The China Experience

On Saturday 18th May I did my my first ever ITU Asian Cup and my first race outside of the Oceania region for the year. The race was held in Chizhou, China. I've had many people ask me where that is, and given my terrible knowledge of Chinese geography my general response was "somewhere in China". I have made a minor attempt to rectify that, so for anyone interested here is a map (click to see a larger version).

Having travelled to Taiwan last year to race, I knew the trip to China was going to be a challenge. Dealing with strange food, a different culture and a foreign language is exciting but also confronting when trying to prepare for a race. Accommodation and transfers were provided for us which made things a little easier and I arrived with a couple of other Aussies.

The days preceding the race were spent recovering from the flight, getting accustomed to the food and the Chinese way of life, finding the supermarket to get some slightly more "normal" food to eat before the race, and checking out the race course.

The traffic was totally crazy (trucks, buses, cars, scooters and bikes going here there and everywhere, ignoring red lights and even going up the wrong side of the road!) so with the exception of the course familiarisation the day before the race I didn't manage to get out on my bike before race day. There was also no swimming pool in Chizhou (well, no kept swimming pool... we did find a rather derelict one at a school) which meant keeping any sort of training routine up was difficult. Fortunately there was a really nice park just down the road from the hotel which provided a great place for running.

Willow Park on the QingXi River

The pool; vegie patch on pool deck; pool sign (pretty accurate description)

Not wanting to wear myself out or do anything silly before the race I didn't do much other than a bit of running and sitting around the hotel in the days before the race. Starting to get a little bored I was very glad when race day came and my trip finally had some purpose.

It had been cold and damp since we'd arrived but race day brought the wettest weather yet. Fortunately the rain had stopped by the time we had to head down to the race but the roads were still soaked with large puddles (and one particularly deep one stretching across the whole road!) covering parts of the bike course.

With race start at 11:15 I headed down to the race at about 10 with the other Aussie girls. Registration and bike check in China style were very relaxed. Our bike dimensions were checked against a plastic pole and transition was un-manned - anyone could have walked in!

Race area set up

Being ranked 2nd and with Ellie Salthouse who was ranked 1st relegated to last position on the start line for being late to race briefing, I was the first athlete to be introduced and got to choose the first spot on the start line. It's not that big a deal but as I'm used to being half way down the start list it was a good feeling and gave me a boost going into the race.

The swim was a 2 lap pontoon start with an exit out of the water onto the pontoon to start the second lap. Not wanting to get caught up in any potential tussles at the start of the swim I started out hard but was surprised at how quickly I found clear water. When I reached the first buoy I was sitting in behind fellow Aussie Maddi Allen's feet with two Chinese girls beside me and already a gap to the rest of the field. The three girls slowly opened up a gap on me and by the end of the first lap I was swimming by myself. I was conscious to keep my pace up through the second lap hoping to be able to bridge back up to the leaders on the bike.

Exiting the water 50sec behind the lead 3 girls and a minute ahead of a pack of 7, I was well and truly in no mans land. It was an unusual position to be in as in every other draft-legal race I've done I've come out with a pack of other girls around me to work with, and any decision to break away has been made once on the bike. This time I didn't have a choice - I was by myself whether I liked it or not! The 3 u-turns per lap on the bike allowed me to gauge where the others were in the race. I could see Maddi and the two Chinese ahead of me but had no idea how far back the others were, or if they were together or spread out. At the first turn I was surprised to see how large the gap I had was but a little dismayed to find a good pack had already formed and I knew they would be motivated to catch me. The two Chinese riding with Maddi soon dropped off leaving her and I riding solo in 1st and 2nd on the road. I could see the group behind me making groud every lap but with the stronger runners behind me I wanted to stay ahead and was motivated to bridge the gap to Maddi, knowing if we worked together we would stand some chance of not getting caught.

I caught Maddi just before the end of the 3rd lap of 6 and we started working together. The gap to the chase pack still seemed to be decreasing, with my counted estimate of the gap getting down to just over 30 seconds. I was starting to get worried we would be caught before the end of the cycle and our extra efforts would cost us with no advantage to show for it. After a couple of kms of working together though we found our rhythm and the pace started to pick up. We stopped losing ground, and then started gaining. Things were looking up. Confident that the gap might be enough to hold off the girls behind and wanting to gain every second I could before the run, I rode hard right up to the dismount line and had the fastest transition I've ever done.

