Bayside Awards Night

Saturday night was the Annual Awards Night for the Bayside Triathlon Club. Elaine and I were previously members of the Taylormade Triathlon Club that merged with Bayside last year, so this was the first time we had attended the Bayside event.

Elaine and I enjoyed ourselves very much (even though I was still very sick) and it was great to meet some of the club member's partners who we rarely see.

Obviously a lot of awards were handed out during the night. As part of the merger between the two clubs, the Bruce Burston Award was carried over from Taylormade and won by young Martin (pictured left) - an award previously won by Elaine.  The three Life Members of Taylormade - Jeremy, Sally and Bruce were honoured with Bayside Life Membership as well as three new life members in Christian, Simon and Graeme.

Elaine with  spin instructor Karen and Clint

Naturally there was an award for Outstanding Performance predictably won by Hayley - winning her age group in both the XOSIZE and Gatorade series and well as getting a podium in her age group at the World Championships in Auckland. But most of the awards were more based upon how members contributed to making Bayside a better club. For each category, 3 nominees were listed and then one winner announced. Mark won the award for Commitment based upon his incredible effort to go from the couch to finishing an Ironman. Elaine and I were both nominated for awards but I was beaten by Bill for Community and Elaine and was beaten by Ray for Friendliness. However we didn't go home empty handed as Elaine won the Masterchef Dessert competition for her TiraMisu (pictured above left - the one in the middle with strawberries on top).

Me with new life member Simon

In the president's welcome speech, Adam mentioned that Bayside has grown to now have 350 members. No wonder I have so much trouble remembering everyone's name. There were 80 or so who attended the Awards Night and it was wonderful to mingle with them in a different environment - although being quite sick I did try and keep my distance.

On a final note, during presentations Clint cast doubt that I only do 2 training rides per week. Having looked through my training diary, in the 57 weeks since I did Ironman I have done 68 rides, which means I have only averaged 1.2 rides per week. I do plan to ride more in the next 12 months.

A Flexible Plan

Still suffering very sore quads from the Dandenongs trail run last Saturday, I did no training on Sunday or Monday. At swimming on Tuesday morning, even Clint admitted he was suffering the worst quad pain he could remember. It quickly became obvious this was going to become an unscheduled recovery week - which was probably not such a bad idea.

By Wednesday I could walk up and down stairs with only minor discomfort, so I decided to test out the quads with a short 5km run which went OK. Thursday was a public holiday, so I joined in the club ride on Beach Rd. After what felt like an excellent workout, I was about to head home when Clint convinced me to participate in a short handicapped race from Mentone to Sandringham. The race wasn't very long (just over 8kms), but it was a flat out effort into a decent headwind. By the time I turned to ride home I was completed wrecked, luckily I had a tailwind to carry me home. With the extra riding to and from home, the total distance ended up being 97km - my longest ride since mid Feb. In the last 8 weeks, my running mileage has been double what I've done on the bike, so it was no surprise that I had a fairly sore bum after a 3h15m ride.

I felt fairly average when I got up early Friday morning for swimming. Once at work it quickly became apparent that I had a head cold. I've been remarkably illness free for the last couple of years, so I'm guessing my immune system was weakened after being run down more than expected by Thursday's ride.

Not quite the consistent run mileage I was hoping for, but how many times do things actually go to plan. Next weekend is the Puffing Billy run, so hopefully I'll start to feel better soon and get in a few runs before the race. The week after Puffing Billy is the Bayside Spring Classic bike race. As evidenced by Thursday's ride, I'm nowhere near good riding form (which happens when you stop riding for a while), but I'll still try and race this event as best I can.

Looking further ahead, after the Bayside Sprint Classic I'll revert back to building run mileage with consistent easy runs. This will reduce the later stages of building speed, but at my age that is probably wise anyway. Originally I'd planned to do some Sri Chinmoy Fun Runs and the Half Marathon at Sandy Point. However Elaine is very keen to do some Trail Runs and the Salomon Trail Series is probably a better fit for our lead into the Sprint Triathlon at London in September.

