Raby Bay Triathlon

What a day of sport it's been, we saw Pete Jacobs and Leanda Cave take out the Kona Ironman World Championship Titles in impressive fashion, the grueling Cooloongatta Gold and of course; race 1 of the Gatorade Queensland Triathlon Series was held at Raby Bay. 

 

 

After last years mishap en route to Raby Bay I'm pleased to be able to start this blog on a much more positive note and say that I made it to the event in one piece! The lead up wasn't without issues and I had a minor wheel incident on Saturday night when both of my race wheels refused to pump up so I was frantically driving around sourcing a spare set. Special thanks to Ryan Fisher for the lend who gave this event a miss but will be lining up next weekend in the U23 event in Auckland.

 

This race always attracts a stacked field being just two weeks out from the Noosa Triathlon and with the Auckland World Championship event being next weekend there were also a number of athletes looking to get one final hit out under their belts before flying out for the big one. I do have to thank Chris from Nike for helping me out with my entry and getting my name amongst this stellar field to hit the chilly waters of Raby Bay for the supersprint 400/15/4 event.

 

 

DAT Racing was well represented in the open fields with myself and Luke Farrell in the men's race and Holly Grice, Maddi Allen, Jodie Duff and Britt Dutton in the women's race. Several top athletes joined us including Sam Betten, Joey Lampe, Taylor Cecil, Bryce Mcmaster and Tim Berkel on then men's side and Ellie Salthouse and Kirra Seidel on the women's side of things.

 

There was little that was going to separate the field over the 400m swim and coming out of the water both the men's and women's fields were closely packed together. However the lengthy run through transition did spread everyone out somewhat and as we mounted the bike I found myself within the first handful of athletes. The pace was on from the beginning of the bike but I knew having positioned myself well out of the water and the times I've produced in training I was ready to handle it. 

 

The front group split up early on the opening lap and pleasingly I was able to bridge the gap up to Joey Lampe and Sam Betten while leaving the remainder of the group to battle it out behind us and we were able to continue to build on our gap to the field until we dismounted the bike and had established a lead of about 30 seconds and also record myself the fastest bike split for the day :). 

 

Having the quickest transition out of the three of us I hit the run course first but after approximately 1km I was passed by a very quick moving Joey Lampe who continued on to take the win while I finished in second place, just eight seconds behind in a result that I will take a lot of confidence from heading into Noosa and Shepparton in the coming weeks. Fellow DAT athlete, Luke finished in 9th position. 

 

On the women's side of things Holly matched my fastest bike split with the women's fastest bike split but was narrowly out sprinted for the victory by a mere one second to also finish in second position for the day behind Kirra Seidel. Birthday girl, Britt had a stellar performance to not only finish just off the podium in 4th position but was also ahead of one of Australia's ITU junior elite representatives! Jodie Duff was in 9th position and Maddi Allen was in 11th position. We also had a couple of our junior boys doing battle in their age groups and coming away with an impressive 2nd place was Lawrence and in 3rd place was 'hazardous' Harry.

 

 

The impressive results didn't end there as we had another group of athletes flying the DAT flag at the Bribie Island Triathlon with Tom Ryan finishing in 4th place in a feel good race and Jake Freeman in 6th in the open men's race and Sophie Maloweicki taking the win in the open women's race. Sharyn Madders slipped under the radar to not only have a win in her age group but was also the fastest female for the day.  Not to be outdone again by his wife and after a quick child minding tag-team effort Craig Madders also knocked up a win in his age group and a top 10 overall in the short course event.  Wyatt Westmoreland also took his age group win and Rob Murdoch snared a podium finish in his age group.

 

 

With the ITU Auckland World Championships being held next weekend all of the DAT representatives were in hiding for this weekend of racing but if these results are anything to go by they are sure to feature in next weeks proceedings and be at the pointy end of their races.

