Yeppoon 70.3 Race Report

Just winding up a whole week of doing absolutely NO exercise whatsoever with a shift at the pool, and thought it was about time I provided a detailed account of last weekend's race.
Jason and I flew to Rockhampton the Thursday before the race, leaving Launceston at 9am and arriving up north at about 6pm. By the time we had sorted a hire care, picked up dinner and some groceries and driven all the way to our accommodation south of Yeppoon, it was about 10pm.
We had a self-contained cabin in a caravan park full of grey nomads in a place called Kinka Beach, about a 15min drive from Yeppoon and 40 minutes from the Capricorn Resort, the race site.
I would always recommend getting self-contained accommodation when you travel to race, because it is way too hard to be consistent with your pre-race nutrition if you haven't got the ability to cook for yourself. I get easily stressed/anxious before a race and one of the main sources of this is not being able to find what I want to eat, when I want to eat it.
The next day we slept in and then I had a short swim at the beach to get used to wearing my wetsuit again - my first open water swim since March! Water was lovely once you got in and the sun came out when I got out, making it a very pleasant change.
The next thing we had to do was drive the 45minutes back to Rockhampton to pick up our new wheels from the Specialized dealer there, Tucker's. We spent most of the day putting the bike together and checking everything was OK. It was pretty hot in the sun - I was hoping race day would be a bit cooler.
We picked up some lunch there and then drove back to Yeppoon where we bought some groceries and then drove up to the resort to check out the race site. I got the bike out of the back of the car and rode the 25km home in a nice tailwind to check out some of the bike course.
Saturday, the day before race day, I tried to get up a bit earlier and have my typical race day breakfast (porridge with banana) and then do my usual pre-race training session, a mini race. This comprised 15 minutes swim with a few sprints, run up the beach and transition to an easy 30 minute ride with a few accellerations, then transition to a 15 minute run with a few 10 second accellerations to race pace.
This all went well and training was over by about 11am, so we sat in the sun by the pool for long enough for Jason's lily-white chest to get nice and pink :D
We drove back into Yeppoon to find some lunch and catch up with both my grandparents and my good friend Bel Fong from Sydney, who came up to support me and her friend and club-mate Saxon, who is a top bloke (and athlete!)
The four of us drove back up to the resort to register and check out the expo, transition area and beach where we would swim. Then we decided to go for a little swim at the resort while we waited for the briefing to be held. Here Jason and I ran into none other than former Tasmanian ironman legend Susan Lloyd-Webb. After a short catch-up, I decided the pool was too cold and we should go back to town to buy some dinner provisions. We ended up going back to our accommodation and by the time we returned and picked up Bel and Saxon again we were late for the briefing, missing the part about the swim, which made me a little nervous.
We went back to the hotel and Jason made my favourite pre race dinner of tuna pasta, which was delicious. Early to bed and I slept well, not overly nervous about the impending race.
It was a 5am wake up call on race day and I went through my usual pre-race routine. Turns out I should have got up a bit earlier because we did have to pack and check out as we wouldn't be back after the race. We were running behind schedule and of course this stressed me out and I told Jason to drive as fast as he could to the race site. He did as I said and we actually got there in really good time.
Nice thing about Queensland is it's light by 5.30am so it was easy to set up my transition area. I had a really good spot where I wouldn't lose my bike because I knew I had to run right to the barrier then spot the second palm tree, and my bike was racked opposite that.
It seemed a long wait til the final briefing and then we were invited to walk down the beach to the start - a 1.7km walk! It looked awesome with the throng of 800 "seals" all walking down the long beach in wetsuits.
When we finally made it to the start area I jumped in and did a little warm-up. My race plan always says to warm up as long as possible because I haven't got a fast-twitch muscle in my body and I need to be really warm to swim/bike/run my fastest. But after just a couple of minutes I felt fine and didn't want to do any more, so I got out and shivered on the beach (it really wasn't that warm for Qld) until the pros and then the older women waves had started.