Paying for Stupid Decisions

My plan to follow Phase I of the Daniels' Running Formula had been going really well. Doing every run at an easy pace has made establishing a good run mileage base much easier than expected. Most of my runs have been on trails (rather than concrete footpaths or tarmac bike paths), which greatly reduces the stress through the legs. Not worrying about a weekly (or fortnightly) long run has also helped, as running 20 kms always left me sore for a few days.

I've been looking to run most days, only skipping a day if I feel a little sore. Each day I aim to run between 8 and 12 kms and I judge the distance to run based upon how I feel on the day. Following this strategy I've logged far more run kilometres than ever before and my legs were still feeling great. The last 3 weeks run totals are: 44, 55 & 57 kms.

With everything going so well, why would I do something stupid to ruin things ? The scheduled club training session on Saturday morning was a trail run in the Dandenong Ranges (very hilly rainforest). It would begin with a ascent up the famous 1,000 steps and then continue along trails. Obviously the 1,000 steps section would be very steep, but I assumed (wrongly) that the rest of the run would be more undulating that steep.

Clint handed out maps before we took off for a 15 min warm-up run. I put the map in the pocket of my jacket, but after the warm-up I decided to put the jacket (and map) back in the car before we headed off for the main run - Stupid Mistake Number 1.

The 1,000 steps was more or less as I expected, tough but not too bad, especially since we were still feeling very fresh. After the steps, it was generally downhill but the steep descents were fairly short in distance. As a rule I much prefer going uphill, much less stress on the body. A gentle descent is nice, but as soon as it gets steep your feet land in front of your body to control speed. This really puts a pounding through the quads and knees, both areas of my body that are very susceptible to injury.

As you've probably guessed, the trail soon became steeper. It seemed like we were either going straight up or straight down, there were very few areas where I could just run along normally. The other issue was that we had taken numerous turns and I'd lost all sense of direction and had no idea where we were in relation to the 1,000 steps carpark. With every steep descent, I fell further behind the main group of Clint, Ray, Chris, Paul and Nolwenn. After 6 or 7 kms into the trail I knew it was the right time to turn back but I didn't want to get lost returning by myself. So I simply kept ploughing on - Stupid Mistake Number 2.

I was still plodding along at least 100m behind the main pack when Nolwenn decided she'd had enough. The rest were only going about a kilometre further, so Clint gave Nolwenn his map so she could navigate her way back.  My first wise decision of the day was to accompany Nolwenn on the return journey. We had to refer to the map on several occasions, but in hindsight I think I could have made it back OK unassisted (had I turned back earlier). My second wise decision was to follow Nolwenn's lead and walk up the really steep hills. I knew I would be very sore after the run, but up to this stage I was still feeling relatively good. However even walking up the hills I could feel my calf and achilles were feeling the strain.

In general the way back seemed more uphill than downhill which suited me, but we still had to navigate some very steep descents and my quads were definitely starting to ache. By the time we reached the top of the 1,000 steps the others had caught back up. Clint directed us down the Lyrebird track rather than the 1,000 steps. The Lyrebird track is a path that winds a little more to slightly reduce the gradient. The early section of the Lyrebird track was not too bad and I found I could maintain a relatively comfortable run down. However the gradient soon became much greater and I made Stupid Decision Number 3. Rather than walk down this final very steep section, I tried to keep running. The pain through my quads was immense, but I just wanted to end the run as quick as possible. The run took 2h26m and ended up being 20.2km with over 1,200m of elevation.

My quads ached all Saturday. I was originally planning to enter my first ever cycling road race on the Sunday, but this was starting to look doubtful. I woke up early Sunday morning to get ready but my quads were even worse, so I made my third wise decision of the weekend and went back to bed.

