XOSIZE Triathlon 5, Brighton

This was the last race of the season for Elaine and I. Since Geelong 4 weeks ago, our enthusiasm for training has waned, although I did to get in some reasonable training in the last 2 weeks after my poor result at Sandringham. Still, the excitement for this race was definitely lacking. In fact when I woke up in the morning, I was struggling to remember what day of the week it was, so the race was definitely not at the forefront of my mind.

Heat has never been my friend in a race and the morning already felt hot. I've never sweat so much during my bike warmup, this was definitely a worrying sign. At 6am it was 22 degrees celsius (72 farenheit) and 89% humidity, however there was almost no wind, so the bike course felt fast and the bay was flat.

Standing on the beach pre-race, the buoys always appear such a long way out. On this occasion there were no sighter buoys before the first turning buoy that was about 300m off shore (looked more like 600m). As a result, most of the early waves (including the elites) swam off course, more often than not heading directly towards the 2nd turning buoy by mistake. This was one of the few advantages of being second last wave, we could observe the mistakes of others.

There were 3 triathlon club/squads having their own wave (ie. club championships like my triathlon club did at race 3). It seemed that most of the faster guys in my age group were in these club waves which meant a distinct lack of good swimmers to draft off. After the first 20 metres I found myself on Ray's toes with only one swimmer in front of him and a couple more drafting off me - we were the lead swim pack. To my right was a much larger pack of 20 or so swimmers. The 2 packs diverged from the start and continued to get further apart. After about 150m the other pack was over 30 metres away to my right - at least one of the packs was swimming off course, luckily I chose the correct one. The speed of the swim definitely felt slower than the last couple of races and I was just happily cruising along until we hit a wall of pink caps (a large bunch swimmers from the earlier wave). We were heading back into the shore and the sun was directly in our eyes making navigation almost impossible. I couldn't see the beach at all, but was able to identify the silhouette of the pub across the road and used that for a sighting reference as I tried to weave my way through the slower swimmers. Naturally I lost the draft and had to swim the last 300m or so by myself. My swim leg wasn't fast, but I used very little energy, so all up not too bad.

Once on the bike I discovered my bike computer was not showing me power, cadence or heart rate - just speed - very frustrating. It was working during the bike warmup, so I couldn't understand what had gone wrong. I spent a few minutes playing with the bike computer trying to get it to work, but once another competitor rode past, I stopped worrying and starting concentrating on my race. In the absence of all my pacing tools, I decided to just go as fast as I could - like a teenager whose parents have gone away for the weekend, I was reveling in this sudden freedom to go crazy. I'd averaged over 40kph (on my bike computer) for every Sprint Distance bike leg so far this season, but had yet to record an official bike split of under 30 minutes, so I set that as my aim for the race. The official bike split includes running with the bike between the mounting/dismounting line and transition (I exclude these bits from the recorded split on my watch). I reckoned I needed to build up a buffer of at least 30 seconds to cover the extra time of running with the bike. My 5km bike laps are shown below:
    7m27s (40.2 kph)
    7m04s (42.5 kph)
    7m23s (40.7 kph)
    6m57s (43.2 kph)
    2m03s (40.7 kph)
As you can see, there are 5 splits meaning the bike course was long by 1.5km.  I completed the 20km in 28m51s, easily enough time to squeeze in the extra bits under 30 minutes, but with the course being 21.5km I ended up with an official bike split of 31m56s. As a minor consolation, at an average speed of 41.5kph it was easily my fastest ever bike split and for the first time this season it was faster than both Clint and Adam.

I passed Ray fairly early on the bike (after he got away a little towards the end of the swim) and unlike previous races he wisely used me to pace him for the rest of the bike leg. He was obviously sitting a legal distance behind me because the only time I sensed his presence was when I could hear him braking into the tight corners. Going by the noise coming from his brakes, I suspect he is not using carbon specific brake pads. Throughout the bike leg two other riders joined our pace line, although one of these riders wasn't so fussy about how much gap he gave to bike in front.  All four of us approached transition together, but as three of us eased off with the run leg now foremost in our minds, Ray charged off ahead and put 100m into us before the dismount line - I didn't see him again until the run turnaround.

Onto the run and straight away Hayley eased passed me looking very strong. I decided to try and follow her which was tough at first, but I soon found a good rhythm and felt comfortable. A lot of other Bayside members who started in earlier waves were running back as we headed out. Adam saw us and put out his hand for a low five with Hayley, but I didn't realise he was going to keep it out for me - so I accidentally snubbed his offer (not a good way to treat the president of the triathlon club).  Hayley has been carrying an ankle injury for a while and has done next to no run training since Geelong. So it was no surprise that her pace dropped off a little about the 1.5km mark, leaving me to take the lead. Soon after I passed Tania doing her first triathlon and then Elaine who was still looking good at this stage of the race.

On the run the temperature had risen to about 26, but the humidity had dropped from 89 to 52%, so the heat was not really affecting me. The first half of the 5km run in Sprint Triathlon is about feeling loose and finding a nice rhythm (and sometimes holding back if you're feeling too good). About the half way mark is when things start to get a little tougher. Voices inside your head start to question why you are doing this and you have to dig into your reserves to fight the urge to slow down. You need a good reason for why you are going to hurt for the last 9 minutes or so of the race - if you don't have one, the voices inside your head win. The result of this race didn't count for anything (for me). I knew I was no where near the podium, I wasn't in the hunt for the end of series prizes, I was not on target for a run PB and there were no other club members near me to race. The average pace for my kilometre splits below show that I definitely eased off for the second half of the run:
    3m52s pace
    3m56s pace
    4m04s pace
    4m08s pace
    4m07s pace

Overall I'm reasonably satisfied with my race - an OK swim, a good bike and an average run. But I'm more happy with the fact that it is the last race of the season.

Elaine fared a bit better - probably her 3rd best race of the season after Geelong and Elwood. More impressively she not only won her age group in the race, but also won the series for her age group. She arrived home with 2 medals, a new pair of sunglasses, earphones and a voucher for a pair of Skecher shoes. Due to her ankle injury, Hayley only managed third in her age group, but still managed to win the series as did Chris and Dale ended up 3rd in his age category. Whilst young Martin took a win in the Mini Triathlon.