I could hardly believe how calm I felt as I lined up with the other "pink caps" (women 18-39) and I got a great place in the middle of the second row. The only thing I was worried about was my goggles fogging up! We waited... and waited... and waited.. and suddenly we were off, running down the beach and through the choppy breakers. The first 100m out to the first buoy was a struggle, I'm not a surf swimmer, and I did get a few big mouthfuls of water and two whacks to the head. But once we turned left round the buoy, I was off. I know it's slow but I prefer to swim on my own rather than risk getting bashed up, so I swam out to the right and soon I caught a big pack of "pink caps". Then I passed them, and caught a few more, and still felt like I could accellerate a bit more, so I did. The swim is one long line parallel to the beach and each couple hundred metres is marked with a different shaped or coloured buoy. Because I had missed the briefing, I didn't know which one meant turn left into the beach. I kept thinking 'it must be the next one, the next one, the next one' so I must have been hurting a bit (which is a good thing as I usually take the swim too easy!) Eventually I had to basically stop and look around cos I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to turn. When I did, I realized I was probably the first or second pink cap there, and there were only a few "white caps" (the older women) around too. This was a big surprise as I am usually a middle of the pack swimmer!
I turned left finally and started kicking a bit harder to warm my legs up. There were big waves into the beach but my lack of surf swimming experience let me down again and I wasn't able to catch any.
Still I got out of the water right up the front and then we had to run up the beach and up a really steep, soft sand sand dune. My heart rate went through the roof and I had to stop and walk, it was awful! And Bel was here cheering for me so it was embarrassing too. Definitely going to practice this (how and where, don't ask me) for next time. The timing mats were at the top of this dune, so my 29 minute swim was somewhat of a surprise considering all this!
Then there was a fair run into transition. The only struggle I had was getting my race number on, then I was off, with Jase cheering me through transition.
I couldn't figure out where all the other girls were. I passed one coming out of transition and a couple of others a bit further up the road. Then I had to do the entire first lap on my own - the pros were way ahead and there were no other age groupers around me.
By the time I got onto my second lap, most other people were out there, and there were huge packs everywhere because the course is 5 x 18km laps.
As if this didn't make it enough of an obstacle course, the road surface is renowned for being rough as guts, and as the laps went by, there were more and more drink bottles, bidon cages, pumps, CO2s and nutrition all over the course that had been shaken off people's bikes. Thanks to Jase and the guys at BC, my bike of course had nothing fall off it, and no punctures, given the nature of the road this is a credit to them and their maintenance.
My subsequent laps were consistent and slightly faster than that first lap, because of the drafting effect (with that many bikes in such a small space, you can't avoid it at all times).
I was really proud of my bike mainly because I forced myself to concentrate through the whole thing, which I usually struggle to do. I was also thinking "where are all the girls?!" I didn't catch any more, and it was the end of the third lap before one caught me. Another one caught me in the middle of the last lap. But ONLY TWO GIRLS PASSED ME IN THE WHOLE 90KM!!! Amazing! It was great having Jase and Bel cheering for me and I got to pass them twice each lap.
As Melissa touched on in her race report from the ITU LD worlds, it feels pretty damn good when you ride a cheap/heavy/not designed for the purpose bike and you are passing $12,000 shivs etc.
The last little bit of the bike into transition was pretty dodgy and slow, for some reason I didn't seem to be very sure what I was doing, and then I decided that even though I've done a proper tri dismount in every race for years and never stuffed it up, that today was going to be the day that I did, and so I stopped dead and did a normal road dismount.
Then I had trouble getting my bike into T2 because one of my shoes kept catching on the ground and wanting to flip the whole thing over. I practically had to carry it back to the rack. Then I put my shoes on, grabbed two gels and ran - forgetting to get my Garmin! I didn't go back and was annoyed at myself, but less so later when I found out it was the 6th fastest T2 out of the 800 competitors.
Off the bike, I felt awful running. My lower back was absolutely killing me and it wouldn't seem to free up. To make matters worse I started to feel like I really needed to go to the toilet. No way was I stopping though!
They say the run course is flat, but it is anything but easy. Out of transition you run across grass and then through the resort pool, round lots of corners and over a bridge. Then you have a few k's on exposed road (would have been really hot if the sun was out) then you go into the bush. I love trail running, but up and down on a soft, deep sandy path after a 90km bike in which you never get out of the saddle or off the bars, was very testing. At times I actually doubted if I could do the the whole 21km. But of course there is no way I'd go that far to give up, so I kept going. Because I didn't have my Garmin, I figured I must have been running really slowly, but still no girls passed me.
On the way out of T2 on my second or third lap, I saw #34, the first girl to have passed me on the bike, stop to stretch, and I passed her. The rest of the girls I passed, I had no idea which lap of the run they were on, but I guessed that they were behind me already. I had no idea how many were in front of me. Lisa Marangon, the winning pro, lapped me as we came into T2 the second time, so essentially she beat me by 7km.