Maddi and I approaching the bike turn with the chase group in the distance

I felt good as I headed out on the run. I settled into my rhythm quickly at a solid pace but not break-neck to avoid blowing up. Given the speed difference between the bike and the run, what looks like a huge gap on the bike does not look that big at all on the run, and when I hit the run turn halfway through the first lap of 4 I was surprised to see how close the girls were behind me already. I was still confident I could hold them off and pushed the pace out of every turn to try and keep my speed up. I could see I was keeping pace with Ellie Salthouse and Laura Wood who were running together in 3rd and 4th but that Kirra Seidel was making ground on me. I wasn't concerned until the 7.5km turn when I saw Kirra had made up much more ground than she had in the previous laps. I tried to bring it home in the last 2.5km but Kirra was finishing strongly, catching me with less than 1km to go and I was unable to go with her when she ran past. Spent, but happy with my days efforts I finished in 2nd with Laura Wood sprinting it out with Ellie Salthouse to finish 3rd. It was great racing and sharing the podium with girls I have got to know and become friends with through racing and travelling over the past year.

myself, Kirra and Laura

Every race I do overseas is still a huge learning experience, working out how my body responds to travelling, and how to cope with different food, cultures and environments leading into a race. I was really happy to be able to put together a good race under very unfamiliar circumstances, and one that I really enjoyed.

The day after the race I was able to relax a bit and explore the city of Chizhou. A post race banquet was held on Sunday night after the age group race in the Jiarun Gloria Grand Hotel (the race major sponsor) up in the mountain area of Jiuhuashan. It was absolutely stunning driving up there and we got a view of the giant golden Buddhist statue of Ksitigarbha - an impressive sight with the mountainous backdrop.

 
Unfortunately the journey home put a dampener on the trip, with a 6 hour delay in Hefei making me miss my connection through to Brisbane, resulting in a "bonus" 2 days by myself in Guangzhou. It was a scary and stressful experience, especially given I had no way of contacting anyone at home but I'm definitely stronger for it and have learnt a few things about international travel!

It's now just one and a half weeks until I leave for Europe via Canada where I will race in my first World Cup in Edmonton on 23rd June. I'm super excited as it's going to be a great race with a stacked field of 44 women including current world number 1 Gwen Jorgensen, Olympic Bronze medallist Erin Densham, Sarah Groff who finished 4th in the London Olympics, and former world no 1 Paula Findlay among others!

Gillian

Hervey Bay Triathlon

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Plans and decisions: my year ahead

Over the past couple of months my world has turned upside down... Well, to be fair, probably only on it's side... but none the less my plan for the year is rather drastically different from what it was when I finished uni at the end of last year.

My season began with the Noosa Triathlon in November followed two weeks later by the QTS race 2 at Robina and a week later the Kingscliff triathlon. I had a shocker at Robina and decent results in both Noosa and Kingscliff but was disappointed with my times, especially at Kingscliff with only a 23 second improvement on the previous year despite a significantly faster swim.

For the past 3 or 4 years it has been my goal to qualify for the U23 world championships and then one day the elite world championships. Realistically I was never going to be in contention for the 2012 World Champs in Auckland, but I liked to dream I would be in with a chance for London in 2013. Being the Olympic course, and having a large number of extended family in the UK, it seemed the perfect opportunity to aim for. My 10km run time improvements over the 2012 off season were promising and I started the 2012-13 season with high hopes. These hopes were dashed over my first three races and I found myself lacking motivation to train and even to race. Coupled with having just graduated from uni with no job, and still 8 months until I started my honours I felt rather lost. I spent some time reassessing what I wanted from the sport, and setting some new goals.

I decided I was going to have a crack at the half ironman distance. The plan was to do Yeppoon 70.3 in August. It gave me a challenge; something to work towards, and something to keep me motivated through the 2013 off season. I was going to use it as part of my base phase training to build my endurance towards the 2013-14 season and having a crack at making the U23 world team in 2014, my last year in the U23 category. I kept these plans fairly quiet to keep the pressure off, and in case plans changed/I realised how crazy it was and got cold feet.

I ended 2012 on a high winning the Bribie Island triathlon and the QTS race 3 at Raby Bay but still didn't entertain any hopes of being in contention for the U23 team. I was enjoying racing though, and motivated as ever to train hard.

The weekend before my first ITU race of the year I headed out to Goondiwindi with a contingent of Vision Tri Club to watch those who were racing battle it out over the almost half ironman distance. I enjoyed being on the other side of the fence for a change immensely, while at the same time my hunger to give the distance a crack was fuelled.

