Monday 29 October 2012

A new bike and a new challenge

This time in three days I will be sitting on a plane on the way to Adelaide, feeling just a little nervous about a race I spontaneously signed up to a couple of weeks ago.
I was thinking of heading to Adelaide at some point to see family I haven't seen in years, but when my friend/former Launceston girl-now Adelaide resident Hannah Geelan (if you haven't, you should read her blog too) suggested racing the "MurrayMan" triathlon, that 'one day' trip turned into an 'in three weeks time' trip.
"MurrayMan" (murrayman.com.au) is a long course event held on Lake Bonney in Barmera, about a 3 hour drive north-west of Adelaide (near the border of NSW and Victoria). The competitor booklet says it is a wetsuit swim, but looking at the weather forecast - which yesterday said 37 degrees, and today has been revised down to a seemingly manageable 34 degrees - I'm not sure that's a certainty. However as the great Mark Matthews told me from his Kona experience, when it's a non-wetsuit swim, "everyone is in the same boat". I think my weak kick puts me at a definite disadvantage when not wearing the wetsuit though.
It seems like just yesterday I was jetting off to Yeppoon, I think I've been conditioned by the Tassie racing calendar to have to peak for just one race a year! But if I want to lift my game I really need to compete regularly like the pros (and most mainland age groupers) but of course this means spending more money, so feel free to suggest places you think might feel like sponsoring an average Tasmanian triathlete!!
Speaking of money, for the first time ever I have entered a race as an "open/elite" (where I've had the choice to enter that category instead of my age group) which means I will be eligible to win prizemoney! And first place is $1800! If I did win it, we'd pretty much break even on the trip over, which would be a huge bonus. There are eight other girls in the elite category but only one name is familiar and that's Renee Lane, a professional who finished eigth at Ironman New Zealand last year.
Between the competition and the weather I don't think it's going to be an easy race.
Joe Friel says in his book Your Best Triathlon (http://www.amazon.com/Your-Best-Triathlon-Joe-Friel/dp/1934030627)  that "if the race is 4 degrees C hotter than what you are used to, you can expect significant performance decline". I normally train at 6am when it's about 8 degrees or somewhere there... does that mean my performance is going to be seven times worse than usual?!
Friel also recommends that the longer you can acclimatise the better you will go - two weeks he thinks is optimum. I can't afford to agree with him. My theory is, arrive 12 hours beforehand and you will have completed the race before your body even realizes what is happening to it.
Jokes aside, I will change my race and nutrition strategies to take into account the heat, but I've never raced in anything close to that so it is going to be a huge learning experience.
I can take inspiration from some of our local performers just lately, Mattie and Hayden at Kona, Jimmy and Tom at Port Mac 70.3 and Jacob and Dylan on the ITU scene.
Of course Canberra Ironman 70.3 is still the main goal for 2012 so I will not be tapering for MurrayMan, I'm just lucky it fitted in at the end of an easy week.
Training has gone pretty well up til now, I'm pleased with how consistent it has been especially considering that my health has been pretty average these past few weeks. I've trained, competed (and won the LTC duathlon) through a head cold, followed by a chest infection, an achilles strain and a cracked rib. I really am not pushing myself that hard and I don't feel run down at all so if anyone has any idea why I would keep getting sick, please feel free to comment and let me know!

PS for those who are interested the Venge is just great! Feels light and stiff, accelerates amazingly and handles so well. I love it and would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to road race or do tris. I rode it in the Tamar Valley Classic 50km TT on Saturday and was really happy with how I went, especially against many people riding TT bikes.
It was a hard decision to leave it at home for the Adelaide trip, but in reality, completely recabling it to put a TT headset on it would be a total pain. So it's back to the old Transition I go! I'm just going to turn all that extra weight into extra momentum :)

Race report to come next week.
Thanks for reading!
Holly :)