Age Group World Championships Team for London

The email containing the provisional team lists came through at 5am this morning. Elaine was always going to make the team easily, but my chances were not looking so good.

Even though I was fastest qualifier in the selection race I completed, looking at the results I could see a lot of people did multiple selection races. Considering that each race was in a different state, I figured people would not be travelling interstate unless they were looking to qualify for the Australian team. What made it even worse was that the Canberra race (that I did not do) was worth double points, so there were a lot of people ahead of me on the points table. In fact a quick check showed I was ranked equal 24th with 4 other people and they only select the first 20 from each age group.


Anyway, back to the email - both Elaine and I made the team. I was the last person selected, but surprisingly there were only 18 in my age group. Some people raced both the Olympic and Sprint selection races and chose to be on the Olympic Distance team while a few others did multiple races but did not sign up for the Worlds. My first reaction was delight at making the team, but then there was a slight bit of disappointment realising my excellent result at the selection race at Elwood made no difference to my selection.

Slowly Running Further

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm currently following Phase I of Daniels' Running Formula. This means I do all my runs at an easy pace whilst I try to increase my weekly run mileage, which also builds up resistance to injury before introducing intensity.

Rather than mapping out all my runs for the week, I've been running more to feel. The general plan is run every day as long as I feel OK. And the distance of each run is also determined by how I feel - which I usually don't decide until halfway through my run.

Last week ended with a long run of 15km bringing the weekly total to 44km. I've given up the idea of focusing upon a long run during phase I, and this week I managed 6 runs (longest 12km) for a weekly total of 54km. Below I describe how the week unfolded:
  Monday: Easy 8km Run on Seaford Trail after work
  Tuesday: Swam 1.8km, didn't run due to slight soreness
  Wednesday: 12km Run on Seaford Trail before work
  Thursday: 6km whilst coaching run session
  Friday: Swam 1.8km. 9km Lunchtime run along the Gardiners Creek Trail near work
  Saturday: 26km Mountain Bike Ride followed by a 11km Trail Run
  Sunday: Easy 8km Run on the Seaford Trail

As shown above, I skipped the lunchtime run on Tuesday due to mild soreness.  I also skipped a short morning run on Thursday because I could feel a small knot in my achilles going up and down the stairs as I was getting ready for the run. On Sunday I resisted the urge to go for a long run and only did 8km. Hopefully this will set me up well for similar mileage next week.

Daniels suggests 3 weeks at the same mileage before trying any increases. As it takes about 3 weeks for the body to adjust. Originally I'd planned to do 6 weeks of Phase I, but I may extend this period (and reduce all the other phases), if I think I can extend the mileage a little further.

Getting a Little Dirty

The Off Season is a good time to experiment with different forms of training. This weekend the Club held a mountain biking session at Lysterfield Park. Neither Elaine nor I had ever done mountain biking before, so we were quite excited about the session.

Trailmix is a Cafe and Bike shop located within the park that hires mountain bikes out for $35 for two hours, or $50 for the day. We took the two hour option because I was doing a trail run after the ride. The hire bikes are surprisingly good Specialized hard tail mountain bikes (I think Rockhoppers) with 29 inch wheels. Hard tail means they only have front suspension which is perfect for the trails at Lysterfield park.

Once we'd sorted out the hiring, Clint sent the group off to practice on the beginner trail. It is about 500m long with a couple of optional hazards to practice on. The hazards are basically humps (usually a stack of logs covered in dirt) of varying heights and I describe them as optional because on the beginner trail there is an alternative flat path around each hazard. On the first run, I simply followed another club member Peter and we avoided most of the larger humps. As I gained confidence, I learnt to trust the front suspension and found that as long as I had some speed, it was relatively easy to traverse all of the hazards on the beginner trail.

