Geelong 70.3

This was my third attempt at a Half Ironman and I was not fully satisfied with my previous two results of 5h15m at Geelong in 2010 and  4h54m at Torquay in 2011 (I did a Long Course Triathlon at Geelong in 2012, but crashed on the bike and didn't finish). At this race a time over 5 hours would be very disappointing, between 4h50m and 4h59m would be OK, I would be happy finishing between 4h40m and 4h49m and ecstatic with anything under 4h40m. I always believed I was capable of a 4h3Xm time, but seem to always struggle with the longer distances.

Elaine and I stayed at the Vue apartments only 500m from transition. Lovely apartments and one of the closest to the race start. Sunday morning transition opened at 5:45am and I was there waiting for the marshals to let us in (Elaine's race started an hour later, so she was still asleep in bed). Having laid out all my gear I realised I had left my water bottles in the fridge. Whenever I put my bottles in the fridge I always forget them. I've learnt a trick of leaving the car keys in the fridge next to the bottles, but this didn't work when I was walking to the race. One of the key reasons for having accommodation so close is the luxury of having your own toilet - something that gets a lot of use the morning of a race. Once back at the apartment I had my final toilet stop, grabbed my wetsuit, goggles, swim cap and water bottles and headed back to transition. I had just finished putting the bottles on my bike when an announcement came over the loud speaker declaring transition was closed and everybody needed to get out - just in time.

As I wandered over to the Bayside Triathlon Club tent I walked past an enormous queue for the port-a-loos (gotta love having an apartment close to the race). Once I had my wetsuit on I was feeling more relaxed - everything was back to schedule, something that was especially important seeing that the organisers had decided (the night before) to move all the wave starts earlier. After a nice warmup swim, I wandered over to the swim start to discover my age group had light blue caps, but I'd been given a dark blue one. Too late to worry about it now, although I had to convince numerous people (including Elaine and our friend David who came down to watch) that I was in the correct wave despite the colour of my cap.

SWIM 1.9km - 29m25s

It was a beach start for the swim (which I prefer) and I lined up on the left side about 3 people deep (I breathe to the right, so being on the left side gives me the best vision of the pack). Porpoising at swim starts in one of my strengths (hence why I like beach starts), but the shallows at Geelong is soft mush under foot, so I starting swimming much earlier than I needed to just to avoid the horrible feeling on my feet (eewh). Unlike short course races, the Half Ironman swims are generally far more sedate as nobody wants to waste excess energy so early in such a long race. I slotted in behind some good swimmers to draft off and everything went well until a swimmer with a wild left arm swam up next to me. After being whacked 3 times in succession across the head, I decided to move onto this swimmer's toes for safety.

During the initial 850m to the first turning buoy I swapped onto several different swimmers' toes, but made a point never to surge to catch a better draft. The wave 3 minutes in front of us were the 35+ females in pink caps. I caught the first pink cap after only 300 or so metres and then started catching lots of them around 600m. Threading a way through was quite difficult, but made easier when following somebody else. At about the 1km mark (of the 1.9km swim) we starting catching the yellow caps (males 35-39) who started 5 minutes ahead of us. It wasn't long before there were far more yellow and pink caps than there were blue. As a result, the swimmer I was following went quite wide to avoid all the congestion of slower swimmers.

Just before I approached the 2nd turn buoy around the 1500m mark, I saw a swimmer in a white cap go past and mistakenly thought is was Peter. When a couple of other white caps went past (from the wave 3 mins behind me), I jumped onto their toes to get a good draft. I was travelling nicely when I was muscled out of the draft by a yellow cap who decided he wanted the draft for himself. I was flabbergasted than he thought he could hold the feet of a group that started 3 waves (8 minutes) after him. Obviously he only lasted about 3 strokes, but this was enough to ruin the draft for me and now I had to find another blue cap to draft off for the last 400m.