 

#eatclean #traindirty #racefilthy

#justbackyourself

Read More

Moreton Bay Triathlon

With Olympic Distance State Championships on the line, less than five weeks until the Auckland ITU Triathlon World Championships, the first official DAT Racing club race of the year, a couple of Olympians in the mix (namely Emma Jackson and Courtney Atkinson), Luke Farrell lining up on his brand new Specialized Venge, Courtney Dutton's last race as a 20yr old and Brittany Dutton's first big draft legal event, the Moreton Bay Triathlon had all the makings of an epic day of racing and it certainly didn't disappoint! 

But before I even begin to go through my run down of what is going to have to be a blog of epic proportions to even go close to matching that of the event itself there are a few noteworthy events that also took place over the weekend.  A few of you may have noticed Dan's absence come race day and while we all know how much he would have loved to be there his attendance was required down in Port Macquarie for the 2012 State of Origin Touch Football Competition to watch Katie 'Lewis' Atkins compete.  Unfortunately they went down 2-1 in the series but I have managed to find the highlights of their win in game 2 which is certainly worth a look.

  

The other event worth mentioning was the ITU Tongyeong World Cup where Ryan Fisher mixed it with the best for a very impressive 7th place overall and first Aussie across the line in his final lead up race before the World ITU U23 World Championships in Auckland. 

But the main event was always going to be the Moreton Bay Triathlon and with so many races containing so many DAT athletes I have carefully assessed the results pages and done my best to sum up everyones races as best as I could. 

The first event to get the day started was the sprint distance draft legal event and as would be expected DAT was well represented but had a task ahead of them with the girls having Olympian Emma Jackson to contend with and the boys coming up against Australian elite representitive Sam Betten.  Luke Farrell and Jake Freeman were in the mix early driving the pace of the chase pack on the bike in an attempt to chase down the early leader, Sam Betten who managed to extend his lead on the bike and hold on to this lead for a from the gun leading from start to finish victory with Luke finishing in 10th position and Jake in 13th position.  In the womens race it was Holly Grice and Emma Jackson opening up a solid lead throughout the swim/bike with Sarah Deuble and Brittany Dutton sitting comfortably in the chase pack.  However once they hit the pavement Emma showed her Olympic class and ran away with the victory with Sarah moving through the field to finish 4th, Britt close behind her in 6th and Holly in 7th.

The next event on the cards was the Olympic distance event and also my choosen distance for the day.  It was a bit of a different experience starting in individual age group fields.  And while this meant there was very little physical contact required to find clean water it did make it very difficult to track your progress.  Starting in the third wave, six minutes behind the first Olympic distance wave and three minutes behind training partner Tom Ryan, my goal was to not only catch him but also be first across the line but with news flowing through the grapevine that a triathlete by the name of Courtney Atkinson was lining up in the 30-34yr old age group just three minutes behind me, I would have to be on my game. 

Assessing the official timing splits I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that not only was the swim heavily tide assisted it may have been a tad under 1500m with my official split being 15:50.  There was also the slight issue of a heavy jellyfish presence for the first half of the swim with several athletes having to endure the stinging feeling for the majority of the race. 

The four lap bike course gave every athlete a great opportunity to spy their competitors and how they were tracking and every lap I was getting my splits on the gap up to Tom who was in his words 'hooking' and I had to push really hard to have any chance of closing that down.  Progressing through the 40km cycle leg the course gradually became more and more congested which was a great incentive to continue pushing past each group of athletes I came up to.  It also gave me a rare opportunity to cheer for some of my fellow DAT athletes and I was blown away by their words of encouragement for me while they were racing as well.  Unfortunately it wasn't all positive and Rob Murdoch was forced to record a DNF after puncturing late into the cycle leg.  Geoff Lemmon was in the first wave to start and was also one of the first DAThletes I passed on the bike and the last I passed on my final lap of the run as well, going on to finish in 5th place in his age-group in his preparations for the Auckland World Championships. 