Then we started the session and as soon as we entered the National Park, I completely lost all sense of direction until we finally returned to the car park nearly 2 hours later. The group soon split into 2 groups, with Sarah looking after the slightly slower riders (including Elaine). Talking to Elaine after the ride, she came off a few times (as did all the others in her group), but still loved the session and can't wait to do it again. My group had far less crashes, ironically extra speed (and falsely founded confidence) helps to avoid the accidents. Like Elaine, I also loved the mountain biking and can't wait to get back.

New Season Ahead

Last season I improved in every discipline, but mostly in the swim. It is no coincidence that swimming was the only activity where my training was consistent throughout the whole season, resulting in a total mileage 25% more than my previous biggest. Consequently, my swim splits often outranked my run in the results - thereby now making running my weakest leg. So no surprises my focus through the off season will be my run. Naturally I will try to maintain my consistency with swimming, but I suspect the bike mileage will once again fall off during Winter. It is not as fun riding in the cold and rain, I'm more a solar powered kind of triathlete.

During my recovery from injury and leading up to Ironman, I followed a Maffetone philosophy to run training. Last season I kept some of Maffetone's ideas but leant more towards a Lydiard approach. This upcoming season I'm planning to follow Daniels' run training formula (how could you ignore someone called Jack Daniels).

The first phase of Daniels' Running Formula is Foundation and Injury Prevention (FI). This simply involves 6 weeks of running at an easy pace while I build up my weekly run mileage (I started last week, so I only have 5 weeks left in this phase). Ironically Maffetone and Lydiard's approach in the first 6 weeks would be exactly the same. The main difference is Maffetone is extremely keen on the use of heart rate monitors whereas Daniels prefers to work at a specific pace based on your VDOT score (Lydiard's coaching methodology was formed before the widespread use of heart rate monitors).

Your VDOT score is a simplistic valuation of your VO2max based upon your best race results across different distances. Whereas VO2max represents what you body is potentially capable of, VDOT represents what you have actually achieved. So in a lot of ways the VDOT is a more accurate training tool as it incorporates other unknown factors that affect your performance.

Based upon my best 5km time of 18m45s (in very windy conditions), I calculate my VDOT as 54 (link to Daniels VDOT table). Based upon Elaine's best race results, she would be a 37, but in her current post season condition I think 34 is a more realistic value.

A VDOT of 54 for me means the following training paces:
    Easy: 4m59s per km pace
    Marathon (borderline comfortable): 4m14s per km pace
    Threshold (uncomfortable): 4m00s per km pace
    Interval (hard): 3m41s per km pace
    Repetition (fast): 3m35s per km pace

A current VDOT of 34 for Elaine means the following training paces:
    Easy: 7m10s per km pace
    Marathon (borderline comfortable): 6m13s per km pace
    Threshold (uncomfortable): 5m48s per km pace
    Interval (hard): 5m20s per km pace
    Repetition (fast): 5m05s per km pace

Hopefully Elaine will progress closer to a VDOT of 37
    Easy: 6m43s per km pace
    Marathon (borderline comfortable): 5m48s per km pace
    Threshold (uncomfortable): 5m25s per km pace
    Interval (hard): 5m00s per km pace
    Repetition (fast): 4m43s per km pace

Looking at the different paces, I think Elaine's are spot on, but other than the Interval and Repetition, mine look much faster than what I'm used to (which makes me think I start off with a lower VDOT as well). As Elaine and I will only doing Easy runs for the next 5 weeks, I'll leave the discussion of the other training zones for a later time.

In fours weeks Elaine and I are doing the Puffing Billy Fun Run (13.2km) where we race against the train on a very hilly course in the Dandenongs. Due to the nature of our training plan, we will not be able to target this race. Instead we'll toe the start line without any specific training (although we did do hill repeats 3 weeks ago, before I decided to follow the Daniels Formula). I've also abandoned my plan for the 5km Fun Run at Princes Park the week before.

