Busselton 70.3 The Race

Monday, May 07, 2012 at 11:40

TriathlonOz - David

Just back home and getting sorted to return to normal after the big race. My first comments about the day are 'Tough day'. It all started during the night of the race with a huge storm that rolled into Busselton and would have woken everyone racing filling them with fear. It poured and there was thunder and lightening, the forecast was for storms and rain.

When we woke at 4:30 it had stopped raining and we had breaky and went back to bed for 30 mins to awake at 5:20. When we went outside it was pitch back but we could see starts which was comforting but it was certainly wet on the ground.

We arrived at transition at about 6:10 and did our usual preparation and setup. Thankfully Michelle & I had no flats as we left our spares at the resort. Anyway by the time transition closed we could see the sky and to be honest it looked ok, clearing skies. The sound of the sea was still not that nice we could hear crashing waves as we walked to transition and when we walked over to the ocean we could see a huge wash out on the beach and a washing machine type black & weedy ocean. It was not very inviting.

Michelle's wave started at 7:25 and mine at 7:50 so I had a little more time to kill on the beach. SO at 7:50 the horn went and into the soup we went. The usual few kicks in the face and body tussle and many mouth fulls of water try to get out through the surf. The 200M swim out was tough but once around the first marker it was easier as the sea was almost behind us so it made that near 1km easier except for being pushed into the shore and making the swim a little longer. However once we turned and started heading back the swim took on new meaning, it was choppy and very lumpy causing everyone to struggle and use more energy than you wanted at this stage just to keep going. So when I made it to the beach I was relieved. I was also happy to see most of the bikes of people I wanted to be ahead of still on the rack. So at this point I was going well.




So out on the bike leg it became obvious that there was a tail wind on the way out as my average was higher than my work rate so I decided I had best capitalise on this and pushed hard on the way out to ensure I would not lose too much on the way back. After the first lap I just started to become uncomfortable on the bike and had some really serious saddle soreness starting. I found myself stopping to pedal to stretch and get my bits off the seat. This was unusual for me as I have not been this uncomfortable on the bike for a long time. Anyway pushing ahead I still knew I was going to have a reasonable bike time and was sill on track to be out of T2 under 3hrs from the start.

When I hit T2 I was basically exactly where I wanted to be in the race, my total time was under 3hrs and I was out of T2 and on the run still sub 3hrs (just). My first lap pace was to be 4:20-4:30mins/km and I went out and maintained this but I was starting to suffer a serious right lung stitch and every breath was really starting to hurt. I knew I needed to back off a little and decided to make a quick toilet stop as I thought this would relieve the stitch and get rid of the "I need to pee" feeling. It worked and when I returned to the run I had only lost about 2 mins and was feeling a little better. So I returned to my pace. I continued for about 1km and then whack my right ankle went "ting" and started to really hurt.

I was shattered as I knew this was not good. I had picked up a little strain one my last long run a few weeks ago in this ankle and had reduced my running and was icing this before the race. bleep this was hurting and I started to lose running form and was visibly limping. The problem with this is that it starts to effect your good leg and other parts of your body. I then started cramping the upper left quad. I had to slow down I was not far from the mid point aid station and walked through this station. I had a really hard time starting again but was able to get going to about 5:30min/kms. All sorts of thoughts filled my head for the rest of this lap and I am not sure how I got them out of my head to let me keep going (most of these thoughts were telling me to pull out and I was listening).

I made it to the end of lap 2 and started out on lap three. One of my racing mates, Rod Fitzgerald, pulled up along side me and we had a chat about how things were going and we were both struggling and wondering why the hell we were doing this. After I made it to the mid way aid station on the way out I started to recover a little and was able to pull the pace up a little but this only lasted to the far aid station, which meant 3.5kms to go. I turned and started the final run back. I caught up with Michelle and she urged me to push to the end and get going (thanks love I needed that support right at that moment). It seemed to take forever to get back but with 1 kms to go I was not feeling the pain anymore as I knew it was almost over and I ran back to form and speed for the final km and made it to the line.

I knew my time was down and not what I was wanting but who cares I made it and even though I was over 10 mins slower than I wanted I finished in 4:50 which is still a good time.



Results

Swim: 00:35:21 Cat Place 19/171
Cycle: 02:19:51 Cat Place 5/171
Run: 01:50:38 Cat Place 38/171

Overall: 04:50:44 Cat Place 10/171

So top 10 in my age group still with the problem in the run! I am happy with this result and now I am really looking forward to not training for the next few months and having a winter off Tri training. I may do some adventure races to keep fit and see how I feel when the season rolls around later in the year. For now after 3 years of winter training I am really looking forward to some time away.

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If it's not hurting your not tri'ing!
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David Martin
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