It isn't very often that I am attending a race without the stress and nerves of competing and even less often that I have a complete day off training. That being said, we were made to earn our complete day off with some fierce but friendly competition around the grounds of the Stafford pool during our swim/windtrainer/run session and there was more than one athlete commenting about some DOM action upon wakening this morning!
Onto the reason for the complete day off, it was the junior's day to shine (and on a side note the athletes were the only ones shining because the weather out at Redcliffe was providing nothing of the sort!) at the School State Championships and those of us not racing formed the DAT support squad for the morning. As mentioned, the weather was less than ideal for racing with the wind and normally wave-free beach proving less than friendly and when this combined with the persistent rain it made the spectating a game of ducking for cover.
The seniors were the first race to set off with the only DAT representitive being new member Billy Ryan and while I won't give a full recap of all of the days races, I have it on good authority that Billy left nothing in reserve and was well and truly spent on crossing the finish line. Never the less, Billy is yet to stop smiling since finishing the race after finishing an impressive 5th to cement his spot on the Queensland team for a trip to Busselton for the National Championships later in March.
DAT were well represented in both the intermediate boys and girls races, with previous Queensland representitives Jake and Wyatt lining up with Lawrence in the boys race and both Sophie and Claire Malowiecki joining last years national champion Brittany Dutton in the girls field. The tough conditions in the water really split the field in both races and the wind and rain was of little assistance in both the swim and the run but to quote Britt's sister Courtney; "Nothing stops Britt Dutton. Baby of the age group and smashes them all taking out the 2012 State CHAMPION. Stoked for my champ xxx." Sophie was hot on her heels the entire race and snared herself a shiny bronze medal for her efforts. In such horrible conditions Claire was happy just to make it to the finish line without incident and did more than that finishing in a credible 26th position.
On the men's side of things, last year's state champion Wyatt was stepping up to the intermediate division with many of the older boys on lookout for what he has already achieved and after watching the competition between him and Lawrence at training so they should be! All 3 of the boys produced some great racing with Jake leading the DAT boys home to finish in 5th position followed closely by Wyatt in 6th place and Lawrence in 11th position.
The final races of the day saw the junior boys and girls toe the start line with the only remaining DAT representitive being Nick Free in the junior boys division. Bearing the scars of battle after suffering a heavy fall out on the bike, Nick could be excused for only making it to the finish but in an impressive effort he did more than that, climbing his way back through the field to finish in an impressive 8th place and although shaken and disappointed after the race he should take heart in his efforts as it is not about how many times you fall that matters, it's how many times you get back up!
That brought to an end the individual races for the 2012 State Championships but all of the juniors will be at it again tomorrow morning for the team event and the announcement of the Queensland team, which barring incident should include Billy, Jake, Wyatt, Brittany and Sophie to compete in the National Championships over in Busselton in late March. A huge congratulations must go our to all of the DAT athletes that have done themselves proud in what is the biggest race of their season and it was great to be able to enjoy the day off training with my fellow training partners to support all of them, some of whom even managed to sneak out of work for the occasion!
The day wasn't all fun and games and I also managed to sneak in a bit of market research for Chris from Nike who couldn't make it out to Redcliffe this morning so I was put in charge of tallying up what running shoes all of them were racing in and while it must have looked a bit strange me looking down at everyones feet as they ran past it is pretty cool to be able to say that almost one third of all the competitors were out there competing in the same brand that I race and train in, Nike. :)
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