Geelong Triathlon: the fact-finding mission

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:

 

http://sambetten.blogspot.com.au/ 

(some pretty cool videos here)

 

http://samappleton.blogspot.com.au/

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Caloundra Triathlon

Being a week out from Geelong, Caloundra was never really on my radar but after what has felt like so many missed opportunities and missed races thus far this season I was itching to race. With Caloundra being raced over the super sprint distance of 400/15/4 I thought it would be a good pre-Geelong tune-up and a chance to go through some of the little things such as pre-race nutrition, warm-up routines and transitions ahead of the 1.9/90/21 race next weekend. And who could pass up an opportunity to race in an event run by Brendon and all the guys at The Event Crew!

 

Wyatt getting his nutrition practice in...definitely no bonking going on here!

It's safe to say the lead up was far from ideal for anyone in Queensland with the flooding the week prior! I'm not sure about everyone else but the weather today was a welcome change from last week when most of us were locked up inside trying to stay dry and words like windtrainer and treadmill were wearing very thin! I also had the added issue of coming down with a slight cold the past few days but wasn't going to let that keep me from the race and will just be loading up on bed rest and vitamins this week in an effort to wipe it out completely.

With many athletes choosing to give this event a miss in their lead up to Geelong next weekend the field was somewhat smaller than previous events which was an added bonus at the swim start as there was little tussle for positions over the 400m swim. The swim did little to break up the field apart from my dad commenting on how good Dan Wilson looked as he opened up a small gap on the field while the rest of us apparently looked like we were flailing around chasing his heels!  Leading the flailing was Wyatt Westmoreland who continued on to finish 8th as he fine tunes his preparations for School State Titles in the coming weeks.

The gaps did start to form on the bike and while Dan's gap out of the water enabled him to continue to forge ahead, myself and Ben Cook managed to distance ourselves from the remainder of the field in pursuit of him. The 15km course seemed to be over before we knew it and on later looking I'd recorded at average of close to 43km/hr. This just wasn't enough to evaporate his lead completely but a speedy second transition into the Nike Lunar Racers (even got a quick mention on the loud speaker for that effort!) did put me no less than 10m behind him as we set off on the 4000m foot race. I quickly found out that Dan had to serve a 15sec penalty and was feeling great knowing that if I could at least hold this gap I could run away from him whenever he chose to take it. But to his credit not only did he push ahead of me before his penalty but stayed ahead even after serving his penalty and after catching back up to Tim George who had just passed me continued on to win the race with Tim in second and myself in third.

thanks Britt Dutton for the photo :)

Fellow Revive athletes Christophe Manchon finished in 12th place and Peter Ledwidge finished 5th in his age category.  On the womens side of things Ellie Salthouse began her 2013 in winning style taking out the womens event with Anna Jefferies and Kirra Seidel in third.  Laura was the highest placed DAT female in 5th with Sophie in 7th and Courtney in 8th.  Dave Kelly topped his age group by close to 2min and Lawrence finished just shy of the win in 2nd place in his age group.  Part time camera-man Jamie Hanelt (thanks for the transition video!) backed up his early efforts to finish 5th in his age group and rumor has it is putting his hand up to join the 2013 Yeppoon road trip with myself, Robbie, Tom and Dan as early nominees!

With three races of the Queensland Triathlon Series under my belt this season I have racked up a 2nd from Raby Bay, 2nd from Robina and now a 3rd from Caloundra so I'm three from three in terms of podium finishes but am still looking for that elusive victory!  I'll quickly put my hand up now for the final race of the series at Raby Bay in my bid to hit that finishes arch first but before I can do that I'll be heading down to Geelong this weekend to compete in the long course triathlon.