Ian 'Marto' Martin was a late entry into the race and still finished 6th in his age-group with fellow competitors Dave Kelly and Simon Leeper not far behind in 8th and 9th position respectively and Richard Tareha finishing 28th in a DAT filled age group.  I do have to give Marto a special mention of thanks to for letting me borrow his disc wheel for the race on the premise that I rode fast and I think clocking 56:00 on the road and officially a 59:46 going by race timings, just over one minute clear of the next fastest cycle time and close to three minutes on Courtney Atkinson ticks that box and with so many top of the line bikes spotted out there that would rival any of the latest slowtwitch galleries it's good to see the trusty Sram Rival Malvern Star can still do the trick ;) 

Just before the completion of my cycle leg I made a quick pass on DAT newcomer, Jenna Fulton who not only had a convincing victory in her age group but also finished 5th female overall.  Starting in the same wave as Jenna was Maddi Allen who established a sizeable 2:30 out of the water in a time that I'll happily admit beat myself and probably the majority of the men out there.  Unfortunately the rest of her day didn't go to plan and while she was extending this lead on the cycle leg was stopped dead in her tracks when a spectator decided to cross the road without looking and walked right into Maddi's path.  Fortunately the damage was somewhat minor and Maddi is now nursing road rash along with six stitches in her knee while the spectator walked away uninjured and actually raced later in the day.  Obviously it is an incident that should never have occured and I hope the correct measures are not only being taken to undo any wrong doings from this incident but to also avoid this happening again in the future.  And on behalf of everyone at DAT we all wish her a speedy recovery from her injuries!

Also in the female division were Lotte Franks who finished 14th in 2:25:56 and Kate Gibney who powered home to finish 3rd in a time of 2:17:48 in their respective divisions.

As I entered transition not only did I happen to cross paths with Wyatt Westmoreland and manage to give him a bit of a rev up as he stripped out of his wetsuit in the sprint distance race (more to come later on) I also got the opportunity to give Tom a bit of a rev up as I ticked off one of my pre-race goals to catch him as he was sitting down doing up his shoe laces in a move that he now swears by but would more than embarrass any seasoned triathlete.  Needless to say there was none of that nonsense from yours truly and the Nike Lunar Racers slipped straight on, elastic laces and all and I was away!

Running out along the Ted Smout Bridge I got my first glimpse of Courtney Atkinson at the far turn around.  Lining up with Courtney Atkinson in the 30-34yr age group and ready to give him a fair run for his money was our very own Robbie Mullins and Brendan Abdy and while they may have just missed the mark on that goal still finished in times of 2:03:22 and 2:18:49 respectively.  I was running a bit scared for the majority of the run having hit the lead but then getting a glimpse of Courtney and not really knowing the time gap but I got an extra kick of motivation from Holly, Sarah, Britt, Jake and Angus with some wise words to 'just back myself' for the victory and that I did to take out the QLD Championships for my age group in a time of 1:50:15.  Unfortunately I was just pipped for overall honours by Courtney who finished a mere 47 seconds ahead of me in a time of 1:49:28.  Also finishing closely behind me was Tom Ryan in a time of 1:56:11 to win his age group and finish 10th overall.

Running in conjunction with the Olympic distance event was the sprint distance event.  As I mentioned earlier I got a chance to cross paths with Wyatt as he began his cycle after a blistering swim leg that was one of the quickest of the day and bettered the majority of the draft legal field.  He went on to finish on top of a DAT podium in his age group with Harry Sweeney finishing second and Lawrence Garufi finishing third.  I dare say the competition between these three will continue all season!  These three were outdone by two other DAThletes on the day with Dave Sangster choosing not to put himself through the Olympic distance torture to finish third in his age group and 7th overall in the sprint event.  Bettering him by a mere 31 seconds was another newcomer to the squad, Jamie Laverty.  Not only is he a newcomer to the squad but also to the sport with Moreton Bay being his first triathlon and to walk away with a win in his age group and sixth overall you couldn't really ask for much more! 

The sprint distance females were equally if not more impressive with Courtney Dutton leading from start to finish to not only win her age group by over four minutes but to also be the fastest female of the day and Sophie Malowecki also dominating her age group by four minutes and finishing as 5th fastest female of the day.

Rounding out the day for the DAT team was Hayden Barrett in the try it out event and didn't he finish it off in style!  Not only did he go on to win his age group it was also his first ever triathlon!

