Last week of racing

Over the last week, I have competed as a cyclist in a team for the Mandurah Olympic Distance triathlon, WA state aquathlon championships, City of Busselton Criterium and Busselton Jetty Swim. 

Mandurah Olympic Distance (3/2/13)

For this race, my coach did not want me to do the full distance, so I decided to do it in a team instead. The swimmer was Cambell Smith, I did the cycle and we had Matthew Ramsdon do the run for us. Everyone in the team raced extremely well. You can read Cambell's blog for the swim report, and mine for the cycle report. 

The swim started at 8:25AM and I had around 20 minutes to do my warm up and get into transition, ready to receive the timing band. Since I did not have access to a bike, I just did a couple of activation drills to get my legs warmed up for the 40km cycle that lay ahead of me. I went down to the beach and saw the pack that Cambell started off in, and it was around half way through the swim. I walked into transition, put my helmet on and reached my rack. I was ready to walk down to my bike and put on my socks when I saw Cambell running out of the water, so I ran to my bike and dropped my socks in transition, got the timing band, then ran out to the bike mount. I did a flying mount and quickly accelerated to my race speed, then put my feet in my shoes. I was in my small chain ring on the way out into the wind, spinning over at around 110-115 cadence at just under 40kph. The course was three laps of a 13 and a third kilometre course. I held the same pace to the turn around and then got into the big chain ring for the way back. I started spinning around the same cadence but in the bigger gear and was sitting around 50kph. I held this pace until the technical part of the course where I slowed down a little bit to get through the area safely. I did the same thing on the next two laps except I slowed down my cadence a little. When I got to the last couple of km's of the course, I picked up to go as fast as I could so our team could be as far in front as possible going onto the run. I came over the bridge for the last time and undid my shoes to dismount, and then jumped off the bike. I sprinted into transition and handed over the timing chip and race belt to Matt Ramsdon for the run. The course measured 41.46km on my speedo, and I did it in a time of 1:03:53 with an average speed of 38.94, which all includes the run into transition, so my average should be over 39. Matt ran extremely well and finished the 10km run in 38:03 which gave our team the win.

State Aquathlon Championships (8/2/13)

The aquathlon course is a 500m swim, 2.4km run, 500m swim, 2.4km run, which is a 2 lap swim, 3 lap run, 2 lap swim, and 3 lap run again. I started off in the first swim keeping within 20m of the main pack, then exited the water and run back to the swim start to do the second lap. I had dropped back a bit exiting the water so I was a bit further behind entering the water again for the second lap. I completed the second lap and got out of the swim in a time of 9:18. I went through transition comfortably and came out the other end at a medium pace. I didn't go too fast as I wanted to be able to breath properly at the start of the second swim and that would help me get away a bit faster through there. About half way round the second lap, Brandon Swift overtook me and I thought about going with him but I would have not been able to pace myself properly. I ran a 9:13 for the first run and then went back down to the water. I started the swim a little slower than the last one but tried to gain some time on Brandon so I could try and catch him in the next run. I went through this swim in 10:42 and that was quite a bit slower as the timing mats were 300m before the swim lap point. I came onto the second run with a bit quicker pace hoping to catch up to Brandon, with Mitchell Date sitting right on my feet. I ran the first two laps with him right behind me, looking for Brandon so I could judge how fast I would have to go for my last lap to catch him, but unfortunately I didn't see him. When I came around for my final lap, I picked up the pace a lot to try and drop Mitchell. He wasn't expecting it and I got a little gap on him. I held this gap all the way around and then caught sight of Drew Corrigan as I went into the final straight. I picked up the pace a bit more to try and catch him, but was 5 second behind him at the finish. I did the second run in 8:29 and finished 3rd in the 14-15 age group. When I did the first run, I should have gone a little harder and taken the run down to the swim entry a little easier which could have the same effect I was hoping for.

City of Busselton Criterium C-grade (9/2/13)

The City of Busselton Criterium course is quite a technical one, with 3 180° turns, 2 fast corners and some narrow areas. The C-grade had 24 cyclists, and went for 30 minutes + 2 laps. We started off and Stuart Denton set the pace quickly out the front. Going into the first 10-15 minutes I sat towards the back end of the group, looking for a way to get up to the front. There was 1 crash in the first couple of laps which broke the group up a bit and we had to work to get onto the back of the front couple of cyclists. Around 15 minutes in, Cambell Smith attacked and tried to get away from the group, which he did for about 2 laps before he was caught by the main bunch. Very soon after this I saw an opportunity to get to the front and I took it, leading for a bit and then waving Stuart Denton through. A couple more people pulled turns and I got to the front a couple more times in the last 10 minutes. We had two laps where seaguls got in the way and almost lost their lives to bikes and nearly caused some crashes, which was avoided. We got the bell lap and the pace picked up a lot, with everyone trying to get to the front. We all got onto the back straight and the front 5 people accelerated fast out of the corner, leaving me to sprint to get back onto them. By the time everyone had got to the last u-turn, there was a break away of six, where one person sprinted off and Cambell Smith tried to get onto him and take the win, but was just a little bit behind and came second. I got stuck behind the group coming out of the corner and got dropped a couple of meters as well. I ended up coming 6th. We rode for 33 minutes and 20.4km, which gave the main bunch an average speed of just under 37kph. I though I rode quite well after the aquathlon and preparing for the jetty swim the next day, just hoping that I can do a bit better in the final sprint next time.

Busselton Jetty Swim (10/2/13)

I arrived early in the morning, and went and got my leg numbered. Whilst doing this, I met up with fellow training buddy Jeremy Shaw. After we both had our numbers on, we decided to go to the beach and have a little warm up swim. The water was a little choppy and cold, but it was alright once we got in. After the warm up swim, I found Cambell Smith and Drew Corrigan who were starting in the same wave as me. We got out to the start line and waited for the start. The gun was a little unexpected but it went off and we started. The waves were coming from the right so I had to breathe to the left to make sure I did not swallow any water. When I got out to the end of the jetty, the waves were quite high, but I managed to get a half way split on my watch. It was 27:47. On the way back, I had the waves behind me so I thought I would come back a little faster. I actually swam 29:44 on the way back and had a total time of 57:32. I was quite happy with this as it was my first time doing the jetty swim and the water also being quite choppy. I am hoping to do better next year.