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Robina Triathlon

The domestic racing season has well and truly arrived and there is hardly a weekend on the calendar that isn't filled with triathlon commitments it seems. This weekend has been particularly busy in the DAT Racing camp with our junior elite athletes flying down to Penrith for the second race in their ITU Junior Elite National Series, just days after settling in back home after our week long training camp. Exceptional results were recorded all round with Jodie winning the women's event, Anna 5th, Holly 7th, Jenna 10th and Jake in 25th in the men's event. Jodie, Anna, Holly and Dan are still based in Sydney for the remainder of this week as they prepare to do battle against some of the worlds best juniors at the Youth Olympic Championships this weekend and I'm sure their trend of fantastic results will continue.

 

For those of us not making the trek to Penrith there was still some hot and intense racing to be had with race 4 of the Queensland Triathlon Series being held at Robina. It was set to be my first race back since Noosa and I was relieved to just be at a race venue preparing to race rather than spectating on the sidelines. The men's field was stacked with several top athletes including Raby Bay winners and runners up Bryce McMaster and Mitch Kealey along with Sam Betten, Sam Speechly, Matt Brown and a host of others. The women's field had a distinct DAT vibe about it with Sarah, Emily, Courtney, Maddi and Sophie all set to do battle with Olympian Emma Jackson. Unfortunately both Sam Betten and Emma Jackson were late withdrawals but their absence didn't take away from the already quality fields.

We were set to race over the sprint distance of 750/20/5 and with the day heating up early is was set to be a battle in itself to handle the conditions. As the gun went off I felt I was having a great start and had clear water almost all the way to the first turning can. I was being as wary as I could about avoiding coping an unnecessary kick to my finger which I had heavily taped up and luckily the swim was relatively calm in comparison to most triathlon race starts. Exiting the water I found myself about 45sec off the leader and front group of 8-10 guys but with the length of transition it gave me a great chance to see where they all were and try and makeup as much time on them as I could. The bike is the one discipline that hasn't been affected by any of my injuries and I knew going in to the race it would be my strength and had quickly moved my way through the field to a clear second place with only Mitch Kealey ahead of me. I was trying to check if I was closing any time on him at each turn around but each time I though I was closing the gap it would open up again at the next turn and as we both came into transition to begin the run he still had about 45sec up his sleeve. In the back of my mind I knew that Bryce had run down Mitch in the last race at Raby Bay so was positive about what I could do but at the same time wary not to push myself too hard and do any damage to my hip as I continue to build my running kilometers back up. Similar to the bike I was checking splits at each turn around but we seemed to be holding a similar gap each time. At the final turn around I could see the gap was too much to close down after not taking any time off him through the first 4km and I also had a safe advantage over the rest of the field behind me so I took a little bit of pressure off myself and controlled myself in the hope to avoid pulling up from the race too sore. Mitch crossed the line first in an impressive performance that saw him lead from start to finish and really made the rest of the field work hard on a very tough day. I crossed the line in second place very happy with my performance and looking forward to getting back into in and building up again for another strong performance in my next race which is set to be the National Long Corse Championships in Geelong. Third place for the day went to James Trevorrow who put together a great performance and definitely deserved to be on the podium.  Training partner Luke Farrell finished the race in 10th position.

 

On the women's side of things the swim was led out by none other than Maddi who maintained her lead throughout the cycle leg to lead the women out onto the run course. The remaining DAT girls remained right in the mix with Sarah and Courtney coming off the bike in the chasing group with Sophie not far behind while Emily had the unfortunate circumstance of having to watch them run away from her after being handed a drafting penalty which on several accounts was a tough call. With an impressive running performance in hot conditions Sarah was able to run down Maddi to claim the victory, with Maddi finishing off the podium in third place and Courtney in 6th, Emily in 7th and Sophie in 8th.

In other DAT results Dave Kelly produced a dominant performance to win his age group by over four minutes, Harry Sweeny braved it out to finish 10th in his age group after suffer badly in the heat, Abbey Black finished in 2nd position in her age group and the Sangsater family took home a handful with Dave winning his age group, Priscilla winner her enticer age group and Lawrence coming 3rd in his kool kids age group.

