Gold Coast Half Ironman - The Race Has Been Run

Monday, Oct 04, 2010 at 14:39

TriathlonOz - David

Race day began at 3:50AM to get some food in and then packed the family into the car for the 40min drive to the event. It was pouring with rain and to be honest at this point I was not really looking forward to racing, but hey it could have been worse .... and been really hot and humid. So we got to the event at 5am and parked the car on slushy grass. Michelle and the girls decided that a bit more sleep in the warm and dry car was more appealing than hanging around in the cold and rain while I setup my transition.

So I setup my transition in the lower level car park (which was great because it was dry) and placed out my usual equipment (towel, shoes, cap, sunnies (what for I am not sure), gels and food. Ready to go. Now that the gear was ready all that was left was to don the wetsuit and prepare myself mentally. My wave start was 7:01 so I had plenty of time. I hit the dunny queue in the pouring rain and looked out at the bleak dark sky and started to wonder WHY?

So I sat in the car with my family looking out through the rain at the other people getting ready for the event. I must admit just thinking of racing in the rain is not that appealing and it does tend to give you a bit of a negative vibe. Anyway I put on the wetsuit (water temp 19) and had the last of my fluids and banana and headed over to the start. When we left the car it was about the only 5 mins of let up in the rain. It did not last long and the whole family got soaked as we walked over to the start area.

With no obvious signs that the rain was going to let up I accepted that I was about to experience my first wet weather triathlon and convinced myself "it would be a good learning experience". At about 7:00 I was on the start line ready to go (they were 5 mins behind at this stage). Off we went for the swim. It was not a bad swim, however due to the rain and the channel the water was dark with little visibility. The wave starts did mean less people in each start group (around 100) so the swim was not too bad in terms of hussle and bussle, crashing into others etc which is the usual problem in these events. Some 34mins after I started, I emerged from the water in yet more pouring rain.

I will let up complaining about the rain as it did not stop the whole day and made the bike leg interesting and the run leg heavy. Anyway, from the swim I had a short run along the boardwalk to the car park, grabbed the bike, shoes, helmet etc and raced to the mount line. This transition was over 2.5 mins for me but in total the length was over 500m according to my Garmin 310XT (new toy). So out on the bike for 90.1km in the pouring rain (I must stop tallking about the rain). What can I say about the ride other than it was harder than usual, undulating would be a good word for it as there were a large number of undulations so trying to maintain the 40km/hr pace was going to be difficult today. According to my computer I finished the ride in 2:25 so not that bad considering the weather (the official results added both transitions into the ride so it shows 2:31 but I timed these myself).

So off the ride into the 21.1km run. I started out well at around 4:30 pace but this only lasted for the first 3 kms and then I had a struggle to keep the pace to around 4:50. I struggled through the mid section of the run and then with about 4km to go I lifted as much as I could to get the pace back to around 4:45 and made it to the end at around 1:45 so this was at least pleasing.

Results

Swim 00:34:15 (Cat Place 89/199)
Ride inc T1 & T2 02:31:31 (Cat Place 10/199)
Run 01:45:28 (Cat Place 60/199)
Overall 04:51:16 (Overall 202/1352, Cat 33/199)


So there you have it a decent time considering the weather. I was also not 100% over the last few days of problems and think I have been holding off a flu or cold but I am not unhappy with the result. I do not know how the winners do it at 03:51:58 that is just almost an unhuman effort but good luck to those guys.

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