September 12, 2009: Age Group World Championships, Australia
Pre-Race
I got to the race site early... Earlier than intended due to not being able to sleep with my HR buzzing at 70bpm while I was lying in bed (this was 5:00am). It has been a long time since race day nerves have kept me from sleep. Being there early proved to be beneficial though, as I was not having to run to the start line seconds before the race start like my last race. I was able to set up all my gear and have a final walkthrough of transition before setting off to drop off my post-race gear bag. On my way to the swim start I met up with Mike Janes who was just dropping off his gear bag. I was very much looking forward to having another race with Mike, and although we were not directly competing it is always good to have a little friendly rivalry on race day.
Mike and I got to the start line/area early and were able to have a little pre-race swim warm up. I pretty well never do any warm up before race, but I needed something to keep me occupied before the start. Being in that water was amazing! I have never really swam in salt water, and certainly not in a wet suit. I only swam a couple hundred meters, and at a very slow pace, but even swimming slowly I felt like a rocket ship.
After getting out of the water I realised that I had put my goggles on with the strap on the outside of my swim cap. I knew that the swim was going to be violent and I certainly did not want to have my goggles knocked off so I put my cap on over my goggle strap and left my goggles resting on my forehead. When we were corralled into the start area, in an effort to be strategic, I made sure to line up on the start line at a point that was almost the furthest from the first swim buoy. In doing this I expected that the majority of the swimmers as well as the faster swimmers would line up in a closer spot allowing me to have a less hostile swim start. However, in lining up early I ended up with having people lined up on either side of me and two rows deep behind me (exactly the situation I was trying to avoid, and I was having to swim further to boot). And then we were ready...
Swim 23:41
As we were given the 1 minute to start I pulled my goggles on that had been resting on forehead only to realise that in the heat they had fogged so badly that I couldn't even see the first buoy. I gave them a quick wipe, but it hardly helped... "oh, well" I thought to myself "I guess I'll just be following feet." And then it all began. 110 race driven athletes thrown into a washing machine (or at least that's what it felt like). In the first 50 meters I swam over at least two people and had one or two swim over me, and it was not until after the first swim buoy that I was no longer in contact with one swimmer or another. It was also not until that point that I was aware of pacing. I had been swimming pretty hard for the last several hundred meters and I needed to fall into a more comfortable pace. I found some feet to follow and set into a more relaxed swim.
All was going well until I saw what I thought was the turn buoy for the swim finish. I did not realise that this was not the swim finish until after I had swam over someone and ended up 25 meters to the inside of the swim loop with no one else around. I quickly changed directions but the rest of the swim it turned out I would have to swim on my own.
T1 1:39
I am always happy to finish the swim portion of the race, and it was no different in this race, but T1 was a real up hill battle. Quite literally as we exited the water we had to run up a steep sand bank, which made the transition from swimming to running harder than it normally is, and this hill was followed up by a very long run through the largest transition area I've ever seen. Other than the long run however transition went very smooth I would have liked to have had my shoes already clipped to my pedals, but I still need to practice that.
Bike 1:01:28
It was time to start making up some ground, unfortunately it took between 5 and 8 km to really settle into my groove. Perhaps I need to work on my swim bike transitions because this is becoming a trend. However, once I found my biking legs I started to make good time. I was passing a lot of cyclists and as I passed a rider who was close to my speed he dropped in behind me. Despite trying to drop him he continued to hold on, and as I passed a few more cyclists the ones who could also dropped in behind me. Before long I had a draft pack of 8 or so riders, and the group started to cycle. I made an effort to always pull off to one side or another whenever I was passed so as to not draft, but in some of the tighter sections of road I had no choice. I also made a few efforts to break off the front off the pack, but it never resulted in anything.
Somewhere around the beginning of the second 20 km lap an official motorbike found our group and tried to break it up. I saw one guy get a penalty and he had to pull over to the side of the road, but mostly people were just being told to drop back when they were passed. I was told to drop back at one point, which was very frustrating, because I had been working hard to not be drafting, and once you drop back other bikers in the group pass you and you have to drop back from them.
Normally I love the bike and would stay on for longer if given my choice, but between the thin sham in the tri suit making me a little saddle sore and having to fight the draft pack I was glad to finally be rolling into transition.
T2 1:05
Second transition also had a long run, but it too was smooth and it was not long before I was out on the run course.
Run 40:29
My legs were definitely feeling a little spent as I had worked very hard on the bike. But for the first few km I felt like I had a good flow to my run so I went with it. Unfortunately this only got me through to about 3km or so, but I had seen Kamal, Mike and a few others I knew near the 1st turn around and seeing them helped to keep me going. It was relatively hot out and I could feel that despite my effort to keep the pace up I was flagging. km 6-9 were slow, but I was able to find one more gear for the last km and even a final sprint down the chute to finish the race.
Total time 2:08:24
I was absolutely spent. I felt like I had had a decent race, and I knew that I had put in a good bike time, but it would be days before I found out what my actual results were.
Finally I had posted a semi-decent swim time. I guess my lake swims after work really did pay off. Of course swimming in salt water and swimming with a wetsuit didn't hurt either. I will need to continue to work on the swim as I know I can still make up a lot of ground here. But for this year it couldn’t have gone better. I cut 3 and a half minutes from my previous best swim time. I was averaging 1:35 per 100m!
My bike split was great, far better than it has ever been. I had hoped to crack the hour mark, but it looks like I will have to save that for another race.
My transitions were, of course, longer than I would have liked due to being such a big transition area. In fact I thought the transition was what was going to stop me from hitting my goal time of going sub 2:10:00 for the race. That being said, I thought both transitions were very good, I felt smooth and under control.
The run was the only part of my race that I was not ecstatic about. I did run a pb for triathlon as I was about 9 seconds faster than my prior best, but I was hoping for and expecting to do a sub 40min run. All the same it wasn’t bad considering how hard I pushed on the bike, and the heat on the run.
All in all, a well executed race, and a new pb by almost 7 min!
It was great to have the huge crowds out cheering for everyone, and it was encouraging to hear Go Canada! in the cheers. It was too short a trip, as I would have liked to have seen more of Australia, but it was a great race.
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