 

A final thanks must go to The Event Crew for again putting on another great race and all the photos they get from the race (of which I have used several throughout this blog).  From here is is straight back into some serious training in preparation for Geelong in only a number of weeks. :)

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DAT Racing HP Training Camp - 2012/2013 edition

 

It's hard to believe a year has past since we last invaded the Farrell Ranch but instead of reminiscing on the year that was I'll jump straight in to give everyone the run down of the DAT Racing HP Training Camp - 2012/2013 edition.  While our 2012 camp may have been an eye opener to several of us, the results throughout the season seemed to reflect the commitment we all showed so early in the season and it was with very high spirits that we all ventured to the beautiful Sunshine Coast to put ourselves through the torture test again.  This years edition began just before New Years and gave us three full days to close out 2012 in style but as an added incentive a full day off was included in the program for New Year's Day and let's just say it was certainly needed! The usual training camp scenario followed with the train-eat-sleep cycle on continuous repeat up until New Years and giving some of the younger boys their weekly training numbers in those first three days alone.

The setup was very similar to last year with the boys being relegated to the garage again but with a few less bodies and some interior design changes forcing us to rename the DAT Dungeon to the man cave, the bat cave or the ironman cave.  Whereas the girls were again living the life of luxury in the living room, all be it crammed full of nine of them at one stage!  It's hard to believe that the Farrell's would again not only be willing to open up their house to no fewer than fifteen triathletes for a week but also look after us as well as what they did.  We were fed, cleaned up after and washed up like kings and it is possibly the only time were I would almost get in trouble for washing up my own dishes, let alone washing anybody elses or even attempting to clean up!  I know both Mick and Patti think they have been thanked more than enough times for everything they did for us all week but one more won't hurt so on behalf of all of us again thankyou so much for your hospitality and also to Luke, Jack and Sean for having us again and I'm sure we will be back again :).
 

 

This blog isn't about posting all the times and data from all of our sessions but rather sharing a few stories and the fun times we had on our camp and how this will set us up for a great season ahead.  We all know how hard triathletes train, be it in the usual day-to-day atmosphere where we are also juggling family, work and any other commitments or the camp based atmosphere which in my opinion take away these outside stresses and pressures and allows us to focus purely on training, eating and sleeping and hence allows for a significant increase in quality and quantity to raise the bar when these other commitments are re-introduced.

 

But to begin with a few quick numbers; last year we were fortunate to get through the entire week with only two punctures, this year we wern't so fortunate and after the first ride I had personally matched that number with the first being on the adjacent street to our depature and the group as a whole had already doubled that number and by the end of the week I'm sure we had reached double digits.

Using some of the same ride loops as last year, our average speeds were well up and the ride that brought tears and saw several athletes left to fend for themselves last year was completed with ease by the whole group and I even had some of the younger boys come past me and request a turn at the front...some of these guys are seriously impressive and guttsy!

As a whole our distances were also up, clocking around 27km in the water, 700km on the bike and 100km on the run.  And on a side note clocking that kind of running distance is the most I have run in the last two months and of that 700km of riding, at least 150km of that would have been individual TT efforts...the Bryton Rider 50T was well and truly pushed to the limits throughout the week and got me some valuable data to use throughout the season.

 

No specific data was collected for our GPS (gels per session) but by the end of the week they were a necessity for even the easiest session.  And just to get one quick sponsors plug in here, the Hammer Nutrition gels and all of their other products served me well throughout the week and I'll go out on a limb to say that I would have been one of the last athletes to bonk or have shelled legs ;).

 

And what DAT training camp wouldn't be complete without our standard recovery methods of ice baths and beer with my yearly beer consumption off to a cracking start; all in the name of recovery and of course to clear out room in the Farrell's fridge ;)!

 

After a very solid three days of training we were all glad a sleep in was on the cards to begin 2013.  We were actually all given the opportunity to party as hard as we wanted but to everyones credit and commitment to the camp, nothing other than a later than normal night spent enjoying the company and good times of each other was on the agenda and no sooner had we seen in the New Year were we all ready for bed.  You would think that with a day off on the cards we would avoid any sort of physical activity but after lazing around the house all morning and more than one comment from Mick about how lost we all looked without training it was off to the beach for a very competitive game of touch football which some people ended up feeling more than some of the training sessions!

