One year ago I was down in Geelong racing the ITU sprint distance race but with a shift in focus to a distance that I feel I am better suited to I again returned to Geelong to compete this time in the Hotel Urban Long Course Triathlon which was also doubling as a national championship race. As you would expect with any national championship a stellar field was set to compete and it was even mentioned to be the best Ironman 70.3 field ever assembled in Australia. I went in to the race essentially as an unknown having not yet finished a long course race after my Yeppoon mishap but was keen to not only see how I would compare in such a field but most importantly get to the finish and complete what we were essentially on;
a fact finding mission into the world of professional Ironman 70.3 racing.
After a positive result the weekend prior at Caloundra things ran as smoothly as could be expected in the lead up to the race with little to write home about. I flew in to Geelong on the Friday for the Sunday morning race and essentially spent the majority of my time with my feet up, saving as much energy as possible for the race.
With a 7:00am start time, it was an early start Sunday morning to get down to transition and make sure everything was set to go. With the gels and mars bars taped to my top tube in true lé iron cave style and the tyre repair sealant taped alongside them but hoping it remained unused, I made my way down to the swim start to get in a good warmup before the race start. Lining up alongside the likes of superfish Clayton Fettell, Olympian Brad Kahlefeldt, World Champion Peter Robinson and in-form athlete Christian Kemp left no doubt in anyone's mind that it was going to be a hard fought out battle to the finish.
We had a short run into the water before we could start swimming and this suited me perfectly and I continued my trend from my past few races of getting off to a great start (something that I was severly lacking last season and left me chasing right from the gun) and used my height to my advantage to porpoise as long as possible and gain some clear water in front of me. I settled into a good stroke rate and found myself settled in nicely into a pack and set about minimising the damage to Clayton Fettell; the one everyone expected to lead out of the water. Running through transition I could see the lead group heading out and was happy with where I was positioned at the beginning of the 90km ride. As much as I know I am riding relatively strong at the moment, a 90km TT was still taking me into unknown territory and it's now safe to say it's territory I need to explore a lot more to improve my Ironman 70.3 results! To be honest I found the ride really tough, apart from the usual winds and dead roads that everyone was dealt with, I found the distance to be really tough and found myself losing ground on athletes ahead of me and being caught be athletes behind me. Weather this was down to inexperience, lack of nutrition or just an off day I'm not sure but coming in to T2 I was relieved to be leaving the bike behind in favour of the Nike Lunar Racers for the 21.1km run. I knew there was a lot more pacing involved in a 21.1km run in comparison to 10km and chose to use my Bryton Cardio35 to keep track of my splits. To sum the run course up in one word would be tough! The course involved two 8km laps around the park which was in no way flat and involved a mix of road and trail running and some nasty hills thrown in the mix followed by a final 5km section that went out past the finish line along the Geelong waterfront and back along the road to finish. I started the run relatively well and was running at a somewhat controlled pace but in similar style to the ride I dropped off the pace towards the end and no matter how many Hammer Gels I downed it was purely about getting to the finish line towards the end. I crossed the line in 4:09 and 21st in the elite field which was a bit off what I thought I was capable of and aiming for but at the end of the day I did make it to the finish and essentially complete the fact finding mission. My respect for not only Ironman 70.3 races but the entire professional field on the day has risen to a new level and in particular the winner, Christian Kemp. These races are tough but I learnt some valuable lessons from the experience and will use this race to make some changes to what I am doing in day to day training to improve on this result and be back in better form for my next long course race.
The weekend of racing didn't end there and it was great to catch up with DAT age grouper Dave Sangster who had also made the trip down to compete in the Olympic distance event and had an outstanding result to win his age group in convincing fashion. It was also nice to be able to relax and take in the afternoon of racing which included the ITU Continental Cup where training partners Sarah Deuble and Maddi Allen would both be racing. In Maddi's first pro race in some time she again proved her swimming ability to lead out of the water and ride with the front pack and finished with a strong run performance to cross the line in 10th. And Sarah backed up her 4th place from last weekends ITU Conti Cup in Kinloch to come from the chase pack on the bike and run her way into 8th position.
Back in Brisbane now and one of the valuable lessons learnt from the weekends experience is that these races hurt! It's safe to say that little training has been done since getting home late Sunday night and recovery has been the key. Obviously experience plays a big part in this and being my first 70.3 I knew I would be dealing with this whereas I'm sure some of the more experienced guys were straight back into it the next day. But Geelong was a massive learning curve for me and I'll happily treat my body to a few days recovery so I can get back into the big km's as soon as possible without injury or illness and with the experience behind the team at Revive I have no doubt recovery will be spot on!
For a different take on the race through the eyes of a couple of other athletes in the field check out these blogs:
(some pretty cool videos here)