And that wraps up the Moreton Bay Triathlon from a DAT perspective and what a day it was!  Triathlon Queensland and the entire team involved in putting on this race did a great job and I must give a quick mention to fellow Revive Ashgrove sponsored athlete, Peter Ledwidge who wasn't out racing but was completely run off his feet putting on the event.  And while I'm at it, Christophe Manchon, another of the Revive Ashgerove sponsored athletes racing alongside Courtney Atkinson in his preparation for the upcoming Auckland World Championships.

My final special mention for the day is a general message of thanks to the entire DAT family.  With Dan's absence the tent and trailor was left up to Craig and Sharon Madders and Steve Franks and they did a remarkable job and I think everyone was very thankful for that shade and relief from the sun whenever they could and as always the atmosphere under that tent was second to none.  Secondly, another thanks needs to go out to all of the friends and family that turned up in support on the day from the likes of Aaron and Drew who were dubbed the official DAT photographers for the day to everyones families who were there at the crack of dawn until the final DAThlete crossed the line in support, in particular those parents who didn't even have anyone competing on the day and I don't think a lap on that course went by without several cheers!  And last but not least to all of the athletes who gave it their all out there on the day who will no doubt continue on to bigger and better things throughout the season.  And with several athletes now in their final preparations for the Auckland World Championships there's no better time than now to just back yourselves and get the job done...it's going to be a good season ;)

Read More

Rainbow Beach Triathlon

This is a bit of a delayed blog after last weekend's Rainbow Beach Double Triathlon but never the less well worth a read if I don't say so myself!  I was hoping a few photos might have popped up by now that I could have included but unfortunately that hasn't happened.

Rather than dwelling on what could have been after the disappointment of Yeppoon I decided to jump straight back into racing as soon as I could.  And while Dan's suggestion of packing up the car and continuing the trip north up to Airlie Beach might have seemed like a good idea and certainly would have got some decent kilometers on the car for dad, I'm not sure mum would have appreciated not having her car for the week.  Instead I made the journey to Rainbow Beach and I can safely say I have spent more than enough time driving to and from races the last two weeks!

The race was a somewhat different format from your standard race with a sprint distance race being held on the Saturday afternoon and another sprint distance on the Sunday morning.  Competitors had the option to compete in either one of the events or combining both events and adding the times together to get an overall Olympic distance winner.  I decided to do both events to make the most of an opportunity to race and with all my training aimed at the longer distances, the longer the better.

I made my way up to Rainbow Beach on Saturday morning and while the drive was a lot longer than I thought having never ventured there before the venue was supurb!  It was such a relaxed atmosphere and with the sun shining and views along the entire coast it was almost hard to get into race mode.  Checking out the race course during my warm-up I was surprised how similar the course seemed in comparison to Yeppoon from last weekend.

Swim: The swim was a point to point swim with the first 100m out through the surf and then the remainder along the shore line with the current.  More importantly the run from the water to transition; Yeppoon has what seems like a mountain of soft sand to climb when you exit the water that left even the fittest pro short of beath but I can assure you that it doesn't even compare to Rainbow Beach!  While the soft sand run may be flat, you then have to run up what seems like a never ending STEEP hill before you even get close to transition.

Cycle: Having only completed one of the five laps at Yeppoon, the Rainbow Beach course in my mind is almost identical!  It is a one lap out and back course on some handlebar rattling surfaces.  However I felt at an advantage being armed with some very useful race tips from the boys last weekend and a different wheelset while last weekends wheels remained in the naughty corner for not co-operating.

