Husky Long Course 2010

It had been a good few weeks of training as I prepped for ironman. Nothing huge, but just consistent weeks, getting done everything I wanted to get done. So while I decided not to taper for the race, I was quietly confident that I'd have a good time. I wasn't expecting to do a PB, but I was hoping that I'd do around the same time as last year and, more importantly, feel good while doing it as a vital psychological boost for ironman.

I mean my last half was Canberra and I really suffered on both the ride and the run. I still went well, but I just wasn't feeling comfortable at all, especially on the run. I was still trying to come good from some sort of illness so I put it down to that, but it would be nice to exorcise those demons.

It was a great start to the weekend, taking off after lunch at work on Friday and onto the Manly ferry for Johnny Duggan's afternoon wedding at Shelly Beach. An absolute cracker of a day and a beautiful ceremony, then lots of fun catching up with old school mates at the Skiff club reception. I won't go into detail, but it was definitely one of the happiest occasions I've been to - lots of love in the room - and I had a great time without touching a drop of booze.

Late night and not much sleep, but we woke to an absolutely glorious morning, piled all the gear into the wagon (man triathlon is an equipment-intensive sport!) and Sarah and I had one of the lovliest drives imaginable down to Jervis Bay. Smooth sailing all the way, we were into some great conversations, both feeling super happy and then even when we went wrong and realised after an hour that we were on the Hume Highway instead of the coast road, we took the Bowral turn to Kangaroo Valley and discovered a beautiful drive we'd never been on before.

Anyway yadda yadda, got to Mia and Dan's holiday house at Sanctuary Point, and we all jumped into the lake for a swim (along with the two dogs), had a great lunch and lay around napping and reading until I decided it was time to go into Husky and register and check the bike in. Easily done, although by this time (6pm) an ugly wind had blown up the the bay was a mass of whitecaps. Fingers were crossed for a calm night, we dropped in on Dan, Andrew and Mark's families in the camp ground then headed home for the night.

Race day. The alarm went and I ran through my usual pre-race ritual of peanut butter and banana sandwich, before waking Sarah and heading in. My prayers were answered and the bay was a sheet of glass. The rising sun had turned the sky bright pink, reflected in the water, and it was a breathtaking sight. After putting the finishing touches on my transition set-up and wandering around chatting to various people I knew, I was suffused with an eerie sense of complete calm. It wasn't like I was about to do essentially a half ironman. The wetsuit went on, I kissed Sarah goodbye and strolled down to the water. Even then standing tiptoe on the rocks to keep my head out, waiting for the start, I was in a zen-like state. Totally weird. Then the gun.

I always feel that the entire field rockets off, leaving me at the very back. It's probably true, I don't like to scrum or to blow my heartrate in the first 30 seconds, so I did my usual and took time getting my stroke right and feeling it. I tried hard to focus on all the little pieces of technique I'd learned at Vlad's squad, all the while sighting and reeling in people one after the other. The swim went reasonably well, I was happy with my stroke but extremely unhappy with my ability to swim in a straight line. I was just all over the shop, every time i took a few extra breaths between sighting I'd find myself way off course and having to swim back. It was a little frustrating, I felt like I swam in a zig-zag pattern, so much further than I needed to. The more I tried to focus on swimming straight and sighting more often, the worse it got! Right up until the end. I wasn't overly stressed by it, but I do admit to being a little annoyed.

Still, all the swim training I've done this year helped and I came out feeling very fresh and ready to ride.

Swim leg - 32:55 (just over 2 minutes faster than last year)

Quick transition (34s) and I was off on the ride. Conditions were perfect, windless and a lovely coolish morning. My riding felt strong and I was comfortable on the bars, much more so than in Canberra. I had been doing plenty of riding this year and it seemed to be reflected in my legs. Of course I was passed by every man and his dog as usual, but I was surprised by the amount of people I passed myself. And I did feel like I was doing a better job of spinning up the hills still on the bars. I did push it the first lap and my HR was consistently higher than the "plan", closer to 155+ than keeping it sub 145. I toyed with taking it a bit easy, but in the end though screw it, I'll just go for it because I'm feeling good and it's not unreasonable. I may die in the arse on the run, but I'm willing to take that risk.



Got through the first lap feeling good, then found on the second I was playing leapfrog with the same people again and again. A little group of girls and guys formed, they'd all take me on the downs and flats, then I'd take them all on the ups. There was no drafting, just a constant shuffling of positions. It was great for me because it gave me a focus and also a rabbit to chase. I constantly tried to stay close to them all on the downs, enough so that I could get ahead of them again when the terrain suited me. This went on for quite some time, but near the end of the lap I sat up to get some nutrition in and by the time I'd screwed around with the bento box and the powerbar wrapper they'd taken off and I couldn't catch up.

No matter, I just needed to pound out a solid 3rd lap and happily I was still in the right mindset to do so. I ground it out nicely, kept eating and drinking (although I was careful not to drink too much - I didn't want a repeat of ironman last year). Basically my nutrition went like this:
Nothing for first 20 mins. Then half a banana. A third of a powerbar every 20 minutes after that (2 powerbars in total) then the other half of a banana just before getting off the bike.

Bike leg - 2:28:45 (about one minute faster than last year)



I had my usual camel-type piss at the portaloos in T2 which took up over a minute, then hit the run course, which was already feeling pretty warm. After a few minutes I noticed I was running near Mark Fiore, who is an excellent runner, and I felt strong enough that my comfortable pace was just a little faster than his. Big psychological boost. Not that I'm anywhere near where he is as an athlete - he started his race about 20 minutes AFTER me and had made up all that time by the start of the run (he podiumed his age group), but still you take what you can get. It was perfect actually, I tagged behind Mark and ran off his shoulder for some time. Then I felt good enough to up it and ease past him, and he caught on behind me. We went through the whole first lap this way. The funny thing is that between us we must have known every person out there. Almost every single athlete running the other way or spectating yelled out either "Go Mike!" or "Go Mark!" as we went by. Pretty cool actually.



Anyway after the turnaround point he went by me again, I stuck on and passed shortly afterwards and then lengthened the gap a bit. Now it was roasting hot. I was drinking every aid station and pouring water over me at the same time. Every guy with a garden hose I ran towards for a spraying. Thankfully as a little guy I suffer less in the heat than some of the big fellas and I just kept the pace on and continued to reel people in.



The whole run I focussed very much of trying to keep perfect running form, straight back, high cadence, forefoot strike etc. It felt really good and there were long period where I felt like I was cruising. The second lap was hotter, but about even for me timewise and coming back over the little bridge separating Vincentia and Husky I was ready to kick it a bit. I sped up on the last straight, tried to bust it up the hill and lay down a sprint for the last 400m.

Run leg - 1:25:22 (3 minutes slower than last year)



I came over the line as hot as hell, but still feeling really strong and really good in my body. I was just stoked to have such a positive race! The other great thing was that emotionally I was in such a good place the whole time. Nothing like the lows of Canberra, no waves at all. Just chilled, stoked, smiling and happy, trying to stay in the moment the whole time and getting it done. This race was a cracker for me, I've loved every one of the Husky races I've done, but this was better than them all.

I did my best time, only by a couple of minutes, but it was the race itself that was a real joy.
2010 - 4:31:46
2009 - 4:34:07
2008 - 4:37:02

Amazing, Andy beat me by exactly 10 seconds. Having started in a different wave and posting different times for each leg, it turned out that we were right next to each other on the leaderboard placing 135 and 136 respectively. What a crazy coincidence, we barely saw each other out there and our training has been completely different. Pretty cool huh?