Fun Day at the Bond Uni twilight relays. Won a bag and some Redbull for our teams efforts. (at Bond University)
Australian Olympic Distance Championships Race Report
It has been a quiet few months on the blogging front.
- I had nothing to write about. There is only so much complaining one can do about injuries, my growing waistline (7kgs in 8 weeks post Noosa) and my injury again
- I started my Masters of International Relations degree at Bond and the amount of writing I’ve had to do for various essays, presentations and research reports has been arduous in the extreme. My research report consists of 37 different resources and 27 pages of notes, that was before a word was written. Fortunately it was on something extremely interesting … ‘Factors influencing attitudes towards doping.’ Yes this is part of my IR degree.
- I simply haven’t had the time. The workload of my Masters and getting back to some vestige of full training have been time consuming, it has been manageable because of the time efficiency of living within eyesight of the pool, next door to all my classes and within walking distance to shops. But there has been little ‘free’ time.
The progress on the injury front has been positive since late December. I’ve been back at full bike training for two months, and by the end of January I was doing continual 60min runs pain free. Racing was still out of the question, I was enjoying being back training and doing what I love…this ‘love’ increased markedly with a return to fitness. There was a near linear relationship between my watts/pace/pool times and enjoyment.
I came down to Melbourne on the 14th of February to see the family (and maybe bring some washing). That weekend I watched some of the ET squad race Sprint Nationals, the hunger to race, dormant for months, returned in an instant.
With that in mind my coach devised two test sets, 6x1k on the track on a 4min send-off and 4x5k (changed to 7.30m) intervals on the bike. This would not only test my fitness but test the ability of my body to tolerate the load. The run was a rude shock to the system, the first time I had run on the track (injuries and off-season) since March 18, 11 months! The bike watts were good (comfortably above 5w/kg), but below what I believed I was capable of. Anyway with the chance of auto-pro licence qualification I decided to make the trek to Devonport to race Nationals.
Its been a while, 11 years since I’ve been to Tasmania; back then it was to watch a cricket match. It ended up being one of the worst games of cricket I had ever watched, Englad vs Australia A. A batsman with the surname Crawly (aptly-named) made a little over 50 runs during the course of the days play, facing roughly 300 balls! I was hoping for better luck on the sporting front this time around. Devonport, whilst small, was so picturesque. The race site especially was stunning, complimented by perfect weather. Its somewhere I’d like to come back to.
Skipping forward a few hours (much of which was consumed be eating). I was lining up with amongst 100 or so other wetsuit-clad men.
Suggestion no.1 to race organisers: Have a starting horn.
No one had any idea when we were meant to start. Not helped by the organisers. There was one false start involving half the field…we were recalled…and the second false start turned into the actual start, we all just went.
The first part of the swim was pretty good, I started to the far left with some strong swimmers, and felt (note FELT) I was in a good position. Adding considerable firepower to the swim was Codie Grimsey, this guy casually owns the fastest EVER English channel swim time. He towed around some of the faster swimmers (not me) for the first part before detaching himself, probably still swimming at the lower end of the aerobic zone.
I found someone’s feet (if you are someone who possesses an Orca 3.8 Wetsuit and had some annoying person tapping your feet for around 20mins, apologies).
Upon exit, I knew straight away I hadn’t had a good swim, there were quite a few people exiting infront of me, and my mums face, impossible of hiding any emotion, said it all. Not helping my mood was taking a tumble rounding a corner into T1. Fortunatly the wetsuit provided ample cushioning to the ignominious sight of me landing slap-bang on my bum. With only a bruised ego, I continue my run to the bike.
I mounted the bike in a foul mood, put my head down and told myself if I wanted a good result I needed to hurt. At the turnaround 2ks in I was in 16th position, around 90s behind the leader.
The bike course is a 6-lap affair with multiple corners, 3 speedhumps, a 150m 10% gradient hill, a descent of afformentioned hill and a crossing of railway lines. In short it was going to be bloody dangerous. My anger at my poor swim put any thoughts of safety to the side, and I attacked the course, corners and hills like a maniac. Clipping my pedal more than once around a bend, nearly being taken out by a swerving age-grouper and narrowly avoiding a few crashes on the speed bumps. Apologies to the people I politely aggressively asked screamed to move to the left :)
I started making my way up the field, my legs were feeling good, I knew I was in good form, and I was pleased to deliver to my potential on the bike. I pulled back 50s on the lead ‘bunch.’ It was a testament to the level of pacing drafting that two of the top three finishers would ride on road-bikes. I ended up with the fastest bike split of the day, riding over 30s faster than the next person and putting in over two minutes into the 10th fastest rider, amidst the disappointment of today that was one positive. Highlighting my improvement, at Portarlington 11 months ago I lost 2.5mins to the leaders in just 26ks.
Onto the run I was in 5th position, about 40s down on the leading three. 200m in I passed someone and found myself in 4th. As I’ve said many times before, within the first few steps you can get a pretty good idea how the run is going to turn out. At Noosa I knew I was on a winner, today I knew I was in trouble. My stomach felt like a washing machine filled with cement, the calves were seizing up and my head wasn’t in the right place. I chased hard for the first 3k’s averaging a respectable 3.33 pace (considering my lack of training), but considering the leaders were running around 3.20 pace and the eventual fourth place finisher ran a 33.10, I was well out of my league. 3.5ks in I was passed like I was standing still. The pace started to fall. At the 4k mark two more people past, include one of the ET coaches Stephanne. Being the classy guy he is, he offered me a gel and encouragement, I really appreciated that! But I knew it was game over, with thoughts of re-injury on my mind I decided to pull the pin at the far end of the course. I hate DNF’ing races, especially one that required significant travel/expense. The 1500m walk back to transition was slow and gave quite time for some soul-searching. It was the right decision to DNF but it still hurt.
Amidst all these negatives it is important to remember that I was at least out there, after four long months, doing what I love. I was extremely luck to have the support of my mum, coach and fellow athletes out there. The trick is not to let these small set-backs get in the way of long-term objectives. I am back training, having run the last three days with no issues. Instead of looking back, I need to look forward, in my case to Mooloolaba on the 16th of March.
Till then…
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