Run: I can't really comment on the run course in comparison to Yeppoon but what I can say is that is a very challenging 5km.  It is far from flat and the fact that the lead bike chose a motorised scooter option instead of the standard mountain bike

The first of the two sprint races kicked off at 3:30pm on the Saturday afternoon which only added to the relaxed atmosphere but none the less, after a fairly standard warm-up I felt ready to go.  I was one of only a few that opted against the wetsuit option, instead choosing I’d rather focus on other aspects of the race and it wouldn’t make a significant difference over the sprint distance.  The swim went off without a hitch and I was out of the water and chasing hard up the lengthy run to transition in pursuit of the leader, Ben Shaw.  With the female wave starting ahead of us I had them to pick off as well as Ben as I began the bike.  And with all the bike training I’d been doing I decided I really wanted to push the bike as hard as I possibly could and once I’d closed the gap to Ben made sure I continued to push and try and open up a gap on him.  Coming towards the end of the cycle leg I got a quick glance of my bike computer and say that my average was up at 43.5km/hr for the 20km course which had given me a decent lead starting the run.  I’d gotten the inside tip that the run course was somewhat challenging with a few hills and that was certainly right as I felt as though I was hardly moving at a few points throughout the 5km but pushed hard enough to hold off Ben for the win, very pleased with my efforts.

Following the completion of the race I made my way back to Mooloolaba for the night to save myself a few more hours of travel all the way back to Brisbane and with the Sunshine Coast Marathon being held on the Sunday was able to sneak in on some accommodation with a few of the boys having a crack at the half-marathon.  A very enjoyable dining experience at one of the local surf clubs was a great way to end the day and as disappointing as it was to not have any karaoke available it didn’t stop a few of the boys getting amongst it.  Plenty of shenanigans occurred back at the accommodation but with an early morning ahead for everyone it was all kept very tame.  And from all accounts the boys all finished the half-marathon in great shape!

Following the very early start to the day to drive back to Rainbow Beach it was an even harder task to get the body motivated to go through the warm-up routine again.  It’s safe to say the body was still feeling the effects of the previous day but that’s what I expected so no excuses!  After Saturday’s race I had decided I wanted to back the bike off a little bit and instead push the swim and the run harder than what I had and try and improve those times.  I felt as though I did push the swim much quicker Sunday morning and without Ben in the field for the morning race I was able to lead out of the water and onto the bike.  I continued to extend my lead on the bike while also being able to conserve a bit of energy in comparison to Saturday and plan how I was going to attack those hills on the run.  Right from the outset I felt as though I pushed a lot harder on the run and thankfully the data backed that up with a run split close to 30 seconds quicker than the previous day.  I crossed the line in first place again and with two wins from two starts I also took out the Olympic Distance category.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to stick around and enjoy what Rainbow Beach had to offer, instead having to race back to Brisbane for the day job to pay the bills!  But I did drive away very satisfied with what I achieved for the weekend and after the disappointment of Yeppoon gave me an opportunity to race and see where my race fitness is at and what I can work on over the next few weeks in the lead up to my next race.

Read More

Ironman 70.3 Yeppoon: Take the good with the bad

This is far from the race report I thought I’d be writing but as unfortunate as it is that’s racing for you and you have to take the good with the bad!

I made my way up to Yeppoon for my first serious crack at professional long distance racing, Ironman 70.3 style.  All my training has been geared around this longer style of racing and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a massive amount of confidence into this race but at the same time knew I was stepping into the unknown over the 1.9km of swimming, 90km of cycling and 21.1km of running with some very seasoned professionals lining up alongside me.

After close to nine hours of travelling I arrived at the resort and was very happy to put the car in the car-park and get out of it!  And always being able to count on dad to look for the positives in the trip I did clock up over 1500km on the car for them going there and back!

For anyone who hasn’t been to Yeppoon before it is one of the most relaxed race atmospheres I have had the pleasure of travelling to and the resort accommodation certainly aids this. 

Fast forward to Sunday morning and the nerves had definitely crept in after all the encouraging messages from friends and family back home and finally dawning on me how far I had to go!  But nevertheless confidence was high and I knew the training was under my belt and the performance was inside me.  And as someone very wise told me a few days earlier, ‘the future belongs to those that believe in the beauty of the dreams,’ or more simply put and what I would almost call the DAT Racing motto; ‘just back yourself.’

