Jetty 2 Jetty 2012

It has been a while between drinks and by drinks I mean races and by a while I mean 70 days since I have been in any sort of competition with my last event being the Noosa Winter Festival

BSHS Awards Night Speech

Over my years I've attended plenty of sports awards dinners and heard even more guest speakers at numerous different events. Being the guest speakers is always an honor but it isn't without nerves that you get up infront of an unknown audience to share what you feel are words of wisdom and inspiration in the hope that the audience take something positive away from it.

DAT Awards Night 2012: The Main Event

I feel ample time has passed since I posted DAT Awards Night 2012: The Prequel that it is now time to move on to the main event. But for anyone out there unaware of the enormity of this event check out what went down at the 2011 DAT Awards Night and try to get your heads around the fact that this years edition was hyped up so much that we had club members flying home from holidays just so they could make the event and even athletes from other clubs putting themselves through the torture of a weeks training with us just to attend this event!

Bryton Cardio 35 Review - Oceania Bicycles

Training with GPS is almost considered standard practice these days and it is becoming an ever more competitive market with the number of new products hitting stores on a regular basis. And for anyone who follows this blog, you will know that on the bike my preferred method of data collection is via the use of my Bryton Rider 50T.

DAT Awards Night 2012: The Prequel

The DAT Awards Night may have been and gone for 2012 but after the wrap I gave it last year I thought I had to do the same again for this year. But even before I get into that I will tempt your tastebuds with what could only be described as one of the most hyped up speeches for the evening!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Australian Sprint Champs

The weekend just gone was the Australian Elite Sprint Championships down in Geelong and as almost every race has gone so far this season we were greated with some unusual weather.  The mens race was scheduled for Saturday afternoon and even before that got close there were rumors of the event being changed to a duathlon after the downpoor of rain on Friday night washing debris and contaminted floodwaters into the bay we were due to swim in.  Never the less we did the usual morning training session around the bay checking out both the bike and run courses and I was feeling really good.  Even though there were no significant hills in the course I knew it would be tough because we were exposed to a fair bit of wind for a majority of the bke course.  And anyone that was there would be able to tell you that this wind continued to intensify throughout the day. 

By lunchtime the conditions were incredible, people were finding it tough to stand still without being blown by the wind and the entire race set-up had either been blown over or cleverly moved to avoid it being blown away.  And just as I was sitting down to eat we got the call that all the events for the day had been cancelled and rescheduled to the Sunday depending on the weather conditions because it was deemed to dangerous to have us on the bike course in the conditions.

Fortunately we had a late night flight on the Sunday so the change wouldn't affect us but there were a few people that unfortunately couldn't change their flights so had to leave Geelong without even racing.  Take two of the race preparation began all over again almost as soon as we found out and it was back to our rooms to begin conserving energy again and going through basically the exact same routine as we had the day before.

Come Sunday conditions had improved significantly and not only would we get to race but because there hadn't been any more rain it would actually be a triathlon.  Funnily enough I almost felt more prepared on the Sunday. 



The 750m was fast right from the start and with 300m until the first can everyone was trying to get there first for best position.  I found myself getting held up a bit at the can and lost a few positions and as I exited the water I found myself in a long stream of athletes.  It split up on the bike and I found myself in the third main pack with plenty of work to do and fortunately everyone in the pack was willing to work and by about halfway through the 20km bike it had all come together apart from a small group not far ahead of the rest of us.  Although it doesn't mean much in draft legal racing I was pleased when I saw the results and I'd had the fastest bike split of the day.  However I think I paid for these efforts a bit once we hit the 5km run.  As could be expected Brad Kahlefeldt set a cracking pace and ended up running 14:38 for the 5km!  I finished the race in 20th place and am pleased with my result but at the same time I can walk away having learnt a lot to put into practice in my training to help improve further in races to come. 


I have 3 weeks now before my next race which is the ITU Oceania Championships in Wellington but in the meantime I'll be starting my postgraduate studies at The University of Queensland completing a Graduate Diploma in Education, which when paired with my training schedule won't leave me with much time for anything else!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Kinloch Tri

So it's been well over a week since my last blog and my promise to update this with a race report from Kinloch while I was over there clearly didn't eventuate.  And with a big week of travel, training and organising uni and race plans I am only now getting a chance to sit down and write all about it.

