Noosa Triathlon

To give you an idea of of how many competitors were doing the race, my age group was split across 3 wave starts (some age groups had 4). The Elites kicked off at 6:15am, my wave was 7:22am and Elaine's was 8:02am.  So the Elite Winner had finished the race before Elaine started. However it could have been worse with some of the team waves starting as late as 9:30am.

Transition closed at 6:00am, so we arrived at the race site just after 5am (it opened at 4:45am). Unlike the slow queues at Registration on the Friday, the Transition Bike Check-in on Saturday and Transition Entry on Sunday morning were very quick. Kudos must also go to the Bag Storage arrangements and number (and quality) of toilets provided which greatly reduced unwanted queuing before the race.

In fact the only real wait of the morning was when we ordered our pre-race coffees (long macchiato). We figured it would be a while before we had a chance to have a coffee after the race, so decided to remove any chance of suffering a caffeine withdraw headache. Obviously plenty of other competitors had the same idea.

At 6am it was already quite warm and after our coffee there was no problem storing our gear in the bag check-in and continuing for the next 90 mins (over 2 hours in Elaine's case) in just our tri-suits and bare feet. By the time we got to the race start location, the elite men had just left, but we got to watch them come in out of the swim. Apparently just before the elite women started, a snake reared its head out of the water a metre or so in front of the group illiciting a few shrieks. Probably lucky Elaine and I didn't see this, nothing like adding to the normal pre-race nerves.

Swim

It was a deep water start and I positioned myself in the front row. Once the gun went off, I got a good start and immediately found some feet to draft off. It turned out the feet I was following were not particularly fast. In fact none of the swimmers near me at the start seemed to be that good and I could see the lead pack ahead slowly pulling away.

In general the swim was very easy as I cruised along drafting off other people's feet. Visibility was often very difficult, but there were plenty of marshalls sitting on boards who did a great job of keeping everyone on track. About half way through the swim I experienced a nasty pain on my neck. At first I thought is was chafing, but it was ten times more painful than any chafing I'd felt before. After the race I discovered it was a nasty jelly fish sting. The pain lasted for about 24 hours, but 2 days later I still have distinctive marks on my neck where I was stung.

Elaine's instructions for the swim was to take it easy and avoid expending extra energy. Despite getting a nasty whack to the mouth resulting in a very bloody lip, Elaine managed to hold her form and had one of her better swims in 39m19s. My swim split was 29m35s. In general I've been told swim times were about 2 minutes slower than usual due to a combination of unfavourable currents and a slightly long swim.

Bike

Onto the bike I discovered my Garmin computer was not working properly. This meant I had no Power Wattage, Heart Rate or Cadence. Very frustrating not to have any pacing tools for the race. I spent the first 5km of the bike fiddling with the computer to try and get it to work without success. I would have normally switched my Power Meter to my road bike for the Bright Camp, but decided it was more important to have it on my tri-bike for Noosa. Now I have no power figures for either, and my first 5km of the bike was much slower than usual as I wasted time playing with my computer.

Elaine fared even worse. Her bike was stuck in one gear. After 5km she hopped off the bike to see if she could fix the problem, but the gears would simply not budge. After investigating the bike after the race I discovered my mistake when re-assembling her bike. Everything on her bike had been setup and tested before I put her aero bars back on. When attaching the aero bars, I accidentally trapped the gear cable under the clamp which completely nullified the effectiveness of the gear lever. This problem was have been instantly detected if she did a warmup ride, but seeing me experience a puncture on Friday probably deterred her from this activity.

The Noosa bike course is very fast, assuming your bike isn't stuck in one gear and you don't waste time fiddling with a computer. It contains a 3km climb, but at around 4% gradient it is very easy. After the turnaround there is a steep 1km descent - I hit 80kph and even Elaine managed to crack 60kph down this hill. The rest of the course is pretty flat and the road surface is mostly pretty good.

Elaine and my official bike splits were 1h40m30s and 1h06m04s, but these included times for both transitions (and it was a big transition area). My actual bike split was 1h02m11s, averaging 37.8kph (I can definitely do better).

Run

Onto the run I felt pretty good. But it was already hot and I knew it would not take long for the heat to take effect. My kilometre splits before pretty much tell the story:

  4:01

  4:03

  4:07

  4:18

  4:26

  4:26

  4:30

  4:29

  4:34

  4:39

  0:41

The first few kilometres felt very easy and I was concentrating on not going too fast. Then in the fourth kilometre the heat caught up with me and the rest of the run was a bit of a struggle. You'll notice that the run was measured a bit long as well, a little nasty I thought on such a hot day.

The run course itself was amazing. It is reported that 20,000 spectators watch the race, but it felt like a lot more. I never ran too far without kids wanting a high five as I ran past. Residents also had garden hoses and sprinklers out and I was very appreciative of getting the occasional cool down.

Elaine's run followed a very similar pattern. However she still managed a 65 minute run, an excellent effort after a trying bike leg with only one gear.