Standing on the start line with the likes of Sam Betten, Tim Reed, Joey Lampe, Matty White and Mitch Anderson I can honestly say didn’t daunt me in any way and as soon as the gun went off it was on.  I got a great start and found my height to be a great advantage out to the first turning buoy and quickly settled onto the feet of the guy in front of me.  I knew from an early stage that the likes of Sam and Joey would be leading the way but felt as though I was in a great position for what was ahead of us.  Exiting the water there were three athletes ahead of us including Sam Betten, Joey Lampe and Matt Bailey but I was in a great position starting the bike in a group containing John Polson, Matty White and Tim Reed.  We all settled into what I thought was a very comfortable rhythm for the 90km ride and coming to the end of the first of five laps on the bike we had reeled in both Joey and Matt and had just Sam ahead of us.  Unfortunately that is where my day came to an unfortunate end when I punctured just 25km into the cycle leg and was unable to repair the damage.  To say I was disappointed would be a huge understatement as I was in what I considered to be the perfect position and was feeling fantastic but at the end of the day that’s racing and there was absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent it.  Still wanting to get something from the weekend I did go out and run a half-marathon once I’d made my way back to my hotel room and am very satisfied with the time I produced.

Full credit must go to the boys who battled it out for the win.  Sam continuing to extend his lead on the bike to almost four minutes when he started the run but he couldn’t quite hold off a very fast moving Tim Reed for the win but did still finish second with Matty White rounding off the podium in third.

Massive congratulations must go to training partner and roomie for the weekend, Robbie Mullins who was also racing his first 70.3 and finished a very impressive 13^th in his age category and rumor has it he has caught the Ironman 70.3 bug and is already looking into his next one!

Not to dwell too much on what could have been I am now looking to take advantage of the good form I have and am looking at a few races within the next few weeks so say tuned!

Read More

Revive

I am very pleased to announce that I have renewed my partnership with Revive Ashgrove and will be continuing to work with them over the coming 6 months.  Reading back over the blog I wrote 6 months ago when I first started working with Revive (Time to  get revived!) I can safely say that they have done an amazing job in going above and beyond their mission statement:

To provide first class Physiotherapy, Pilates and complimentary services to our clients in a professional, holistic and nurturing environment.  To empower our clients with the skills and knowledge to make significant changes to their health and wellbeing.

And I am excited to have the opportunity to continue this and with some big races planned over the next 6 months hopefully some big results will follow!

We had our athlete induction last Saturday and it was great to catch up with the other athletes that are also lucky enough to be a part of this program and among them are some very well established triathletes, swimmers, track and field athletes, cyclists, rock climbers and kayakers. 

Personally it was also my introduction to yoga and while I may have felt somewhat uncoordinated, smashing out a five hour training session the next day not only means that I will surely be back doing this again but gives me great confidence going into the Yeppoon Ironman 70.3 next weekend.

Instead of me raving on about how good I think these guys are and what they have done for me I thought I'd try something a bit different and also keep it brief on my behalf and provide you with a few links to some other blogs of some new athletes to the program and what they think so far. 

http://peterledwidge.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/revive-studios-athlete-sponsorship.html

http://michaelsheil.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/partnership-with-revive-ashgrove.html

So be sure to check out their blogs and see what they have to say about Revive and what they can do for you and if you're interested in finding out anything else to do with them head to www.revivestudio.com.au or get in contact with myself or any of the other sponsored athletes!



Read More

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 Ocean Swim & Half-Marathon.  It is safe to say that my competitive spirit has been pushing hard to escape from the day to day training routine, especially when I've had to sit back and watch some truly outstanding results from my training partners in recent weeks!  Without going into too much detail Ryan Fisher has been producing some outstanding results over in Europe and I can't wait to get into a solid block of training with him when he returns home this week and also Luke Farrell, Emily Bevan and Holly Grice have just returning from Japan where Luke produced a solid 14th and both Emily and Holly blew everyone away with a 5th and 7th place respectively.  To put this into perspective not only was it Holly's first ever Olympic distance race and Emily's second, it was also their first big international event and with the little running Emily has been able to do she still clocked an impressive 38:39!  Inspiring results would be an understatement but I won't go giving you too many more details but if you do want to read about that trip be sure to check out Holly's write-up!

