I'm a little bit light on pictures for this blog but I hope you enjoy the read anyway, I certainly had a great time not only competing in this race but also writing this blog because it was all a lot of fun.
The biggest race on the triathlon calendar has been and gone and for those unaware of the greatness of this event it was even enough to bring Dan The Comeback King out of retirement and step up to the plate to fill the void left by Tom after his withdrawal to pursue his tertiary education, being the scholar he is. The BRW Corporate Triathlon is of course the event on everyone’s lips and for those of you who weren’t fortunate enough to witness this marvellous event here is a run down of the happenings, or at least those that are appropriate, because as the saying goes; “what happens on tour stays on tour!”
Pre-race tactics are hugely important for an event of such prestige and especially with every team member having to complete the gruelling distances of a 400m swim, 10km cycle and 4km run. The question everyone was asking was what would the all-important relay order be? After much discussion and deliberation it was decided that Brayden would lead off with Dan holding the team together in second place and Nick to bring it home, while Mark Tucker would lead off the other team and team and weekend leader Craig would follow him before handing off to Courtney to finish it off.
Almost as important as the team tactics is the trash talk and being separated by 24min in the wave starts there was going to be no way of knowing overall positions and even though the odds were very favourable for Brayden, Dan and Nick to claim top spot on the podium, the odds were heavily against them to make up the 24min to catch and pass Mark, Craig and Courtney. But with Dan firing himself up on the Friday night with the standard 30min pre-race run with efforts followed by a bottle of one of Italy’s finest reds to ensure a sound sleep before the destruction of the earth, anything was possible.
Dan will attest to the fact that QGC provided us with some outstanding 2XU custom race suits for the occasion and was even happy to model it for all of us but it was Mark who was the first to test its capability in the water and he got his team off to a marvellous start down at the SeaWorld Spit. Brayden didn’t get his chance to begin the chase until Mark was almost dismounting his bike and with the corporate triathlon world crowding the course he would have it all against him to weave his way through and make up as much time as possible. Handing over to Craig, Mark’s job for the morning was done and similarly Brayden led his wave from start to finish and handed over to Dan to continue the destruction. The time gap was closing quickly but with no idea on how any other teams were travelling it was head down all the way to the finish and as Craig handed over to the team spearhead Courtney and Dan handing over to Nick, the gap had been significantly closed and Courtney was running scared. The all important visual out on the bike course showed that the gap was closing quickly but still with close to a 5min lead Courtney looked to have it covered and at the last run turn around Courtney still had a 1km gap and was able to enjoy the glory as she ran down the finishing shoot and even had time to make her way around the barricades and share the moment with her team as Nick stormed down the finishing shoot himself.
The results are currently being queried, which we are all sure is due to the speed at which Brayden, Dan and Nick were travelling but on all accounts they finished a close second behind another all-star team. The 24min gap proved just enough for Mark, Craig and Courtney and also earned themselves a top 15 finish in an event with well over 1500 teams.
Post-event is where the real racing began and it was straight to the 56th floor of the Q1 building to check in to our penthouse for the evening. Almost more chat was being thrown around about the evening’s events and with a much needed trip to the surf club to re-fuel the 6 finely tuned athletes it was time to enjoy some beverages and reflect on our experiences. The addition of the third team for the evening including none other than Ryan Fisher, Tom Ryan and Sarah Deuble made for more shenanigans including some of the finest Keith Urban renditions, some brilliantly constructed paper airplanes that were tested in flight from a significant height and some of the finest dance moves known to man an enjoyable evening was had by all. But with our adapted saying for the weekend being, “what happens at Q1 stays at Q1,” the story does skip a chapter here and rejoin the following morning and let’s just say some of us were licking our wounds far more than others. But we are pleased to report that we all successfully contacted our mothers on their special day and made our way home to spend some quality time with them.
So for those of you that missed the weekend and now know what you missed out on be sure to mark the date in your calendar for next year because the rumour floating round is that there will be a few new teams to follow the trend and DAT Racing will be taking the corporate world by storm!
