DAT Awards Night

The BRW World Cup might have been the race of the season not to miss but it was well and truly outclassed by the 2011 DAT Awards Night that seems to grow in glamour and stature as each year goes by.  The Grange Bowls Club again played host and first thanks must go to Roger, Webby and the crew for the venue, the food and of course keeping all those drinks filled to the brim.

And with casino being the theme it was fantastic to see everyone in their finest evening attire, especially the ladies who after copping a fair bit of the mid-week banter were able to, as Sarah Deuble would say, “find inspiration for an outfit on the night,” and match the always classy gentlemen of DAT.  However Nick Curtis received the ‘That’s just not classy’ award for his complete disregard to the dress code.  At the other end of the spectrum was the always classy Tom Ryan, who not only received the best dressed award but also managed to improve on his outfit late into the evening with a bit of bling.

With the tables and chairs filled it was on to the most prestigious part of the evening, the awards.  The first award was presented by Geoff Lemmon who again showed off one of his many talents to produce a marvelous painting of the one and only Dan Atkins for the winner.  And with Bonnie Atherton taking out the DAT Clubperson of the Year she will now have that painting so Dan can keep another set of eyes on her at all times. 

The next award was the most improved and with Mel bringing along the newest DAT member, Lucas Cameron Watt, she presented this award to Nathan Hildebrandt who not only completed his first Ironman but dropped significant weight in the process and improved his Noosa PB by almost 30min in the process and with his ambitions still sky high, look out! 

Not forgetting the junior members of our club, both the Dominator and Junior awards were taken out by some of our rising stars.  Special mention must go to Mark Tucker for the work he did with both of these athletes in the lead up to both the State and National Titles.  Following his outstanding performance at the State Titles where he not only destroyed the field in an impressive first place performance but also earned himself the nickname ‘The Champ,’ Wyatt Westmoreland was named Dominator of the Year and after finishing third in her respective category but then going on to produce an incredibly gutsy and equally impressive performance at the National Titles where she just piped fellow DAT athlete Sophie Malowecki to complete a one-two finish for Queensland, Brittany Dutton was named Junior Athlete of the Year.

We all knew that somewhere in the world there would be an equally important night as the DAT Awards and this year Dave Kelly managed to find it, all the way over in Ireland.  He was of course named our Age Grouper of the Year and with names like Dave Sangster, Dave McDonald, Simon Leeper and Sharron Madders, just to name a few thrown into the mix this is no easy award to walk away with so full credit must go to Dave and his fellow training partners and competitors come race day for making this such a tough award to win.

To present the Atkins Family Award, Katie made her way to the front to once again dazzle the crowd with her ability to produce an inspiring speech no matter what occasion.  I have been on the receiving end of many of these speeches, be it pre-race phone calls or text messages or even a chat after training to remind me what I am capable of and it was a great privilege to be the recipient of this award and I will thoroughly enjoy attending the QLD Roar games this season with either Dan or Katie.

The final award of the night was the Athlete of the Year Award and I couldn’t possibly continue without mentioning the former winners of this award being myself and Ryan Fisher so the winner was always going to be in fine company!  And with the previous winners of the Atkins Family Award also being Ryan Fisher, Brayden Tucker and now myself it completes the double that Brayden Tucker was announced as Athlete of the Year.  Having an outstanding season in the junior elite series and rounding it off with a podium finish in the Oceania Championships in New Zealand and only narrowly missing out on Australian selection it is a well deserved award and there are bright things ahead in the future.

Following the completion of the awards it was time to hit the tables, casino style and gamble the night away.  There were, as always some noteworthy performances.  Wyatt ‘the champ’ Westmoreland taking on the big boys in poker and winning, Angus Gibson and Tom Ryan for keeping those poker faces hidden away like the pros with sunglasses, Cam Watt raking in the chips until that fateful spin on the roulette wheel that cost him dearly while conversely Emily Bevan doubled her money several times after becoming bored and going all in to finish the night as one of the biggest winners.  The gambling ended with a high stakes poker game and walking away with enough petrol vouchers to get her to every training session for a long time was Sam Atherton, so there are no excuses now!

The night didn’t end there and as the crowd started to thin the dance floor began to fill.  We had all be shown the moves required to enter this arena by one of the greatest dancers of the night, Luke Farrell and it was up to those daring enough to try and fill his shoes.  For those select few who stuck it out to the end when last drinks were called there were more than enough impressive dance moves to make the contestants on Dancing With The Stars look like amateurs but the night did have to end and it was at last drinks that those select and dedicated few had to dance our way out of the Grange Bowls Club and into the moonlight.