These results have left my dying to get out there myself and yesterday I got the chance to do so at the Redcliffe Jetty 2 Jetty Half-marathon.  This event has fond memories for me as I managed to get the win at last year's event.  And with all of my training now focusing on the longer distance aspect of triathlon in preparation for my next race which will be the Ironman Yeppoon 70.3 I was really excited to see what I could do and how it would compare.

I took a lot of confidence into this race with the knowledge I gained of the course from last year and also all of my times from training indicating that I could infact better my time from last year.  However there is always an element of unknown in any competition and even more so when the race is of any significant distance and in my opinion 21.1km is a significant distance!

As the starting gun went off I went straight to the front but also tried to control myself knowing that the race is never won in the opening 200m uphill stretch.  I was trying as hard as I could to listen out for any footsteps around me to see if anyone had come with me but not able to hear anything and not wanting to let the rest of the field know I really wanted to see what the situation was I kept pushing on in as controlled a manor as I could.  I was counting off the km's to the far end of the course making sure to stay on top of my fluid and nutrition intake because from last year's experience I knew the hardest part of the course was out and around the jetty into a solid headwind just after the half way turn around.  It was at the turn around that I got a good look at where everyone else was and after having a number of spectators cheering me on and saying I had a good lead, the second place runner was a lot closer than I would have liked.  Similar to last year I made a distinct effort to increase my pace around the jetty to try and increase this lead.  As tough as the next 9km were with the wind picking up as the minutes ticked away it was made a little bit easier with all of the fantastic support out there on the course from not only all of the volunteers and spectators but also all of the other half-marathon and 10km runners that were out on course at the same time.  I crossed the finish line in first place in a time of 1:12:52 which was a little bit slower that what I was hoping for but still quicker than last year and with the tough conditions out there I can't complain and walk away very happy.

It does mean that neither myself or any of the girls at Revive Ashgrove won our little bet on what time I would run, me predicting 1:11:00 and them predicting 1:10:00 but it's safe to say that the time could have been a lot different if I didn't have the expertise of such a great team of physios and pilates instructors behind me.

And while I'm not so subtly dropping a few sponsors and supporters names I have to mention Compressport.  While it may not seem like such a big deal this is the first time I have walked away from a half-marathon without a single blister on my foot!  I won't go into detail about how bad my feet have looked but for anyone out there that has any trouble with blisters I highly recommend giving their socks a try, they are amazing!

And finally, the DAT Racing team; while we may have had a small contingent in the race today the results speak for themselves.  Robbie Mullins and Tom Ryan backed up from their leisurely run at the Gold Coast Half-Marathon to record a 1:21:05 and 1:22:37 respectively to finish second and third in their categories and both inside the top 10.  Geoff Lemmon also improved on his performance from last year to not only go quicker but to also win his age category and Jamie Hanelt finished off the all male half-marathon contingent or MOD Squad to finish spot on his pre-race predicted time.

In the 10km event Sarah 'dibble' Deuble finished a solid 2nd place behind one of Australia's most well known distance runners and Brayden Tucker cruised what looked to be an easy 10km but upon discussion that smile may have been hiding a world of hurt on the little training he has been doing lately and Brendan Abdy was pushed all the wa to the finish by his wife to record a PB.

In the 5km event we were only represented by Sophie Malowiecki but when she can run a course record 18:23 to blitz the girls field and finish 4th overall what else do we need!

Their support is always greatly appreciated as was the support of Dan, Emily and Holly who while they may not have been competing were still out their riding the course supporting not only me but the entire DAT squad and it was great to swap a few stories with everyone following the event.

Now that I've let that competitive spirit out for a day it is straight back to the day to day training routine for another 35 days in the lead up to Ironman Yeppoon 70.3 :)

Read More

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.

