00:40
After another really long transition (2:39! Seriously no
idea!) I was glad to be out of the wind and onto the run course. The issue I
had is that I think I put a little too much into the ride. The learning here is
not to grind so much and to spin the legs out before I have to start using them
on the ride. It was at this time I was regretting the pacing work with the chap
on the ride.
The run course was a two lap out and back that wound its
way around the suburban streets of the marina. I really hope that they change
the run course next year as I think this was the only thing really that let the
event down a little.
The run – I didn’t enjoy. I was having to dig deep to
keep in a positive mindset and there were more than a couple of walks had
during it. I was spent, between the wind and the poor fuelling I was all in. It
was a learning however and I will take that away from it.
My awesome wife popped up at several locations on the
ride and run and that was such a help I cannot even begin to comment. Just
knowing/suspecting that she would be waiting anxiously for me around a bend
definitely keep me moving forwards. Plus I had to smile for the camera,
regardless of how shattered I looked/felt.
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| MUST SMILE for the camera... |
Finished in 2:52:43 and was very pleased to be done and
equally pleased with my first Olympic effort. I went into the race hoping for a
sub 3 and secretly hoping for anything that started 2:4x. But it wasn’t to be.
I was foiled by one heck of a wind and by the longest transitions in the
history of time (that I still can’t fathom)!
I have been able to gain a lot of confidence from this
race, in dealing with the elements, coping with the distances, my mindset and a
few learning’s that I now have time to work on. Definitely glad to have had
this opportunity early on to race at this distance. The next longest race I
will have will be the Karri Valley Tri (KVT) which will be a 1.5/60/12 and word
has it that there are a couple of hills along the way! Woo hoo!
Finally, thanks to my amazing wife for her support and my
awesome parents for having the boys for us.
Thanks for reading…
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