Last Thursday I began my journey to Kinloch and it wasn't the smoothest start with an hour delay in Brisbane Airport followed by another hour sitting on the plane on the tarmac while they tried to sort out some issues with everyone's bags, all before we'd even taken off for Auckland!  The three hour drive from Auckland to Taupo was supposed to be nice and scenic but because of the delays there wasn't too much to see driving through the night.  Eventually after eight hours travelling I made it to my accommodation and well and truely looking forward to a good nights sleep.  Unfortunately sleep is somewhat difficult staying in a street with three backpacker hotels and seven different bars!
Because the race wasn't until Sunday afternoon the next few days were spent doing a little bit of sightseeing but mainly the standard pre-race preparation and spending a fair bit of time just laying low in my room.
Warming up before the race and the days prior I knew it would be a tough race, not only because of the athletes in the field but also because of the very hilly and technical bike and run courses but I was feeling good and ready to go.  Lining up on the startline ranked 16th, I had in the back of my mind that if I could finish better than my ranking I'd be pleased.

The swim was a non-wetsuit lake swim so there was little that could go wrong but unfortunately I wasn't as quick as what I wanted or needed to be and found myself in a small group almost 30 seconds off the front pack as we got on the bike.  With the nature of the bike course there were a lot of smaller groups as people went between groups either forwards or backwards as the hills got tougher on each of the five laps.  As we came in to transition we were almost two minutes behind the front group and clearly not the most ideal place to be with only 5km to run.  Having one of the top 10 fastest runs I managed to make up some positions but only as far as to finish 16th.  Finishing the same position as my race ranking I was pleased, with what I would consider an average result while there is still plenty of room for improvement in coming races.
And with the Australian Elite Sprint Distance Championships on this weekend down in Geelong I don't have to wait long for another opportunity.  Training has been going really well and I am even posting some of the fastest run times I ever have and with a small taper before the race on Saturday afternoon I should be nice and fresh and ready to fire come race time.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Stroke and Stride

I'm currently sitting in my hotel room in Taupo, New Zealand in preparation for my next race this Sunday which is the Kinloch ITU Sprint Triathlon Oceania Cup.  This is the first chance I've had to sit down and update this blog all week and with no less than 7 rowdy bars and 3 backpacker hotels within 100m of my room this is how I'm planning on distracting myself from what is going on just outside my window!

Last Sunday saw the second race of the new Stroke and Stride series held on the Sunshine Coast.  Not being known as a triathlon club to take the easy option we again decided to ride up to the event from Brisbane similar to what we did for the first event.  Fortunately the weather started off a lot nicer than last time and we had a much bigger group of about 15 riding up there.  About 95km later, a fair amount of rain to deal with, three punctures (all to the same unfortunate person!), one crash about 5km from our final destination and a more than solid 34km/hr average we made it to Kawana.  To put this into perspective here is the map and details from the first time we did this ride just three weeks earlier:


And here is the link to the ride from this weekend:



A 95km ride before a race was always going to hurt but doing it that much faster than the previous time was always going to produce some interesting race results.  This time the race was run over a 1km swim and a 4km run.  It was also good to see that the field had more than doubled from the first race and all the guys at the Sunshine Coast putting the race on are obviously doing a good job.  The opening 1km swim comprised two 500m loops with a small run along the beach between laps and coming out of the water at the end of one lap there was a small group of about 5 of us in the lead.  We got a bit caught up in the second lap as we caught some of the slower women who had started after us and coming out of the water Ron Darmon had about a 10 second lead to me and three other guys. 


Unfortunately it was here that I first started feeling the ride and had some painful cramps all through my quads and I thought I was literally going to have to jog the run just to make it to the finish line.  It wasn’t until about 500m into the run when the three guys I came out of the water with all went past me with ease that I started to feel a bit better and just decided I had to go no matter how much it was hurting. 


I managed to bridge the gap to all but the leader who had taken off at an incredible pace and had established a comfortable gap on the rest of us.  By the end of the run I was again feeling the cramps coming on but by this stage I had established a gap on the other guys I was running with to be able to maintain my position to the finish.  Full credit also to training partner Brayden Tucker who finished in third spot just behind me and every other DAT member that rode up and raced and also to those who just did the race and helped make a very tough training day all the more enjoyable.


As I said at the beginning this race was more of a training session in the lead up to this Sunday’s ITU Continental Cup in Kinloch and I’ll be sure to get this blog updated as soon as I can while I’m over here.

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