Apparently it's the longest running triathlon in Australia, has been going continuously for the last 26 years. The first time for me though! Distances are unusual - longer than club but less than Olympic.
1km Swim
30km Bike
10km Run
So it's 2/3 Olympic swim, 3/4 Olmypic ride and a full Olympic run. A real runners triathlon - yeah!
I carpooled with Michael and we hit the road about 5am, cruising down the motorways and arriving just after 6am. The weather was pefect - clear skies, completely windless and already a bit warm.
So warm in fact that as we wheeled our bikes to transition we heard the call over the loudspeakers - 25 degree water, too warm for wetsuits so they weren't allowed!
There seemed to be huge amounts of people around, but there was still space in transition and rego was easy enough. We checked all our gear and wandered down to the swim start.
THE SWIM
A 1 KM straight shot along the shore of the manmade Olympic regatta centre lake. Dangerous mossy rocks getting in, then a deepwater start. The swim was easy, warm lovely water, clean and fresh. Absolutely glassy so no chop to screw with your stroke and easy to sight. Although it was dead straight anyway so not much need to sight. I just went out at an easy pace and soon seemed to lose everyone. I didn't see any other green caps by about halfway but couldn't work out if I was faster than most people or slower than the pack. Didn't really care, just cruised along and came out of the water bang on 19 minutes. 19:37 into transition.
T1 was quick as with no wetsuit! Getting feet into shoes on the bike was another problem however. I'd practised at Brick the day before about 6 times, but somehow with wet feet and with 4 tight curves at the start line I just couldn't get up to speed and when I finally could, had real trouble getting the feet in. Ah well, did it eventually!
THE RIDE
Best triathlon ride ever. Uber smooth the whole way round, perfect surface. I think there was one pothole on the whole ride (of course I went right over it). Started on flat bike path around the lake and as soon as my feet were in I was nudging 42km/hr which I was surprised at.
I'd screwed with my position a bit in the last few days and was happily able to stay aero the whole ride. Only issue was that the handbars hadn't been tightened properly and had slipped far down so my arms were angled downwards at an awkward pitch. I couldn't manage to drag them back on on the fly, so just rode that like and in the end it wasn't too bad, I forgot about it in fact.
The road stayed flat and smooth, there were a bunch of really fun curves through some industrial park area, then more long straights and the first lap was over. Went round and did it again and liked it even better the second time because I had the measure of those curves. Very happy with the ride all up.
Total ride including both transitions 54:04
The Run
The glory leg for me and I really enjoyed this one. Two laps around the circumference of the lake. Completely flat and smooth, a really nice and really fast course. No hills for me to get people on, but flat is a challenge of its own. Very hot by this stage and I poured water over my head at every aid station, which helped for a few minutes.
I settled into a good rhythm and pretty much stayed there. Got passed by one older guy in the first 100m who I stuck to like glue for the entire first lap and basically drafted off. That was perfect, I’m sure it helped my speed having that psychological push to keep up. He snuck ahead at the water station at the start of lap 2 and then I never caught up again. Ah well, I was doing ok by then and didn’t even bother to eat my gel because I knew I’d finish easily and didn’t really fancy a hot gooey sticky overly sweetened mess in my mouth at that stage.
Fired up with about 2km to go and upped the pace in order to try to get in under 1:55. Passed Spiderman at the grandstand and a bunch of Coolrunning cheerers then it was all over!
Managed to get the run done in 39:07 which is the first sub-40min 10km run in a triathlon for me. Very happy with that!
Total time: 1:52:49
I went and chatted to the Coolrunning cheersquad for a few minutes and then Michael finished shortly after. A cooldown job, some rehydration and stretching and we settled in for the lucky draw prizes which were actually damn good. A bike, a coupleof $1000 wetsuits, heaps of $200 sunnies, expensives goggles, shoe vouchers, HR monitors etc etc. So much stuff, the giving away took hours! Needless to say I didn’t win anything.
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