The full 4 phases of the Running Formula (6 weeks per phase) will take 24 weeks (23 weeks left). This should set us up perfectly for the Age Group World Championships in London where Elaine and I hope to race for Australia in the Sprint Distance Triathlon. In the meantime we hope to do 2 other Fun Runs, a 5 or 10km at the Sri Chinmoy, Princes Park in July and 10km or Half Marathon at the Sandy Point Half in August before the London Triathlon in September. We would have loved to have raced in the Duathlons (especially since I've gone up an age bracket), but the dates simply don't work for us. I am continually amazed at how often the scheduling of these Duathlons clash against other events commonly attended by Triathletes.

After London we have the iconic Noosa Triathlon in November. This is an overpriced Olympic Distance Triathlon at the wrong time of year for Melbournians, but it is such a famous event we figured we needed to do it at least once. Unfortunately peaking for London in September will almost certainly mean we will not be at our best in November. But probably just as well because the very crowded race will make it very difficult to get a good time. Knowing we are just there for the experience the great atmosphere will help us enjoy the day even more. And once we are back soaking in the sunshine at the beach, or sitting at our hotel sipping Expresso Martinis, we'll soon forget our results in the race.

With an unusually packed pre-season by our standards, I haven't given much thought our Summer races yet. Maybe best to see how we feel in Sprint before deciding our schedule. But I expect it will be similar to this year with the XOSIZE Sprint Triathlons and Geelong in February.

Season in Review

Back in May last year (2012) I wrote a Performance Goals blog entry listing my target times for the swim, bike and run. When writing down those times I thought I was being overly ambitious, but decided it was worth aiming high. Publishing the figures to the world can often help with motivation, especially during the closing stages of a race when you are fighting your inner demons that are screaming at you slow down.

This season I raced 2 Duathlons, 4 Sprint Triathlons, 1 Half Ironman and a 5km Fun Run. Still recovering from Ironman and not training much over Winter, I was far from peak fitness for the Duathlons, although I still snuck in for an age group podium at Kew. However I was in good form by Summer and in the Triathlons I smashed nearly all my goal times for every discipline. My one failure was the 1h35m Half Ironman run split that I missed by 3 minutes. This leads into my only other goal failure of not running 5km in under 18m30s - I missed by 15 seconds in a very windy Fun Run at Albert Park Lake.

Elaine raced 4 Duathlons, 1 Mini Triathlon, 4 Sprint Triathlons, 1 Olympic Distance Triathlon and a hilly 7km Fun Run. She won the series in her age group for both the Brooks Duathlon and XOSIZE Triathlon series, only missing the podium once in these 8 races. Her result at the Olympic Distance in Geelong was only a few minutes off her personal best time at Canberra in 2008, but Geelong is a much harder course and I would rate it as her best ever race. Elaine also ran a personal best at the Portsea Twilight Fun Run.

My old Triathlon Club (Taylormade) merged with Bayside at the start of the season. The new amalgamation now had 4 swim sessions a week in the beautiful outdoor 50m pool at the newly constructed GESAC (Glen Eira Sports & Aquatic Centre). I think this had the biggest influence on our good results this year. Moving from an Indoor 25m to an outdoor 50m pool helped both mentally and physically, plus having 2 morning sessions a week was much better than trying find energy and enthusiasm after a hard day at work. Last season I upped my swim mileage for Ironman, but this season I managed to swim an additional 75 kilometres (30% more).

Despite head coach Clint organising lots of great rides, my bike mileage was down by 1,400km (25% less). The quality of these rides must have been good, because my Triathlon bike splits were better than ever. However I believe most of this improvement was from the season before (when I had my biggest bike mileage). I was never able to demonstrate this improvement last season because I was injured (patella tendinitis) and only completed one Triathlon (Ironman Melbourne).

Finally to running. I managed an extra 100km (8% more) over my previous biggest run mileage 2 seasons ago (I was injured most of last season). The biggest difference was that I did a lot more slow running and far less speed work which ironically made me faster. I also suffered a lot less injuries, which translated to more consistency, which is the key to good training.