 

Over these first few days we were all witness to the blossuming bromance between Harry 'Hazardous' Sweeney and Wyatt 'the pelican' Westmoreland.  While none of us really know why so many giggles kept coming from that iPad screen they did keep us entertained but it did come to an end when Hazardous had to return to his family commitments, leaving the pelican to entertain us for the remainder of the camp on his own which I'm sure everyone will agree he did a good job of!

 

The session of the camp by far had to go to our track session towards the end of the week.  Going in to the session spirits wern't overly high and tiredness had well and truly set in and I think our warm-up pace resembled more of an ironman shuffle than anything else.  Not to take away from this track session but after mentioning the ironman shuffle there is one story that I have to include here!  To be honest I don't even know how this started but talk quickly turned to all things ironman on the camp with both Jake and Wyatt beginning their assault on the 2015 and 2016 Ironman Championships.  This forced the man cave to be re-named the iron cave and talk of Kona, gels, bonking and ironman tattoos became the norm.  So much so that a Facebook group, Lé Iron Cave was created.  Be sure to check it out to keep progress on these two ironboys ;)

 

 

That aside, back to the track session and the session of the camp; once we hit the track it was on and while no world records were broken we lit up that track.  It was more of a pace setting session than an all out speed set and every single athlete was either spot on with their given race pace times or maintained a quicker pace with ease.  It was topped off with a 1km effort at the end and Jake found his inner Usain Bolt to give all of us and the onlooking track runners and coaches a shock with the speed that he took off at but the headwind was strong enough to bring him back but not without thoughts of a sprinting career post his triathlon career.  It was the first time I had worn the Nike Lunar Racers since Noosa and having been one of the athletes running easily under my predicted race pace and without any dramas with the hip flexor tear was enough for me to throw my name onto the start list for this weekends QTS Robina Triathlon.

 

Unfortunately not all of the stories from the camp were good ones and we were dealt our share of bad luck.  After an outstanding performance at Runaway Bay, Britt Dutton was selected in the Australian team for Youth Olympics in the coming weeks but has had to since withdraw after recieving the news she has a stress fracture in her back.  I'd like to emphasise 'we' because I do truly believe this injury affected all of us as we all could see how well she had been training and racing but this is just a minor set-back for her and she'll be back stronger and faster than ever in no time!  With one DAT athlete out of the Australian team another one enters with Anna Coldham taking the spot and along with Holly and Jodie will no doubt do Australia and DAT proud next week.  Holly's camp wasn't all smooth sailing either and on our very last ride (while she was in my eyes riding more impressively than anyone on the entire camp) found herself tangled up in an accident where we were all initially fearing the worst but after a quick trip to the hospital was cleared of any damage and was able to continue on as normal.

 

I think everyone achieved their goals for the week, with mine being simply to get through the training load as effectively as possible after the terrible run of injuries and bad luck I had been having.  I'm excited about what's to come after the week and ticked more than one box in not only being able to get through the training but build my running up again after a lengthy lay off.  Big thanks to Revive Physio in the treatment and management of not only this injury but every niggle I have had throughout 2012 and it is with great pleasure that I can say I will be continuing to work with them throughout 2013.

 

 

What a week of training it was! It's safe to say that we lifted the standard from the previous year and if the results are to again lift we are sure to turn more than a few heads in the upcoming races.  It won't be long before we see these races with some of our ITU Juniors racing in Penrith this weekend, myself and a few others flying the flag at Robina and Holly, Jodie and Anna accompanying Dan to the Youth Olympics the following week.  The final thanks for the DAT Racing HP Training Camp - 2012/2013 edition of course has to go to Dan Atkins...the man can coach.  The time and commitment he put into not only this camp but every single session is something we all tend to take for granted and on that note a big thanks also to Katie, Ella and Molly who probably see less of Dan at times than what we do!  And to top it all of happy birthday to the man himself for yesterday!

