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!
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