Below are my actual training figures for the last 52 weeks:

  Swim  251km  (avg 5km/week)
  Bike  4265km  (avg 81km/week)
  Run  1259km  (avg 24km/week)

While the above data looks on the low side (relatively speaking), I started the season off slowly and built up my training as the season progressed (and weather got better). Below are the figures for the 12 weeks leading into my target race at Geelong (a Half Ironman)

  Swim  85km  (avg 7km/week)
  Bike  1634km  (avg 136km/week)
  Run  296km  (avg 33km/week)

Ironman Melbourne from the Sidelines

Even as spectators, Elaine and I arrived early at 6:30am to soak in the atmosphere before the race. Sadly the group atmosphere quickly turned into a general feeling of disappointment when it was announced the swim was being shortened due to rough sea conditions. The smaller swim also meant a delayed start, so more time for the competitors dwell in their discontent. Not quite the pre-race excitement I was hoping to experience.

After grabbing a much needed cappuccino from the coffee van, we managed to meet up with most of our friends who were competing and a lot of others who were spectating. Unfortunately no matter how hard we searched, we couldn't locate Peter - frustrating as we knew he would be more upset than most. Finally we gave up and headed out to find a good viewing position on the pier where we were joined by friends Alan and Steve.

Confusion appeared to reign supreme as we watched swim buoys continually being re-positioned. As a result, the swim start was pushed back even further and the original delay of 30 minutes ended up being almost an hour. From our vantage point on the pier, the conditions looked rough, but not terrible. However it wasn't until we watched the athletes trying to swim against the current that we realised how tough it actually was. Most of the pros and top age groupers powered through, but at the back of the pack it was carnage. Some swimmers lasted less than 5 minutes before being rescued, others stopped to catch their breath and quickly drifted way off course. The life savers were flat out rescuing 22 people and 70 people in total withdrew from the race before the end of the swim.

Looking out past the pier towards the turning buoys we saw pure chaos with swimmers still heading out colliding with people coming back. It wasn't until after the race when we saw a video taken by head coach Clint (YouTube Swim Footage) that showed it was even worse with lots of swimmers using the confusion as an excuse to significantly cut the course. I'm confident in saying that none of my friends or fellow club members were tempted to cheat in this way.

We headed back to shore and found a good position to cheer on our friends as they exited the swim. This time we spotted Peter, in fact we managed to cheer on everyone except Jan who somehow snuck past without us noticing. Despite the very trying conditions, all our friends had pretty good swims, especially Jeremy who came out surprisingly early. After giving up the wait for Jan (who unbeknownst to us had already finished), we headed off to the midway point of the bike. In hindsight, we should have watched people head off on the bike, rather than the swim finish. As we didn't know what our friends were wearing on the bike.

Standing on the footbridge above Eastlink, using binoculars we successfully spotted Jan and Mark and cheered them on as they rode below (at least we now knew Jan had finished the swim). Realising that the height advantage of the footbridge actually made it more difficult to recognise our friends, we moved to the the spectator area on the Princes Hwy on-ramp. Unfortunately the next to pass us were the pros heading back to Frankston, going downhill with a tailwind - I'm guessing they were doing at least 70kph, which made it very difficult to pick them out. Luke Bell was heading a reasonable sized pack that included Crowie, Eneko Lanos and Marino. However I was surprised how big a gap they were leaving between bikes - at least 20 metres, when the legal requirement is only 12.

The main male pro pack was accompanied by a entourage of motorbikes and cameras (and often a helicopter overhead). I was surprised how lonely it was for the pros who were only a few minutes back. A little while later the female pros passed with a smaller entourage. Like the men, the main female contenders were also together. With pre-race favourite Caroline Steffen not getting away like last year, it looked promising for an interesting female race. The lead age groupers were also riding a very solitary race.  I suspect a lot of these guys spend the majority of the bike and run without seeing another competitor.  The next tier of age groupers don't have this problem, as for a while each subsequent pack got bigger and the inevitable drafting became more obvious.

