The Hervey Bay Triathlon has been on my to-do list for a couple of years now. I'd heard great things about both the town and the race itself and was keen to make the trip up and see for myself.
I headed up on Friday afternoon to allow time to check out the course on Saturday before the Sunday race. We were greeted with close to perfect weather and the course did not disappoint.
The 1.5km swim was held in the clean waters of Hervey Bay, a nice change from the somewhat muddy canal waters of my last couple of races. Fortunately there's a little more water at high tide for the race start on Sunday as when testing out the swim it was rather a long walk out!
The two lap bike 40km course followed the bay along the esplanade and around Pt Vernon. There's a short, sharp hill coming around the back of the point; nothing to blow your legs to pieces but I was glad I'd worked out what gearing I'd need to used as I saw a few people stuck in their big chain ring half way up! Training on Saturday the marine biologist got the better of me when I got a little excited by the mangroves and had to have a little stop...
The run was a completely flat out and back 10km, following bike/foot path along the foreshore. I must say I really appreciated the fact that the waterfront had a significant amount of native vegetation despite the urban setting (albeit not quite as many mangroves as there should be). Nice one, Hervey Bay!
We were greeted with beautiful weather yet again on race morning. To catch the high tide, race start was just after sunrise at 6:30am. This meant an early start of 4:00am and transition set up under the stars, but a beautiful setting for race warm-up.
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| Heading into the water to do my swim warm-up |
With the relatively small pro field, and the need to get everyone underway quickly before the tide dropped, the pro men and women were started together. I had a less than desirable start, having a bit of a tussle with one of the men who decided they wanted to swim the wrong way and had to stop and swim behind him to avoid getting pushed off course. After that I settled into my stroke and caught back up to the second pack of mostly boys plus Kirra Seidel who was leading the women's field. I slowly worked my way through the pack and managed to lead the pack out of the swim into T1.
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| finishing the swim |
Once on the bike I was overtaken by some of the boys behind me and decided to try and pace off them to gain some ground on the girls behind. I managed to stick 10 or so meters back (being a non-drafting race the legal following distance is 7m) for the first 10km but going around the point on the first lap the gap started to slowly grow and by 15km I was on my own pacing myself. With only 1 turn-around just after the start of each lap it's somewhat difficult to gauge where the others are in the race. I had a decent lead at the 24km mark but was not counting out the other girls having a strong second lap on the bike.
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| Off the bike into T2 |
Keen to get out onto the run fast I ran straight past the run exit in transition and had to be helped to find my way out. An error that I was worried might cost me and would not have been made had I checked the exact position of the run exit, not just noted "it's over in that corner". I headed out hard on the run, not sure of my lead but knowing Kirra could pull back some time on me in the run. At the 5km turn I was surprised to see I had a lead of 2+ mins and was able to relax a little and enjoy the last 5km.
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| Practicing my (hopefully improving) public speaking skills |
It was an honour to be able to come and win one of Australia's oldest triathlons. The atmosphere of the whole event was fantastic. Thanks to all of the locals out on the course who gave me a cheer as I was running past, and to everyone who congratulated me after the race. I've never done such a friendly race before! With such a great course, great atmosphere and great prize money I don't understand why the pro start list wasn't stacked! Thanks and congratulations to the other girls that raced but it would have been nice to see a larger field - the more the merrier, right? One thing is for sure though, I will be back again!
With my last race on Australian soil done for the season it's time to head off overseas. It's now only 1 week til I fly out to China for the Chizhou Asian Cup on the 18th May. The excitement is starting to build but so are the nerves! Having enjoyed my short trip to Taiwan last year I'm looking forward to experiencing a bit of Chinese culture. With just under a week in China hopefully I'll see more than just the inside of my hotel and the race course. I guess we shall see!
Gillian
