A week of reflection

Well it's been a week since my first 70.3 experience here in Oz. Not being happy after the race is one of the understatements of the year. But what doesn't kill you...... So I have spent the week looking back at what was good with the race and what desperately needs to be revamped.

Being somewhat of the gadget guy I am (not as bad as some in the squad) I had used my Garmin on the bike as the race wheels didn't have a spot for my speedo sensor. As I looked through it, the thing I noticed was my speed during each of the 30km segments. Well, it seems the last 30 was my slowest where I only averaged 30km/hr. Now there were a few reasons behind that, other than starting to tire there was alot of wind. Interesting to note, my perception of being tired about the 75km mark was bang on according to my Garmin. Interesting.

The other thing I did was break down the race into a number of areas and put it all into a spreadsheet. My god, I'm turning into my wife!!! What it did do was show a couple of things. All this I looked at lead me to a couple of focus areas for the next one... yes there will be more torture in my future before Ironman....

First was nutrition. I need to experiment more on my training rides on different types of food and sports drink. I think I'm done with Powerade after finding out how much sugar there is and with little else in there. Time to experiment.

The next big thing is my biking. I was not consistent with my overall speed. I think if I were to look at my ride with a power meter, I bet I would find my watts would have been all over the place. Time to learn consistency.

Lastly, I think it's time for another bike fitting. I felt okay with the exception of my upper hamstrings. Not sure if it is a function of my setup or something else.

As I have looked back over the last week I realize having a bad race helps you learn. If it was always easy, how would you know if you were pushing yourself enough.

I have good health, good friends and a ton of support in this crazy sport of triathlon, others in life are not as lucky. So enough of the bitching and time to look to the horizon and the preparation for the next challenge, whatever it may be...

Sometime in the next week or so, I'll be sitting down with my coach to go through my schedule leading up to Ironman. With some tweaking, who knows, I may even make it down to Canberra for that 70.3....

Thanks to all who have helped in whatever fashion it may have been. Thanks to all my family, friends, squad members and especially my wife. I know I will be in need of your support in the next 5+ months when I hit the start line for IMA.

Cheers

The humbled and peeling Richard
(very bad sunburn at the race)

ps. if you want to see some more pics from the race, check out http://sportingimages.com.au/current/main.php