Of course there was one person still standing by the end and who is yet to be mentioned but he needs at least a paragraph to himself to even begin to thank him enough for not only this night but everything that he does for DAT and that is Craig Buerckner.  This night couldn’t have come together as well as it did without all the hard work that Craig put in to organizing it and although he didn’t officially win an award on the night I think we can all agree that he is more than deserving of any accolades that come his way. 

And that brings about the conclusion of the glitz and glamour that was the 2011 DAT Awards Night and congratulations must once again go out to all of the award winners and everyone involved in making it such an enjoyable and memorable night.

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Time is of the essence

It has been a while since I last wrote on here and there is good reason for that.  For the last 7 weeks I have been flat out finding any time to myself, let alone the time to share any stories here.  I’ve been busy teaching as part of my uni prac out at a high school but with that coming to an end next week time will be freeing up shortly.  Unfortunately this prac has forced me to change my racing plans for the remainder of the season because not only was I sick for about 3 weeks but I just don’t have the time to fit in the quality and quantity of training that I would like to have completed in order to warrant the expense of travelling overseas to compete at the level I want to be able to.  So with this prac coming to an end I will hopefully be on here with more stories more frequently and also be able to formulate a new race plan for the remainder of the season but in the meantime I will shortly post an article that I wrote for my club, DAT Racing following our annual awards night a couple of weekends ago for everyone to have a read of.

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BRW World Cup

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 56^th 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!

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Back at the helm

It has been over 4 weeks now and I am long overdue an update.  But rather than share stories of the numerous hours I spend in the library or the thousands of words I have typed in completing the several uni exams and assignments that happened to fall in the period while I wasn't training, which but a severe dampener on the shenanigans during my time off, I thought it would be much more entertaining to share something in relation to triathlon and of much more interest.

The two week break is done and dusted now and I have been back in training for 3 weeks now and am feeling great and just really looking forward to getting out there and racing and hopefully continuing with my run of good form and improving on that.  It was enough time to recharge the body both mentally and physically without losing too much of my fitness.

While recharging on that break I also had the chance to get a bit of networking done and with that I am pleased to announce that I have signed a deal with Ryders Eyewear and I will be using their sunglasses and hats in racing and training for the remainder of the season.  Their products are great and with their 'Vision Driven Performance," I can see great opportunities in working with Ryders over the coming year.  I will be racing and training in the Flame and Transition models so be sure to keep your eyes on them!  Also stay tuned for more news in the coming weeks...

Luckily I don't have long to wait until the next race which will be next weekend where I'll be competing in the BRW Corporate Teams Triathlon at the Gold Coast and with Queensland Gas Corporation putting us up at Q1 for the weekend it should be a very enjoyable weekend and also a great chance to get some race fitness under the belt so soon after the break.  But I might have some serious explaining to do come Sunday afternoon, with it not only being Mother's Day but also my sister's 19th birthday so I'll be darting back from the race to make myself present for the occasions.

Apart from this race it is looking like my next big race will be the ITU Continental Cup event in Gamagori, Japan towards the end of June which also happens to fall on my dad's birthday; so I'm not having much luck in that department this season by the looks of it but it is also the only race that falls while I am on uni holidays and can afford to get away.

So with all that out of the way and now well and truely back at the helm with both my training and blogging endeavours you can be sure there will be many more blogs in the coming weeks.

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Mooloolaba

Mooloolaba is one of my favourite holiday destinations and is also right up there as one of my favourite triathlon weekends on the calendar.  After a less than impressive race here last year in the open elite category as one of my first races as an elite athlete I was pretty keen to go out there and record a very different result as I know I am a much different and better athlete than what I was a year ago.  The race this year was an ITU Oceania Cup so had the added benefit of some glorious ITU points and this drew a heavily stacked field of close to 70 athletes.  I went in to the race ranked 14th and with a few guys being late additions to the World Cup race on Saturday afternoon I started the race ranked 10th and knew that if I had the race I was capable of I could finish inside the top 10.  It had been a hectic couple of months leading up to Mooloolaba and I was definitely looking forward to the end of this race and the 2 week break I was being treated to once I finished but I was trying not to think about that because the task at hand was to perform in this race.  Leading into the race I was feeling amazing and the taper was taking full effect and once I was on the start line it was down to business. 

