The weekend started for me on Friday. Race briefing for the oceania cup was at 3pm which ment missing yet another day of uni. Expecting registration and uniform checks to be held at the same time I decided I had to go. As it turned out uniform checks, bike racking and timing chip collection were at 5am on Sunday morning!! I was mildly annoyed that I had missed class to go to the race briefing which I didn't gain anything from in the end, but that is part of being a proffesional athlete I suppose. On the up side, being in Mooloolaba early meant I had Friday evening and the whole of Saturday to relax.
Saturday afternoon was spent watching the Mens world cup race. With many of the big names racing it was both exciting and inspiring to watch. It always amazes me the speed at which the top runners can run - it almost looks as if they're sprinting the entire 10km!
I headed to bed early on Saturday night as I had to get up at 4:15am the next morning to be at transition at 5am. I must say I have rather enjoyed the lunchtime start of my last 2 races, being able to sleep in, relax all mornig and take my time to get ready. Being the 2nd wave off in the morning at 6:36am however meant a very early start with not much time to waste.
Saturday had been perfectly sunny until the afternoon and I was anticipating my first ever Mooloolaba triathlon in the dry but Mooloolaba did not dissapoint and it started to rain while we were setting up transition. After I'd finished setting up I did my hair, put on my sunscreen and before I knew it it was time to head to the start line.
The swim at Mooloolaba starts from 800m down the beach. It heads out, follows the curve of the beach in an L shape, with a right turn about half way, continues on then heads back into the beach. Conscious of not wanting a repeat of my swim in Devonport I headed out hard at the start of the swim, getting an early lead. The swim was challenging to navigate at some points due to the swell - you had to site at the right time otherwise the buoy was obscured behind a wave. The swim went really well (apart from a minor mishap turning around a buoy too quickly and running into one of the lifesavers on a paddleboard who got in my way) and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Fortunately the water had cleared up from the floods on Thursday which had left the water rather brown. All went well until the last buoy when we turned to head back to shore. I had neglected to check out the swim exit before heading down the beach to the start and so headed towards the Subaru arch on the beach instead of the swim exit. Fortunately being familiar with the course from previous years I realised my error and got back on course pretty quickly.
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| Running up the stairs at the 'loo with a view' to transition |
My swim was back to where it should be and I led out of the water with one of the Canadian girls alongside me and the others spread out behind. I wasn't sure how far back the other girls were so didn't smash myself up the hill out of transition allowing the others to catch up and a pack to form. Looking back that was probably a big tactical error. By the time we got onto the Sunshine highway a pack of 12 girls had formed. The pack worked really well together from the start rolling turns for pretty much the whole 40km. The pace was fairly moderate (for a race) and a few girls - Tamsyn Moana-Veale, Ellie Salthouse, Maddie Dillon put in some attacks early on but no-one got away and the pace stayed the same. I also put in a few attacks early on but just to stir things up and test peoples legs to see if I could form a breakaway later on in the ride. The run being my weakest leg I knew most of the girls in the pack would be able to out run me over the 10km so if I wanted a decent finish position I would need to get away on the bike. By the time we got to the turnaround (the Mooloolaba cycle is an out and back course) I decided that it was time to try and get away. I put in a small surge just before the turn to get to the front the attacked out of the turn. I opened up a small gap on the pack but was caught after only a few hundred meters. Riding in the pack on the way out I hadn't realised how strong the tail wind was and consequently the head wind on the way back. This combined with a pack that was working well together meant that is was not possible for me to get a break despite many attempts to do so. After 3 or 4 attacks I figured my chances of getting away were pretty slim but still put in a few more attacks in the hope that I would wear out the other girls legs for the run or that on the off chance I would get away. About 5km from the end of the cycle 3 girls in the pack crashed splitting up the pack and leaving a group of 8 girls.
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| Out on the run |
I led into T2 but had a horrendous transition and was the last in the group out on the run. I identified my spot on the rack by what I thought were my run shoes, racked my bike, went to put on the shoes and realised that my run cap was not there. I was confused to a second or so before I worked out I'd racked in the wrong spot and my shoes were a few meters back along the rack. I then had to un rack by bike, go against the flow back to my proper spot on the rack and try again. In the end I lost about 15 seconds which is not much but it meant that the other girls were already down the road and I had no one to run with. It had been my race plan to try and stick with some of the other girls for as long as possible in the run to try and get my pace up but instead I had to run solo and push the pace by myself. The Mooloolaba run course seems to always get the best out of me though and with my head space right again after getting away from me in Devonport I was able to pull off a sub 40 run - just (39:59). Not quite the 38 min I had hoped at the start of the season to achieve by now but a solid run none the less. I ended up finishing in 9th with 2 of the girls who had crashed on the bike passing me again on the run. I'm happy with this result but more importantly I have regained a huge amount confidence after Noosa being able to really push the 10km run without any fears of collapsing.
In retrospect I probably should have pushed the first few kilometres of the bike so that only a smaller group was able to form but I can’t change that now. I can however work on my tactics for next time... which need a lot of work as this draft legal racing business is so different and much more tactical than the non drafting that I’m used to! I also need to work on my run which will come with time (and lots of training) :)
Oh, and never, ever, ever, no matter how windy it is am I going to make the same fashion error I did last Sunday and wear my cap backwards during the run...
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| Running down to the finishing chute - sporting the atrocious backward cap style |
Gillian
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