Barracudas Blog

“So you’re only doing half a triathlon ” , this is what someone said to me once , then I told them what it involved. To have a good race in anything that’s going to take more than 2 hours everything has to be going right ( training , taper , health , nutrition , sleep etc), and goals might just change mid race as it would for me.

We woke to soaking rain on race morning - my first thought was how are my socks going to stay dry for the run. A deep water start in waves in water a bit like the pondage, at least we had some easy sight lines to the buoys , Carillion , Parliament House , Regatta Point . The initial part of the swim was great drafting on faster competitors but sure enough soon lost my way. Recognised Joustra cruising in his trademark wetsuit and LV colours , thought he must be going having started 5 mins later. Hit the mat looked at my watch ? 38:12 ? oh no that’s right I started it 2 minutes prior to the start - 36:12 - near enuff on target. A long run to transition , 500m plus.

Hit the bike , 42 min , feet in , all OK . Roads wet .First time in to Coopers crossing , hit the concrete bridge way too fast , thought I was going over the edge , whatever you do don’t hit the brakes, phew think I’m OK , don’t think I was the only one with that problem. Up the hiils and the usual things happen , passing athletes who are almost certainly going to go past on the downhills. 1st lap 56 mins , 31ks , well on target. 2nd lap 58 - OK .3rd lap I’ve got 2 guys with a 45 on their legs ( in the 45-49cat) , and 2 guys in 30-35, passing them up the hills and then this guy with a disc grinds past only to die again on the uphills. Finally I’ve dropped all them by 50-100m and getting ready to go into town - psshhh- great . Get the back wheel off , try to get the tyre off , it is glued solid to the wheel , and it’s not coming off - suddenly that’s my only goal ! [Haven’t seen Thierry today thought he would be well past by now] . Great I’m going to have to walk the rest of the bike. The technical guys come past a woman gets off the bike and asks am I going to be able to finish. I said if I can get this tyre off I can . The guy driving suggests using the skewer from the wheel and after a lot of levering we’re able to get it off , 1 minute later spare is on and pumped up. I later learn that Thierry had two punctures and a pump failure and actually went past while I was fixing mine.

So I’m pretty much left with bugger all motivation for the run and I guess just want to finish . Thought I was running OK but was nowhere near the pace I thought I was . Managed to pace of some girl for about 3 ks on the 2nd lap but finally died on that , and passed the guy in my age group I’d been tracking since 3k’s and past another one - 5:53 - 2nd slowest half for me , 33rd in age group , 16 minutes for a puncture , [would been in 16th or thereabouts off the bike if not for that].

So I guess you have to learn work off the positives -

Swim - OK considering the minimal training for it - so I can improve a bit

Bike - riding real well - don’t puncture - glue your own singles on so you know they’ll come off !

Run - well , I can still improve.

So Phil had an outstanding race , but he certainly paid for it and Thierry well I reckon might just have got Phil this time if not for the punctures.

Rick