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Spectating, specialists, surgeons and swimming struggles

With my training requiring several adjustments over the past six weeks one would think I would've had plenty of time up my sleeve but that couldn't be further from the truth.

After tearing my hip flexor at Noosa I have been restricted to physio visits, riding and swimming; all be it with a pull buoy firmly fixed between my legs.  And while Revive have been doing all they can to speed up the recovery process, once I got my head around the injury and what sort of recovery time I was looking at I took the opportunity to really up my swimming and in particular, my strength in the water being limited to pull buoy.  After about four weeks this was really starting to pay dividends and I was swimming close to PB times and was doing so with very restricted leg action. 

Unfortunately breaking my finger came at a pretty inconvenient (if there is ever a convenient time!) time because over the past couple of weeks my hip has been healing really well and I've been able to get a few very small runs done and while I am still having some discomfort it is certainly on the improve and hopefully a few weeks of drills, light running and rehab I can be back into some decent volume and regaining my running fitness.  I was actually back on the bike the day after the accident (all be it on a windtrainer to make sure I could get a confident grip on my brakes) and have been almost every day since.  I have also been back swimming with paddles just for a bit of extra protection but as yet still can't really swim at any significant pace am trying to keep the feeling of the water there so I don't completely loose my fitness.  Combining this with some strength sets on the stretch cords while the rest of the squad do their main sets was working out well for me and while my arms were definitely screaming out for a rest I was confident I was doing something that was working. 

 

With my racing plans put on hold I have taken the opportunity to get out there the past couple of weeks and enjoy the spectating side of the sport and let me tell you it is a very different view-point turning up to a race with nothing to do other than watch!  My first experience was the Bribie Triathlon two weeks ago where the tables were turned from the norm and I was the one watching while Dan was out there racing instead of coaching.  And this weekend just gone I was again kept busy spending my Saturday at the Gold Coast watching the junior elites from our squad doing their thing at the ITU Sprint Weekend.  And what a job they did with the girls finishing the weekend with Jodie Duff in first, Britt Dutton in second, Holly Grice in third, Anna Coldham in fourth, Sophie Malowiecki in sixth, Jenna Fulton in ninth, Laura Dennis in eleventh, Angus Gibson in fifteenth, Wyatt Westmoreland in forty-second and Harry Sweeny in second in the youth male division.  Unfortunately I didn't get to their final on the Sunday because I was down at Raby Bay watching the race there with Emily Bevan finishing second, Maddi Allen in fifth and Sarah Deuble in sixth in the open womens race and Lawrence Garufi winning his age group and Dave Kelly still snaring himself a podium after a lap counting incident.  And let me tell you without even doing a race I was exhausted after that weekend!

My recovery from my crash is still a little bit unknown and that's even after spending another four hours in hospital yesterday seeing every orthopaedic surgeon the Royal Brisbane Hospital has to offer.  What I did find out is that I actually still had a dislocation in my finger that wasn't noticed when I first went to hospital and instead of the initial two fractures I have three.  After going through the same amount of pain I did the first time, the second dislocation is now fixed but because of the locations of the fractures and time since the accident the next step is a little bit of an unknown.  By the sounds of things they are leaning towards surgery which I was initially trying to avoid but they want to seek the advice of their hand specialists and until I hear from them later in the week I am playing the sitting and waiting game, which also involves limiting my hand movements until then but won't stop the running or riding.  Who knew a little finger could cause so much difficulty!

 

 

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Re-evaluating race plans...again

Four weeks post Noosa and I was still yet to successfully run any significant distance or any distance at all!  The impact of my fall and then proceeding to run the 10km off the bike resulted in what the physios at Revive have now diagnosed and are treating as a hip flexor tear.  I must say these guys have been phenomenal in their approach to treating not only my injury but every patient that enters their clinic.  It's not always easy for me to get in and see the same physio each time I go but their communication and knowledge of everyone that walks through the door makes it easy to stay on top of my injury.  And to have the physios ringing me to see if there is anything they can do to help me get back to running any sooner gives me so much confidence in what they are doing!

