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 !'