The thought of seeing Jason and Bel at the finish kept me going through the last lap and my back finally recovered, I think I started going a bit faster, that was until some of my blisters burst and I could feel the blood running down my heels. Still it wasn't far to go and I'd be having cocktails in the pool...
4:54 the clock read as I ran under the finish arch and of course the first thing I did was look around for other girls! I saw one, then I found Jase, and I asked him "how did I go?" He said something like "good!" but that wasn't really detailed enough for me.
I took my shoes off and everyone gasped at all the blood and blisters covering my feet. I jumped in the pool and it felt good, but soon became pretty cold. My recovery drink was a pina colada... haha.
We caught up with Suse again and by the time we'd stopped talking I was shivering with the cold so we went back to the car. Jase packed the bike and all my gear while I went and had a shower, and then we had more cocktails and greasy fish and chips with Bel and Saxon.
Unfortunately we had to leave then to make our flight to Cairns, but Bel texted me later to let me know I had won a trophy and my age group by more than 8 minutes. I didn't take my slot to the world championships in Las Vegas, obviously.
Later when I got to see the results I was very happy to find out I'd had the 6th fastest swim, 12th fastest bike and 10th fastest run of all women to finish 8th overall; the third age grouper (the other two were in the 30-34 and 40-44 categories, and beat me by 5 and 1 minute respectively). It was a good day out, nothing went wrong, yet I know I can take probably 10 minutes off my time without too much hassle.
I was treating the race as a "training" race as I hadn't had an ideal lead-up, what with sicknesses and injries, so I was probably a bit more relaxed about it which may have helped me in the end.
Probably the thing I was most happy about though was the confidence the result gave me that my goal to become a professional triathlete is not out of reach. In my first 70.3, I finished 26 minutes behind the winning pro, and Lisa is a seasoned, strong pro and quite a bit older than me. I also beat some of the pro's times in all three legs. Without a point of reference it was often hard to reconcile my lifestyle (not having a proper job, and earning just enough to cover rent and food only) but now I am reassured it is a worthwhile pursuit and I really can make it if I keep plugging away.
I am now tossing up between Phuket and Canberra 70.3 as my next race.
To gain automatic qualification for a pro licence I need to finish within 4% of the winners time (I was 4min outside with my performance at Yeppoon, and just a little bit more at the ITU LD worlds last year). Phuket is known as a hard, hilly and hot course - all things that would go in my favour - and doesn't pay as much as Canberra so won't attract the same quality field, therefore making it easier for me to finish closer to the top women. But of course, the cost of getting to Phuket will be more than that of Canberra and we're on a very tight budget!
Speaking of budget, it's time to mention my sponsors, BC of course and Specialized, who help out with the cost of my bike and gear. EFM Health Club saves me money on a gym membership which is a huge help with my training.
Thanks for your support - I wouldn't be able to do it without you :)

State Duathlon Champion

Ooh yep been a while since my last blog! I suppose I haven't really had anything exciting to report, except for winning E Grade again in the Grindelwald Challenge (a huge surprise).
Training has thankfully been quite a bit more consistent since my injury has healed and I even went back to LAC the week before last. I ran the "Flanagan Flying 10k" at George Town in 41.38, pretty much the same time I ran it last year when I was running well and hadn't had injuries interrupting my training and forcing me to have six weeks off.
Last weekend the State Duathlon Championship and national qualifying race was held at Symmons Plains in its typical weather - blowing a gale, freezing cold and at times pouring with rain! Fun!
Unfortunately with Melissa still away, Natalea injured and Kate making the smart decision to stay in bed, there wasn't a lot of competition and I won by over four minutes. Still it is a nice title to have and shows that I have some form coming into Yeppoon, even if it was only over a tiny fraction of the distance.
I have one more test to sharpen me up which is the 20km State time trial race this Saturday at Richmond. Then there won't be time for much more at all before we are on a plane on Thursday to Rockhampton and driving to Yeppoon.
I must say I am extremely nervous about my transitions and swimming in a wetsuit, neither of which I have practiced since early March. But I'll just use this race as a marker to see how I'm going and make a decision which 70.3 to tackle next, where I'll actually aim to be competitive. At this stage I think December is a good target so it will probably be Canberra or Phuket.
Once I get back from Yeppoon it will be straight on the roadie for a fortnight to try and cram in some training for Amy's Gran Fondo in Victoria, then onto a running block in the hope of doing Triple Tops and various other races late in the year.
Well a rather hurried blog there but at least a brief update - full race run down post Yeppoon.
For now I am off for a cruisey weekend in Woodbridge :)