All that is the Noosa Triathlon

The Noosa Triathlon and Multisport Festival has been and gone for another year and in a similar fashion to every year not only was a great event put on by USM Events but a thouroughly enjoyable time was had by all.  We arrived at Noosa on the Friday to what wasn't exactly the best weather and as much as I wanted to get down to the beach to soak up the atmosphere and cheer on the swimmers in the Eyeline 1000, staying dry and inside was the preferred option.  There is always plenty to do at Noosa so the smarter option involved checking out all the new gear on offer at the expo.  I had a great catch-up with Neville from Ryders Eyewear and picked myself up a pair of the brand new Cadence sunglasses to make sure I really stood out come Sunday.  These glasses and all of the sunglasses these guys make are great and it's great to be able to work with them and I'll be sure to put up some more photos and details on their products in the near future.

Come Saturday morning the weather had cleared and we were met with sunny conditions for the standard pre-race ride to the top of the infamous Noosa hill and back followed by a relaxing breakfast and coffee at one of the many coffee shops along Hastings St.  The remainder of the day was spent busying ourselves in our room or as we renamed it, the DAT Dungeon by watching DVDs, listening to music and unfortunately spending some time with our heads in the books doing some uni work among other shenanigans.  Making sure not to miss out on everything the festival has to offer we were out spectating for the 5k Bolt and the Crit in the afternoon.  No pre-race routine would be complete without a quick swim around the island and a 15-20min run and an early dinner with the DAT crew before getting to bed nice and early before the big event on the Sunday morning.

Sunday is what Noosa is all about and starting in the first wave at 6:30am it was an early start to the morning but after setting everything up in transition and doing the standard warm-up I was over at the start line ready to go.  The start was chaos as could be expectedand it wasn't until well and truely after turning the first turning bouy that everyone settled down and could get some clean swimming underway.  I was sitting in a good position just in touch with the front group on Chris McCormack's feet (which is a bit of a thrill in itself) but unfortunately someone up ahead lost contact with this group and we lost a bit of time by the end of the swim. 

I knew the chase was on by looking at the numbers that I was being shown on my Bryton Rider 50T and were catching some of the guys that had dropped from the front group and at the top of the hill we were only 45seconds down on the leaders.  The half way point on the bike must have had some significance because not only is this where the front group split and the top 4 spots on the podium were decided but our group also split and luckily I made the front split and rode the rest of the way back in to town with the likes of Chris McCormack, Sam Betten and Josh Maeder.  On a side note, this was also my first race on my new Malvern Star Oppy TT7 and it performed brilliantly and there is a review coming in the near future! 

Starting the run I still wasn't entirely sure of how many guys were up ahead and it wasn't until the turn around that I counted myself in at 16th position and having finished 16th in 2010 I was determined to improve on this position.  In the end I finished in 14th position and although I had set myself the goal of finishing top 10 and looking back if a few things had gone my way I should have been able to achieve this, being my first race of the season things are looking good.  And as my coach put it my first race of the season is usually one of my worst so if that is the case then I'll take that result!

Other notable stories from the weekend include:

• the sheer noice that comes from the DAT supporters tent at every single race and especially Noosa where you can't help but smile and give a few high fives no matter how much pain you are in when you run past, whoever says triathlon is an individual sport obviously hasn't experienced this atmosphere and I'd like to thank every single one of them!
• the results of all of the DAT crew that competed over the weekend, in particular Ryan Fisher finishing 5th overall and collecting the Luke Harrop Bursery and Brayden Tucker, Tom Ryan and Luke Farrell finishing 2nd, 3rd and 5th respectively in the open category and Elyza Codner smashing a massive 30min off her previous best over this course after only training with us for the past few months
• the marketing tactics of Chris and all the guys from Nike who bombarded Noosa with fluro yellow 'WE RUN NOOSA' shirts as well as putting on one of the best VIP after parties in recent times

So that is Noosa wrapped up for yet another year and for anyone that missed out this year be sure to get yourself organised for 2012 because I will certainly be back again to not only soak up the festival atmosphere but most importantly to continue on what I'm sure is high on many people's priorities to win one of the best races in the world.

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