I've been through the swim several times in my head and I still can't really explain what happened but it almost felt like I couldn't get in to top gear the entire time.  I had to just watch the main pack swim off and try and minimise the damage that was being done.  Fortunately I was sitting in a small group of about 10 guys and was just concentrating on staying with them with the knowledge that every other year this race had come together on the bike.  It wasn't until we got on the bike that the amazing feeling I'd had during the taper returned.  On the 20km trip out towards the turn-around we must've had an incredible tailwind because every time I looked down at my Bryton GPS Computer we were pushing close to 60km/hr.  The group I was with which included Brayden Tucker, who I train with still had to work pretty hard and it wasn't until about 25km into the ride that we made contact with the front bunch.  I think I lasted less than 2km sitting in this bunch because the pace they were travelling by this stage was similar to that of a leisurely coffee shop ride and going into this race my goal was to either be chasing down the breakaway or to be in one and now that I'd done the chasing it was my turn to be in the break. 

I went off the front with 5 other athletes that included 2 Aussies, 2 Kiwis and a Swiss athlete.  I was pretty sceptical about getting away because I thought everyone would react but to our advantage they were too busy watching each other and coming into transition we had a lead of close to 90 seconds. 

I managed to have a quick transition and lead out of transition and to almost the half-way point of the run before the fast moving chase group had closed the gap.  I ended up finishing in 12th place which was just outside the prize money and although it was a little bit lower than what I was aiming for I couldn't have been happier with the way in which I had raced and did exactly what I had intended to do on the bike and put myself out there for everyone to see.

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying everything the sunshine coast has to offer and with the 2 week break commencing right away it was a very enjoyable evening with the training crew who have all had such long seasons.  Although I am now a few days into the break I haven't been able to completely shut myself off from the sport (my bike is still sitting in the garage without any wheels on it and race water bottles still attached) because I am busy trying to plan my next series of races which will most likely be a few continental cups over in Asia.  But in the meantime I am trying to use this time to catch up on several uni assignments that have been on the back burner for the last few weeks while training took priority so there is plenty to be done!

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Wellington ITU Oceania Champs

First off I have to say that I am getting better with the updates, the race was on Saturday and I am already writing about it on Tuesday!  Last Thursday I flew out to Wellington, New Zealand for the ITU Oceania Championships.  It was a crack field with over 50 of Australia's and New Zealand's best triathletes vying for the title of Oceania Champion and also National Champion for the New Zealanders.  Having competed in this race last year as one of my first elite races I was keen to see how I could perform one year on and was also prepared for what Wellington could throw at us after a freak storm on the Friday afternoon last year.

The preparations were going as well as could be hoped for apart from a slight tightness in the leg preventing a few run sessions in the days prior but nothing serious enough to put me out of the race or warrant any concern going into it.  Putting this aside I was feeling great on the Thursday and Friday over there and was ready for a big performance come Saturday.  Fortunately the late night tsunami warnings from the disaster in Japan didn't eventuate and we were greeted with really calm water conditions and only slight winds on the bike course (a significant difference from last year thankfully!). 

I managed to get a great spot on the starting pontoon beside a few fast swimmers and once in the water made the most of this by getting on their feet as quick as possible.  It was a pretty rough swim but as we ran into transition I found myself well positioned.  I didn't have the greatest of transitions and found myself chasing hard to make sure I got on the back of the main chase group.  Throughout the bike I positioned myself well towards the front of the group to make sure I didn't miss out on any opportunities and to try and catch the lead group of 8 guys up the road.  This didn't eventuate and towards the end of the bike there weren't many of us in the group willing to work so the gap extended and as we came into T2 they had established well over a minutes lead.  Heading out onto the run I didn't quite have the pace as some of the other guys from my bike pack and quickly found myself losing group to the quicker runners.  Although I didn't quite have the run I would've hoped for or feel I'm capable of I still finished the race strongly in 24th place which is a significant improvement on the previous year.  And also I have discovered that with this result I have now moved myself up to inside the top 200 on the ITU points list, now ranked 196.  Still a long way to go but definately feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Back in Australia and only two weeks out from my next race which will be the ITU Oceania Cup at Mooloolaba as part of the Mooloolaba Triathlon Festival where I will line up against well over 60 guys, many of them the same athletes as in Wellington.  It should be another cracker race where I'm keen to put in to practice all the hard yards from all of my training and racing thus far this season.

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Top Gear Live

I was lucky enough to get to go and see Top Gear Live last Friday night and thought I'd share a few photos from the night. 

In triathlon related news training has been going well and I leave for Wellington on Thursday for the ITU Oceania Championships this Saturday so will keep everyone posted in the near future.

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