The third and last turning buoy was the most congested because you have 4 different waves all coming together meaning that all the swimmers were of different abilities. We only had about 100m to go, so I was pretty relaxed at this point because I knew I'd had a good swim and anything that slowed me down now would not have much affect upon my time. This is probably the point where Peter snuck passed me, but amongst all the chaos I didn't see him.

Elaine's swim in the Olympic Distance race was 1500m. Her swim split of 33m01s was easily her best ever swim.

At the time I thought my swim went fairly well, but it wasn't until I saw the results that I realised how well. Before the race I predicted my best possible swim time would be just over 30 minutes, averaging 1m35s per 100m. So with an average speed of just under 1m33s per 100m, this is almost definitely my best ever swim. Largely due to the fact that I drafted for 99% of the time. This was achieved by not getting too ambitious and always trying to swap to a better draft. Instead I avoided any surging and held onto existing drafts, even when they were starting to tire, until another opportunity presented itself.

TRANSITION ONE - 2m27s

Transition all went well and was pretty uneventful for me. I ran out with another club member Chris who also started in my wave. We were held up by slower athletes through the transition exit chute, but it was a good excuse to take it easy as we still had a lot of race to go.

Unfortuntately Peter and Mark's transitions were not so uneventful. Running with his bike out of transition, Peter was knocked by another competitor and his chain came off. Usually it is a simple task to put it back on, but this task was made more difficult by a chain guard (ironically designed to stop the chain coming off). It was while Peter was putting his chain back on that I passed him (although I didn't see him at the time).

Mark suffered bad cramps in his hamstring as he entered the bike compound from the swim. He had to stop and stretch it for several minutes before he was able to continue. As a result he had one of the slowest transition times for the race.

BIKE 90km - 2h27m57s

The pre-race plan was to go easy for the first 5km or so. In particular, resist the urge to push up the hill out of transition and ride very conservatively through the winding roads that go through the gardens before you get out on the Portarlington Highway.

Everything went more or less to plan, except that the course changes this year had added a lot more tight corners (I think 12 extra corners for the race). After crashing on the bike leg last year (taking a corner too quick in the wet) I was very gun shy and took every turn extremely slow. Another issue was the packs of riders who were blatantly drafting (which is illegal in the race). I would sit 12 metres off the back of the pack for a few minutes before surging past. However as soon as we came to a tight corner they would catch back up and often pass me back.

The only other problem I had was with the water bottles handed out at the aid stations. I use a 600ml bottle on my head stem and was expecting to receive a 600ml or 700ml bottle at the aid station. Instead I received a whopping 800ml bottle that would not fit into the gap between the cage and the computer. I was forced to move the Garmin 310xt computer from the bike onto my wrist (I use the quick release mechanism), but this meant it was now difficult to check my power, heart rate and speed. I decided I'd turf it at the next aid station, but that was 20km away.

My bike split was a touch slower than what I had hoped for. Mainly due to all the tight corners and the fact that I was very conscious of not going too hard on the bike. If the majority of the bike leg had been on the Portarlington Highway, I would have been much faster. All of my bike splits whilst on the highway were above 40kph. In the end I averaged under 37kph with an average power of 235 watts (243 NP) and average heart rate of 146bpm. I could have gone faster, but I think it would have impacted my run, which was always going to be an issue even without the bike.

Elaine had a better than expected bike split of 1h32m16s for the 40km bike leg, 9 minutes faster than last year. Mark rode well for a 90km bike split of 3h15m, but probably rode a bit too hard on the second lap and paid for this on the run (lesson learnt). With a dodgy achilles and Ironman on the horizon, Peter rode a conservative 2h40m 90km which would leave him in a great state to start the run.

TRANSITION TWO - 1m18s

Everybody managed to get through T2 without incident. I put on socks for the run and had 3 gels attached to my Rocket Science race belt (which carried the race number, compulsory on the run leg).