We spent just over 2 hours at the midway point of the bike leg and saw most riders pass twice (once in each direction). There were over 2,000 competitors in the race, but to be honest we witnessed less than 50 riders drafting - all of them in the top 10 to 30% of the field.

We kept a look out for our friends, but not knowing what everyone was wearing, we simply kept our eyes peeled for Bayside tops. Often our friends had passed before we spotted them, so there was a lot of cheering from behind. Unfortunately we missed both Jeremy and Peter, as both were wearing different gear which made the task of spotting far more difficult.

The pro race livened up on the 2nd lap. Marino made a break off the front and the chase pack had split apart with riders like Luke Bell being spat out the back. In the women's race, 47 year old Natasha Badmann also made a break and Caroline Steffen looked to be struggling in 3rd or 4th place. Once we'd seen Mark on his return trip, we headed back home for lunch and watched the race being streamed live on the internet. By this time Marino had extended his lead in the men's race and Corine Abraham had overtaken Natasha Badmann in the women's race. Watching the race live and living on the course itself, I was able to pop out the front and watch each of the runners go past our house. By this time Marino was over 4 minutes ahead, Crowie and Eneko were running together in second with a small gap to Tim Reed who actually appeared to be in the best running form (however he later DNF'd).

Later on Elaine and I sat on directors chairs out on the nature strip watching the athletes go by. Other than a couple of our very fast friends who snuck past while we were still inside, I'm pretty sure we saw everybody else we knew. It would have been great to have a few beers whilst relaxing, but we still had a shift on the aid station to go.


All the club members in Bayside gear were so much easier to spot. At one stage we were looking out for our friend little Di (easy to spot cos she's so small). Once we saw her we launched into a huge cheer. Then we heard Neil call out to us, looking at us with his hands in the air asking 'Where's the love ?'. Sorry Neil, but in our defense you were wearing a plain blue top which didn't exactly stand out.

The tough conditions on the bike spread out the field more than expected. All competitors suffered a tough head wind out to Doncaster (on both laps) which meant a fast tailwind back to Frankston. However this tailwind turned into a cross wind for the slower riders on their last trip back to Frankston. This upset our spectating plans a little and under pressure we didn't adjust our schedule as well as we could have. The last runner to go past our house was Mark. He'd had a tough time on the bike, including dealing with a loose aero bar. Wisely he had stayed calm, did't over exert himself and still looked in good shape as he passed our house.

After this we headed off in the car to St Kilda. Unfortunately when we arrived I checked the live results on my phone to discover we'd missed Peter's finish by a couple of minutes. So we headed back to Hampton and grabbed a cappuccino before rocking up to the Bayside Triathlon Club aid station about 10km from the finish line. In the pro race, Eneko Lanos had dropped Crowie (who finished 3rd) on the run and ended up catching and passing Marino in the last 3km to win the race.  In the women's race Corine Abraham extended her lead on the run with Yvonne Van Vlerken coming second, Caroline Steffen 3rd and Natasha Badmann drifting back to 4th.

From 8 till 11pm, we manned the Bayside Aid station with other members from our Club. There were 3 shifts - we chose the last one. Usually the competitors were in high spirits because they knew they were only 10kms from the finish line, but their physical condition was not always so good. We received lots of thank yous from the competitors, but in truth everyone at the aid station was very happy to be there and drew inspiration from watching the competitors fight their way to the finish.

Once the last competitors had gone through and we'd packed up the aid station, Elaine and I headed to the finish line in St Kilda. It was very much a party atmosphere with the crowd making a huge noise for every competitor that came down the finish chute. Luckily we arrived there in time to see both Jeremy and Mark finish and be told 'YOU ARE AN IRONMAN !'