Just last week I was invited to be the guest speaker at the Brisbane State High School cross-country awards night dinner that was held last night and on somewhat short notice I put together my speech but on all reports I passed with flying colours so I thought I'd share my 'words of inspiration and wisdom' with you:

I was really struggling for what I was going to talk about to all of you tonight until about half way through training this morning.  And having been given some direction on what to talk about, this morning’s session was perfect!  My alarm went off at 3:55am this morning and I was out the door and on my bike by 4:30am and trust me the 5ºc weather didn’t make it any easier but after my car was involved in a car crash 2 weeks ago it has been my only way of getting around and I had to meet the rest of my training group at 5:30am.  We were doing an 80km loop around the north side of Brisbane and with the extra riding I had to do, I was looking at close to 130km for the morning.  Within the first two hours I’d already had 3 punctures and was close to wanting to call a taxi and call it a day!  For anyone that has had to change a tyre they will know that it’s never much fun especially when it is down to about 3ºc but after having to resort to using a muesli bar wrapper (a common cyclists trick) to cover the gash I’d only found after the third puncture we continued on and not only did I get the 130km done but I also rode close to the quickest I’ve ever ridden for the 20km time-trial section in the middle!  It was this persistence and resilience that not only got me through this session but also what I have achieved thus far in this sport.

I’ve always found quotes to be somewhat cliché but after having heard this one a while back it has just stuck with me and regularly pops into my head during sessions or days when it all just seems too much;

“It’s not about how many times you fall down, it’s about how many times you get back up.”

You’re all here tonight because of your achievements in cross country this season and I applaud all of your efforts, many of which trump a lot of my performances throughout my schooling and the exciting thing for many of you is that the best is likely yet to come.  Personally it wasn’t until grade 12 when I made my first Queensland team for athletics and my first Australian team was my first year out of high school in 2005.  In fact the furthest I ever went for cross country was regionals so a lot of you have a healthy head start on me!

2008 was my second Australian World Championship team which was held over in Canada.  Canada is one of the best places I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to but racing in 5ºc and rain isn’t!  I finished 33^rd in that race but one year down the track, a change in squads and coaches and most importantly a completely different mindset I finished 4^th in my category and 10^th overall at the 2009 World Championships on the Gold Coast

It was after Worlds in 2009 that I was given the opportunity to race professionally and have been ever since and have raced in a number of national championships as well as international events all around Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada and USA.  And at the end of the 2010/2011 season I was ranked 168^th in the world after some of my best results which included a 6^th place at the ITU Continental Cup in Devonport and 20^th place at the ITU Oceania Championships in Wellington and 12^th place at the ITU Oceania Cup in Mooloolaba where I actually lead the race up until the 4km mark of the run.

I went into the beginning of this season full of confidence and looking to improve on the last and everything started off really well at the Noosa Triathlon where I finished 14^th, just behind Chris McCormack and ahead of Courtney Atkinson.  Unfortunately the next series of races didn’t go to plan and my results were well off what I thought I was capable of.  And being a rather emotional person each of these results got a little bit harder to deal with and in a sense I was searching for answers because in actual fact I was training better than ever before and my training times were just not being reflected in races.  In a bit of a last ditch attempt to gain something from the season I headed up to a race in Hervey Bay where I ended up having my best race all season to finish 5^th in a really quality field, only just narrowly being beaten by Pete Jacobs who was runner up to Craig Alexander at the Hawaiian World Ironman Championship last October.  Not only did this result give me the confidence that training was in fact on track but also made my mind up on what direction I am now heading in.  I’ve decided to now focus on the Ironman 70.3 distance (1.9km swim, 90km cycle, 21km run) and my first race of this distance will be in Yeppoon on August 19^th and I’m actually more excited than ever about entering for me the unknown!

And just before I finish I’d like to leave you with a couple of quotes or mottos.  The first is my coach’s motto and however simple it is, is something that he has instilled in me and something I strongly believe should be followed by not only anyone chasing the elite athlete dream but with any significant goal in life;

"PERFORMANCE THROUGH PERSISTANCE"

The second is a phrase that a few of us came up with at training and believe it or not I actually have written on a piece of strapping tape and stuck to the handlebars of my bike.  It’s three simple words but when it all comes down to it, if you chip away at your goals with persistence and bounce back from whatever setbacks you may face the results will come.  And that phrase is;

"JUST BACK YOURSELF"

Read More