As is probably common knowledge to most people muscle tears take some time to heal.  And after dealing with fact that I wasn't going to be able to run for some time I was forced to pull out of Shepparton 70.3 but had got my head around that and even entered my next big race which was to be Auckland 70.3 in late January.  However after just over 4 weeks post-Noosa had passed and just over 7 weeks pre-Auckland and I was still yet to run, I was seriously doubting my ability to be half-marathon race ready in time for Auckland.  As disappointing as it was in the back of my mind I had pulled the pin on Auckland and had again re-evaluated my race schedule and had penciled in the National Long Course Championships in Geelong as my next race.

This decision has now been confirmed after the events that occurred out training mid last week.  While my swimming training and cycling training had been progressing really well and I was starting to see PB's across the board, my luck on the bike (or bad luck) has continued.  Myself, Angus, Sarah and Courtney had started the morning at the ungodly time of 5:00am and were just 10km into our ride when we were all brought down in a crash.  I won't go into all of the details but what I can say is that we are all very lucky and fortunate that the injuries are somewhat minor in comparison to what could have occurred.  Thankfully there was minimal traffic around to make the situation any worse and the cars that saw the incident stopped to not only call the ambulance but remained at the scene to keep us all calm and also drove Angus and all of our bikes back to Dan's house while Courtney and myself were taken to hospital with Sarah to look after us.  Five hours later I was allowed to leave the hospital with a fair few bruises and grazes and a finger that had spent a long time facing a direction it really shouldn't, while Courtney was kept overnight under observation after suffering some deep cuts to her neck after coming in contact with a stray chainring but has since been released to rest in the comfort of her own home.

I think it goes without saying how grateful all four of us are to everyone involved in taking care of us from the passers by who stopped to see if we were alright and to help where they could and to all of the paramedic and hospital staff and most importantly all of our friends and family. 

I think we all know how dangerous this sport is, in particular the cycling component so without going on too long about it here is a link to a blog Dan put up earlier today which is definitely worth a read!

http://danat08.webnode.com/

This has confirmed I won't be racing Auckland 70.3 and really throws any racing plans out the window until I can swim, ride and run and get the required training done without compromising my health.  Being a bit optimistic I've set myself my next goal of being able to swim, ride and run at some capacity to be able to complete all the training at our upcoming training camp in 3 weeks time but for now I've already testing out riding and can get a good enough grip on the bars that I'll be continuing that straight away.   My hip is coming along nicely and while the runs back have been short (and when I say short I mean real short, having just returned from a solid 2km!), they are finding their way back into my program.  And my mind is in overdrive coming up with some kind of minimalistic hand paddle that will allow me to swim pain free so I'm not missing much while my finger heals.
 

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Noosa Triathlon

The Shepparton Ironman 70.3 will have been run and won by this time tomorrow and while this race was high on the priority list, it was unfortunately removed from this list just over a week ago.  The timing of the race seemed perfect; two weeks post Noosa which would have given me plenty of time to not only get some solid TT time under my belt leading into Noosa but also freshen up, recover and taper to be all guns blazing for Shepparton.  As it turns out my body has taken close to two weeks to completely recover from my crash at Noosa and I am still yet to pull the running shoes back on, in fact they are still sitting out on the deck from when I first got home after Noosa!  But before I get too far ahead of myself, another Noosa Triathlon weekend has been and gone and it’s safe to say there is something about Noosa that will keep you coming back for more and there are already plans in the pipeline to get the DAT Loft up and running again and take care of some unfinished business from this year in 2013!

After last years DAT Dungeon experience we decided an upgrade was needed and between Tom, Sarah, Maddi, Emily and myself, the DAT Loft was created and became the place to be right in the heart of Hastings St.
 

