When I first noticed the sport of triathlon and decided it was something I wanted to do, an Olympic Distance (1.5/40/10) was my goal. After doing my first tri at Kurnell in December (.75/20/5) I got straight on the net and entered the Canberra OD with Kev. The race was yesterday…

I hadn’t done a whole lot of training between Kurnell and New Year, but had got three decent weeks in since then, so I was fairly confident. I’d also bought my first set of aerobars, but my longest ride actually on the bars was only 15km, though I could tell they were fast. I’d got my weekly long run up to 9km too, so I was reasonably confident the run would be OK.

Drove down on Saturday and saw quite a few cars heading down with bikes inside or on top. Stopped at the servo in Marulan and noticed quite a few cars with the Watch For Cyclists stickers attached too. We were staying in John’s place so rocked up there, watched Kev do some last minute drivetrain clean & lube, went down and registered and then drove a lap of the bike course to see what we were in for. Looked nice and fast. No hills, but a couple of undulations around the back. That set our mind at ease a bit.

Up the next morning and plenty of butterflies. Both of us were novices at the distance so had no idea of what to expect, but we decided to set very rough goals anyway:

Me: 2h 25 – 22 swim, 1:13 bike, 50 run.

Kev: 2h 40 – 30 swim, 1:25 bike, 45 run.

The lake was 27C, so it was no wetsuit which I was delighted about, as I don’t own a wettie and can swim well anyway. Once I had pumped my tyres, got my gear organised and had visited the jacks, the nerves disappeared and it was all calm before the start. I decided to cruise the swim and use it as my warm-up, so once the gun went off I got myself in a bit of clear space and settled in to it. Pretty uneventful, but came out of the water in 24:52 with an AvHR of 159! Too slow and too high a HR, what’s up? Ran up to transition and my hamstrings were close to cramping too which worried me a little. Through transition in 3:19 which is bloody slow, but I can’t do that shoes on the bike thing yet so had to fart around a bit putting them on.

Out on the bike, onto the bars and off we go. It took a few kms to shake of the ‘impending cramp’ feeling and after that all was well. I settled in to a nice rhythm on the first lap with a HR hovering around 160 which was roughly what I had intended. Had a gel around Parliament House after the undulations and went through 20km in 34:30 which I was very happy with as it felt pretty easy. Decided to pick up the pace a little on the second lap, since I now knew what to expect, so held 40km/h+ all along Parkes Way and the Tuggeranong Freeway to the Cotter Rd turnoff (apart from the couple of undulations that is). I got out of the saddle to stretch my legs & back on some of the climbs around the back of the course, had another gel, then finished the lap strongly for a 33min split and an on-the-bike time of 1:07:30 (35.5kmh) which is smoking for me. Aerobars rock!

Legs felt good too, or at least I thought they did. Threw my trainers on and was about to take off on the run when I got that ‘almost cramp’ thing again, so stopped for a quick stretch. Another 2:30 in transition, so probably some free time improvements to be had there. Once out on the run I was suffering! Felt really shit, legs were like lead and stomach was on the verge of cramping. The race map had indicated only two drinks stations on the run, and both were marked as very close to the start so I was quite worried as to whether I’d survive. I walked the aid stations and knocked back water & sports drink then started trundling away again. At that stage I was wondering whether I was going to finish or not. The sun beating down didn’t help either.

Around about the 3km mark I had a lightbulb moment, the fog cleared and the benefits of reading Transitions came to the fore. I remembered that the first bit of the run was supposed to feel like shit, with crap legs etc. etc., so once I knew that then things improved. Well, when I say ‘improved’ I don’t mean that I got any faster, or that I started feeling great or anything that dramatic, I just realised that this was how things were supposed to be.

I was just plodding along and seemed to be running around 6min/km, so I was looking at an hour run split which I wasn’t happy about. The run was a plain out-and-back course, so I was hanging for the turnaround point so at least I’d no longer be running away from the finish and I could tell myself it would all be over soon. Finally I rounded a corner, I could see it 400m away and I got to it in 26:15 (AvHR: 171) which was a bit better than I’d expected. I now had 5km spread out before me and I knew where the aid stations were (there were actually more than two) so it became a matter of running to the next station, stopping, drinking, throwing water over myself, and setting off for the next one. I had long ago adopted a 2/2 breathing pattern (breathe in for 2 footfalls, out for 2), trying to suck in as much oxygen as possible and now I added a little mantra of “Light, Relaxed” to try and take my mind off things. “Light” as in ‘run light on your feet’ which was a bit of a joke as I was in serious plod mode, and “Relaxed” as in ‘run relaxed’ which I had at least some hope of achieving, especially since by this stage I just wanted the damn thing over with and didn’t give a toss about anything else. Anyway, this is getting very long winded, so a summary of the last 3km involved cramps, stretching and more plodding. I crossed the line in 2:32:15 by my watch, with the second half of the run taking 27:45 (AvHR: 176) giving me a run split of 54mins.

Myself and Tom did a First Aid Course back in December and it came in handy now. I was getting dizzy, so I knew that was a sign that I was dehydrated, a bit overheated, had stopped running too quickly and that I’d faint if I didn’t do something about it. The quickest way to cool someone down is to ice the groin and neck as there’s major blood vessels near the surface, so I threw some ice down my shorts, lay down, raised my legs and leaned them against a tree to make it easier to get blood to my head. John had come down to watch the finish, so he plied me with drinks and a few minutes later I was fine and could stretch my rapidly seizing legs. The two of us walked back to wait for Kev come in. I could see him in the distance and knew it was getting close to 3 hours, so I shouted at him to hurry up. “What’s the hurry?” came the reply, but he got moving once I told him the time. He crossed the line in 2:59:15 or so.

So, the end result was that neither of us got close to our predicted times. Kev split 40 for the swim, 1:27 for the bike and transitions and 52 for the run. I managed 24, 1:13 and 54. It was a lot harder than either of us expected. Kev has decided to concentrate on swimming and I need to do a lot more running. Training for the half marathon should sort that out!

HR Data Graph

Update: Official Results

Me: 188th – 2:32:16 – 24:53 / 1:13:23 / 53:59

Kev: 331st – 2:59:18 – 40:10 / 1:27:05 / 52:02

S: 4000m – B: 62.1km – R: 10km