RUN 21.1km - 1h38m28m

Any prior sins in the race will come back with interest on the run. Unlike sprint races where you just go as fast as you can for just over an hour, long course races are all about pacing and nutrition. Get either of these wrong and you won't be executing a fast run.

My plan was to hold back for the first 2 or 3km. I usually feel great off the bike (even in Ironman) and effortlessly run very fast for the first few kilometres - but this practice will always bite you in the bum in a long course race. The aim was 4m30s per kilometre and keep the heart rate below 155bpm. After a good swim and bike, the only club members ahead of me were Clint and Adam, both of whom started two waves ahead of me. In the first two kilometres I was passed by Andrew, Ray, Swanny and Darren. This really tested my pacing strategy as I tempted to run with each of them, but luckily resisted. Then I found another runner who was running exactly at 4m30s pace and simply ran behind him. It felt ridicously easy, barely above walking pace, but my GPS watch assured me that it was 4m30s pace and the kilometre split times were confirming this, so I continued along at this very easy canter.

The run course consisted of two 8.2km laps over undulating terrain and then a 4.7km out and back lap along the beach front. I wanted to take the first 8.2km easy, then complete the second lap faster than the first (negative split the first 2 laps) and embrace the pain for the last 4.7km. Be careful what you wish for. The first lap was a breeze. In fact I sailed through the first 10km in under 45km minutes - this was a piece of cake. So confident was I, that I increased the effort level after 10km. Sadly the extra intensity added very little extra speed. At the 15km mark everything stopped feeling so easy. I'd pulled away from club member Simon at the 10km mark (he was a lap behind), but not longer after the 15km he caught back up and passed me. I wasn't falling apart, but the speed that was previously effortless was now simply too fast and I had to ease off the pace. As I entered the last 4.7km lap I knew it was not going to be pretty.

My speed was gradually dropping off and my muscles were letting me know that they were not happy. The run out along the beach seemed to go on forever and when I finally reached the turn around - it was a very steep ramp up to the road. The ramp was probably only 50 metres long, but one look at the steepness and I instantly decided this was the time for walking. Once at the top, it was generally downhill to the finish, but I was spent. With 200m to go there must have been 20 competitors who ran past, but I had nothing left.

My target time was 1h35m, but I was prepared to loose up to 4 mins on the last 4.7km lap, so it essentially went to plan. I just under estimated how much pain would be involved. I've only done one stand-alone Half Marathon in my life (in 2009). My aim for this race was to beat my stand-alone Half Marathon time. Unbelievably I got the same time to the second.

With his achilles injury, Peter's longest pre-race run had been only 7km, so the 21.1km run was never going to be good. To his credit he posted a very credible 1h51m run split and his achilles pulled up well. While capable of much faster, this is an excellent sign for Ironman. Unfortunately Mark didn't fare so well. After going a little too hard on the bike, Mark was already feeling flat by the 4km mark. Knowing that he has Ironman in 6 weeks, Mark toughed it out. As he headed out on the last 4.7km lap his quads were cramping quite badly. With 3km to go, the hamstring cramps from T1 decided to join in the party, so Mark had to resort to a repeating cycle of run/walk/stretch. With less than 400m to go you could see that the pain was unbearable, but knowing that his wife and kids were waiting near the finish line, Mark forced himself into a triumphant run down the finish chute.

OVERALL - 4h39m36s

My finish time snuck into my 'Ecstatic' range by 24 seconds. I finally achieved the time I always thought I was capable of. However I don't rate it as good as my last Sprint distance race. I think it's just the nature of a long course race where you are holding back until the last 30 minutes of the run, so it always feels like you could of gone faster. However the main problem is that I'm still getting beaten by people I would beat in a sprint race, but at least they didn't beat me by much this time.

Elaine was extremely happy with her Olympic Distance finish time of 3h06m50s, around 27 minutes quicker than last year.  The finishing time of 5h02m was pretty much irrelevant to Peter, but of great significance was that he ran 21.1km without any major issues to his achilles.