I headed to Geelong for the ITU sprint continental cup with no expectations of myself (or at least none other than to better my 12th place finish of the previous year), and nothing to lose. I surprised myself in the swim, shocked myself on the bike, and was running in a dream. Finishing 4th I didn't know what to think and it was time for another major reassessment. Needless to say I didn't sleep much that night.

All of a sudden I was more than just another person in the race making up the numbers. A lengthy phone conversation with Coach Cath and observations from the weekend of racing began me on my steep learning curve of the politics of professional triathlon. My eyes have been opened and I'm sure there's much more to learn!

The focus shifted to what I would need to do to qualify for worlds this year. With no U23 selection policy for 2013, and last years being pretty much purely "discretion", Cath and I had not much to go off. I still thought (or hoped maybe) that doing well in the Oceania races would be enough as I had no plans of racing overseas, no-one to travel with, and I was going back to full time uni in July.
Devonport Oceania Championships proved that my race in Geelong was not just a fluke, and with an invitation to join the QAS camp in France I had some big decisions to make. It became apparent that if I wanted to be in with a chance for the U23 team I needed to go overseas and get some world cup results to my name.

Since well before I finished high school I knew I was going to go to university and do a bachelors degree with honours in marine biology. There was no decision to be made. That's just what I was going to do. I did a summer research project last summer to give me a taste of what honours would be like and to get some valuable experience, and I loved it. I loved it so much it made me question my dedication to becoming a professional triathlete. With still another year left of undergrad and then my honours year to go I was able to put any science vs triathlon decisions to the back of my mind. During my last year of uni I found a supervisor I got along well with, and a project that was both interesting and I felt passionately about, having done a mini research project on this during one of my uni field trips. I had planned to start honours in February this year but my prospective supervisor was going to be unavailable for semester 1 this year. I decided that this project was what I wanted to do over any other options on offer and I was willing to defer my studies for a semester. Knowing that I would be graduating with honours in 2014 I didn't bother attending my graduation ceremony for my BSc last year. A decision I somewhat regret now. I was somewhat hopeful that by the time I finished honours I may be good enough to become a full time professional triathlete and race overseas, but I still felt this was fairly unlikely. Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be faced with the decisions I have had to make over the past month or so.

I have decided not to go back to uni to do honours. It wasn't an easy decision but I think it was the right one. I am fortunate enough that with the support of my parents I have made the decision to become a full time professional triathlete (albeit with the hope of picking up the odd bit of casual work to help pay for things). I still feel passionately about all things marine and miss uni a little but I don't think science has seen the end of me just yet.

With no excuses for not putting 100% into my training, my daily routine now goes something like "train eat train eat train eat sleep repeat" with the odd extra sleep added in there for good measure. It hasn't been an easy transition (or particularly pleasant at times) but I absolutely love what I do.

The past couple of months have been a huge learning curve for both myself and my coach Cath, to whom I owe a lot for the time and effort (and stress) she has put in to work out what to do! The processes involved in working out a race schedule are not simple! We've had to learn about race nomination procedures, the ITU points system, how many athletes are allowed to race, how athletes are chosen to race, race uniform rules (and how to get replacements), prize money allocation, funding from TA, funding from race organisers... just to chose which races to do, and the list goes on. And then there's sponsorship to deal with! I found myself having made the decision to ditch uni to race overseas but with no idea where to start. The plan has finally been nutted out though and flights (or at least some of them) have been booked.

The Hervey Bay Triathlon next weekend is my last race in Australia for the season before embarking on some serious adventures. I am heading over to China in just under 3 weeks for the Chizhou premium Asian Cup on the 18th May to hopefully pick up a few more points and a bit of prize money. I'm then coming back to Australia for 4 weeks before heading off overseas in June until September. I've taken up the offer to join the QAS in Aix Les Bains, France with the plan of racing a couple of world cups and some more conti cups while I'm over there. I am super excited to get a taste of Europe (despite the lack of mangroves ;-P) and am planning to take this year to learn and enjoy racing without too much pressure on myself. That being said my goal, as always, is to be racing in London come September but with no lack of competition, that decision will be in selectors hands.

The learning continues as I really feel like I have no idea what it actually means to be a professional athlete. Who knows what's in store for the rest of the year but I'm excited to find out!

As mum said to me a little while ago, maybe I should change the name of my blog to "living the dream". But really, I'll never stop chasing.

À la prochaine

Gillian