Since my last post I've:
-attended a weekend triathlon camp
-completed a 10km race
-raced a sprint triathlon
-met up with a fellow Canadian blogger
-struggled with the issues of trying to train at a high intensity for a long period of time
Wow. What I can tell you is I've paid my final dues to Triathlon Canada for Perth next month, and just need to book my flights (after finishing this I'll get on it). Race shape is coming along and I'm feeling stronger and stronger in all three disciplines. In Perth I'll work on the 4th leg if I have a good result that I'm happy with, plenty of time to sober up on the plane ride home.
The peoples race.
This past weekend on the Gold Coast was the World Olympic and Sprint distance triathlon champs, with plenty of squad members competing. They also had the peoples race which I challenged a fellow squad member, Tim to. In the lead up to the race, there was more smack talk than you could handle, but all in good fun. I didn't think I could win, but I knew I could sure try hard and give it a solid effort. If I could keep close in the swim, I might have a chance.
Our age group was split into two as it was almost 100 people, so I was in the first wave, while Tim was in the second. Three minutes between, all I needed was to swim strong.
The horn went and into the water I went. I felt pretty good in the water and was moving well. I was in the mix and was moving through the people well, so I was confident on how I was doing. As I hit the beach, I hear "mate", it was Tim the bugger. He managed to make up the swim difference with what turned out to be one of the better swims of the day. I was in trouble. I was now down 3 minutes and needed to go full throttle to have a chance. We're pretty comparable on the bike and I'm a faster runner, but all I could do was go full out.
(swim side note... I thought I was swimming well and I did actually. I was in the top 1/3 in our age group, so I'm extremely happy with that result. Never have I been that high up in the swim ranks)
I ran hard through T1, and had a quick change out of my wetsuit, and out onto the bike course, passing Tim on my way through as he fiddled with his wetsuit. The transitions were long, it was close to 300m from the bike racks to the mount line so a pretty big run. A flying mount and I was off on the two loop bike. I went hard to try and make up time on Tim so I didn't slow down one bit. When I came to the hillier section, I jumped out of the seat and pushed hard to keep my speed up. Into the wind I was averaging around 36km/hr while with the wind at my back I was up around the 45km/hr mark. I seemed to be gaining on Tim, but not much ground. I was hurting through the bike and was focused to ride as hard as I could. I could rest after the race. A textbook flying dismount and a quick run to my bike spot. As I ran in, I went down the wrong lane, but quickly found a break in the racks and ducked under to my spot. I grabbed my runners and hat and headed off as fast as I could. A nice quick T2 and just a 5 km run ahead of me.
Keeping my focus, I ran as hard as I could for the whole thing. It was now getting warm out, so each aid station I grabbed 2 waters, one for dumping on my head and one to drink. At the two turn around points on the run, I was counting the time gaps between Tim and I and I was widening the gap at each point. I needed to get 3 minutes back, so I had to keep going. Full throttle into the last km and then I gave it all I had. My heart rate was through the roof, but I kept at it. I ran through the squad tent area to the cheers of the people who had competed earlier and went for the finish line with the intensity of a fat kid going for a smartie.
As I crossed the line, I hit my watch to check the time difference between Tim and I. 30seconds, 1 minute, 1:30, 1:45, then he turned into the last straight. I stopped my watch... 1:59, I'd lost by 1:01.
Considering my personal goal was to be within 90 seconds I was very happy. Don't get me wrong, I was out to win, but I had to be somewhat realistic. To make up 2 minutes on the run and bike was truly amazing. If I could have had a bit better swim, I might have pulled it out, but hey I was happy with my result. Here's my splits for you sports fans out there...
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| | Splits | |
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| Swim | 00:15:42 | 00:15:42 | 09:18:40 | 384 | 65 | 308 | 0 | 0 | 10:28 | ||||||||||
| T1 | 00:17:22 | 00:01:39 | 09:20:20 | 59 | 4 | 45 | 0 | 0 | |||||||||||
| Cycle | 00:50:43 | 00:33:21 | 09:53:41 | 48 | 12 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 72.0 | ||||||||||
| T2 | 00:52:09 | 00:01:26 | 09:55:07 | 124 | 15 | 101 | 0 | 0 | |||||||||||
| Run | 01:12:26 | 00:20:16 | 10:15:24 | 60 | 11 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 2:01 |
A good result all around and hopefully I can keep building on this for Perth next month.
For whatever reason, it seems I can't add photos so, if you know me on Facebook, go have a look, there's lots of photos there. Take it easy and see you out there....that is after we get back from New Zealand.
Cheers
Richard
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