My overall time was 2h19m58s. Not a PB and nowhere near what I think I'm capable of. Next Olympic Distance Triathlon is at St Kilda in January. Hopefully the results will be better there.

Days Leading into Noosa

The trip to Noosa was always going to be more of a holiday than a race weekend. All up it would be 7 nights in Queensland. With this coming only 2 nights after our 3 day Training Camp at Bright, we were very much entrenched in the holiday spirit.

There are 3 different accommodation rates at Noosa: Off-Peak, Peak and then Noosa Triathlon week. Not only is the accommodation very expensive, but you are also forced to book for a minimum of 5 nights. We ended up choosing the Outrigger apartments on the edge of the National Park in Little Hasting St, about 500m from Hasting St - the main drag and where all the action is. The resort has a gym and 2 pools (one is a lap pool) and is understandably full of triathletes. Whilst here I have seen Craig Alexander (3 times Hawaii Ironman World Champion), Emma Jackson (Olympian) and Peter Kerr (last year's Noosa winner), so it is obviously not a bad choice.

The race entry and accomodation was booked 12 months in advance of the race, but I held off on the airfares hoping cheaper flights would appear. After most triathletes had booked their flights, the unpopular dates to fly started to appear cheap. Getting a good deal meant arriving 2 days earlier than planned, but the savings in airfare was very significant (ie. $89 compared to $299). Rather than extend our expensive Noosa accommodation  I booked 2 nights at Coolum Beach instead, which is half way between the Sunshine Coast airport and Noosa.

Coolum Beach was very relaxing and it was a shame to leave after only 2 days. We still saw quite a few triathletes, but in general it was pretty quiet and the surf beach was great. The photo on the right shows the view from our balcony. And it was great beach weather the whole time we were there.

We drove the short distance to Noosa on Thursday and the town had already been taken over by triathletes. All cafes on Hasting St were overflowing and there were expensive bikes everywhere. During the Hawaii Ironman in Kona, Lava Java is apparently the place to be. In Noosa it would seem Aromas on Hasting St is the 'It Place'. After being lucky enough to score a seat, Robbie McEwan (Aussie cycling legend) was having morning tea at the table next to us and later on we saw the boys from Bondi Rescue.

Thursday afternoon Elaine and I did a run along the coastal trail that borders the National Park. It is a beautiful run with cliffs overlooking the ocean on one side and bushland on the other. Elaine ran 6km while I continued on for a 10km run. The problem with going further than most people is that you get to surprise snakes sunning themselves on the path. However it was only a very small snake, so nothing to worry about.

Friday morning I decided to ride the bike course. There is a climb and a very fast descent I wanted to check out. We had driven the course on the Thursday, but there is nothing quite like actually experiencing it on the bike. At roughly 4%, the climb turned out to be very easy. Whereas the steep descent (different bit of road) was extremely fast. It was during this descent that I discovered I hadn't tightened the front end properly and the whole bike was shaking as I battled the cross winds (with deep dish wheels) at 60kph.

With just a couple of kilometres left on my ride I experienced a puncture. Being an interstate race we didn't have the luggage space to carry 2 sets of wheels (ie. training and race wheels), so it was one of my tubular race tyres that suffered the fate. Luckily it was the tyre that came with the bike which was of lessor quality than all my other tyres, so one I was planning to replace at some stage anyway. With our luggage weight exceeding our allowances (even after purchasing extra), I left all non-essential items at home - including spare tyres and tubular tyre changing tools like valve removers.

After tracking down a new tubular at the Triathlon Expo, I then had to organise the tyre change with the Event Bike Mechanics. CycleZone Mooloolaba provided the services and did a wonderful job. However with 8,000 competitors, it seemed like every second athlete needed their services and I ended up waiting 3 hours for the tyre to be sorted. But at 15 dollars for switching the valve extenders across (need special tool) and gluing on the new tyre, I'm certainly not complaining - especially as I would not be racing without them.

The Expo also had massage services that Elaine and I had pre-booked. 30 minutes each for $30 (a dollar a minute). My masseur spent a lot of time on my calf and hamstring muscles as he found them to be extremely tight. But was then surprised to discover my quads were in far worse shape - obviously not helped by 3 days of cycling in Bright. Having run out of time, I booked another 15 minute massage the next day.

With seemingly everything sorted I put my wheel back on my bike and then set about tightening the front end. Tragically, the steering tube internals gave way. So not only could I not make it tighter, I could not even screw it in. Knowing this was a problem that could not be fixed before race day, I simply tightened the head steam onto the steerer hoping that would be enough. The other worry was that it would picked up by scrutineering when I checked my bike into transition. Down to transition check-in and they didn't give my bike more than glance, so hopefully all problems sorted.

The expectations for the race are not high. Having missed 2 weeks of swim squad and it being a non-wetsuit swim will guarantee a slow swim split and I strongly suspected the forecasted heat will destroy any chance of a good run.