As usual the weekend provided a busy schedule of events and while the DAT contingent wasn't as heavily populated as in previous years, we still not only had athletes in almost every event but some very impressive results to go with it.  Friday afternoon was the first of those events and had Sarah, Maddi, Holly, Anna and Wyatt lining up in the open waves for the Eyeline 1000 and Britt lining up in her age group. As one would expect Britt produced her usual stellar performance and took her position on the podium. All of our open competitors missed out on podium positions, swimming off against numerous Australian swimmers but swam strongly to beat many well established swimmers.

 

Saturday morning saw the usual pre-race ride to the top of Noosa hill and also saw Dan and Holly complete numerous hill reps in an attempt to get the perfect shot for the Noosa Triathlon Instagram Competition and top the efforts of Tom from Friday’s Eyeline 1000. For those of us racing the triathlon there was little more to do other than put our feet up and stay out of the dehydrating weather for the rest of the day. Sarah and Sophie didn't have this luxury as they were set to compete in the Asics 5k Bolt. Similar to the Eyeline 1000, this race featured several Australian and Olympic representatives but this didn't seem to phase either of them, mixing it with the best to be a part of the lead group of runners for the entirety of the race. The pace continued to increase and coming to the finish it was Sophie finishing in 4th position and Sarah not far behind in 6th place.

All the emphasis was obviously on Sunday mornings event and it certainly didn't disappoint. The elite men's field had attracted perhaps it biggest and strongest field in the thirty years the event has been running. Some of the names included three Ironman World Champions; Pete Jacobs, Craig Alexander and Chris McCormack, former winners Courtney Atkinson and David Dellow and a host of the sports biggest and brightest stars all vying to get their name on the Noosa winners list.  The last two years I have finished 14^th and 15^th in this race and wit significantly better training under my belt and most importantly a whole new mental attitude I was primed and aiming at a top 10 finish and truly believed I was capable of this.

My day didn't get off to the smoothest of starts having an issue with my disc not wanting to co-operate with my pump and having to rely on Emily coming to my rescue and lending me her wheel that was in transition itself as she was set to make her return to training after a two week break with nothing less than a 40km TT.  So thanks to Emily, Sarah and Holly for running down from our room to help me actually make it to the start line on time!  I overcame this and was set to go on the start line with the rest of the field. The swim went off without too many issues and while I didn't exit the water with the front group, found myself about one minute off the leaders with a solid group of athletes. Almost as soon as we hit the bike leg the rain started and with the rain came the carnage! No more than 10km into the cycle leg saw the first causality from our group with Craig Alexander hitting the deck hard around one of the round-a-bouts. The rain only got worse from here and made for tough conditions for the rest of the ride and became even more troublesome as we hit the final 5km and the round-a-bouts coming towards the completion of the cycle leg. As we came through one of them I saw Chris McCormack slide out in front of me and heard another athlete do the same thing behind me. I thought I'd come away from this safely but things all came unstuck around the next corner when it was my turn to slide across the road. While I managed to get back up and keep going I had lost a fair bit of time on the lead group and the chase group that I was earlier a part of. The impact of the fall had its effect once I hit the run leg and while I felt really good for the middle part of the run I really struggled to get my body going to begin with and again tightened up coming into the finish. I finished the race in 16th position and while this isn't necessarily a bad result it isn't the top ten I was aiming for and had I not had the fall was probably more than capable of.  Full credit must go to winner Peter Kerr and training partner Ryan Fisher on his second place finish to cap off a stellar season for him and Taylor Cecil in third.  It’s podium that few would have predicted but shows some of the potential in Australian triathletes coming through the ranks. 

 

While I was far from the only athlete to fall during the race (with Tom making up for some of those that didn’t by coming down twice but still managing to finish the race!) as mentioned earlier it has definitely taken its effect on my body.  As disappointing as it is to pull out of races I know full well that there is no way to bluff your way through 21.1km off the bike and I would only be doing myself more damage by even taking to the start line.  However I have signed up for my first race of 2013 which will be the Auckland Ironman 70.3 which also doubles as Asia Pacific Championships, nothing like jumping straight into the deep end!  So there seems like no better time than now to knuckle down and clock up some serious kilometers!

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