Yesterday was race 2 of the Queensland Triathlon Series down at Robina on the Gold Coast and after my mishap on the way to race 1, my first goal was to just make it to the venue in one piece! Obviously this wasn't all I wanted to achieve out of the day and I went into the race determined to post a top result and had made my intentions very clear to anyone that asked that I was focused on winning the race and honestly believed I had a real shot at achieving this. The race was held over the supersprint distance of a 400m swim, 15kim cycle and 4km run so the pace was bound to be on from start to finish and the open category had attracted a solid field with several athletes having represented Australia at Continental and World Cup level.
As the race started I got off to a good start and found myself within the first 6 or so athletes and managed to settle into a comfortable rhythm while still maintaining a good position. This is something I normally struggle with in races and tend to start to loose positions after my good starts but today was a different story and I stayed on the feet the whole way and exited the water in a good position. With all the rush that comes in any transition zone and in particular in a race of this distance, myself and a few other athletes just missed the lead break onto the bike and found ourselves just off the pace.
Fortunately, of our group myself and Dane Robinson were committed to chasing down the group while a few other athletes were satisfied to just sit there and watch. This turned out to be their loss because they found themselves dropping off the pace as we caught the main group with 3-4km to go. The pace dropped dramatically when we crossed the gap and we dropped back to a frustratingly leisurely 30km/hr as some of the guys in the group were happy to just sit and let anyone else behind catch up and leave it down to a running race.
Reviewing the Bryton Rider 50T data after the race, the Malvern Star Oppy C7 Team performed magnificantly and I managed to post the fastest bike split for the day :).
I made sure I stayed as close to the front as possible coming into transition and had a quick change over and was one of the first out of transition but unfortunately after putting myself in such a good position to win I just didn't have what was required to get the job done as I was quickly shown the back door by most of the guys in the front group with me and had to be satisfied with a 7th palce finish on the day. All in all it is a bit of a disappointing result but can take the positive that I positioned myself well in the swim and posted the fastest bike time and after spending the majority of the week with and was probably still feeling the side effects of the flu. But not to take anything away from the winner on the day, Taylor Cecil who ran an amazing race and clocked an amazingly quick sub-12min run for 4km off the bike.
I couldn't possibly finish this blog without making mention of the womens race where one of my training partners, Holly Grice had an amazing race and won the open womens race by chasing the two leaders down out of the water to post the fastest bike split in the field by over 1 minute and equal fastest run time. And with her 3 races this season leaving her with a 4th, 3rd and 1st there are definitely big things ahead for not only this season but well into the future!
Here's the media release posted by USM Events about the race:
http://www.usmevents.com.au/Triathlon___Multi_Sport/Gatorade_Queensland_Tri_Series/Media___Gallery/Media_Release_-_Cecil_steps_up_claim_for_under_23_selection.htm
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