Well, Noosa has definitely come and gone and there have been some big changes in my life since then. But lets start with Noosa. What a ride. That race, that week was a total buzz. The entire town was inundated with triathletes and you could unashamedly walk around and talk, live and breathe triathlon for a week. You'd sight the famous triathletes (talking Macca mainly) chilling at the Noosa surf club and generally just mixing it at the coffee streets along Hastings with the other 4000 odd people lining up to do the race. The town had this great vibe and this swell of adrenalin. You really felt as though you were on the circuit, being a triathlete.
The weather leading up to Sunday's race was average. Overcast, raining and the talk was whether it would be a wetsuit swim. I was completely against a wetsuit ruling on the sheer basis that it's Queensland and I felt to wear a wetsuit up here was a complete insult. Luckily, race day water temperature was 24.1 so it was officially a non wetsuit swim. Excellent.
On the downside...having been overcast and wet the 4 days leading up to race day, Sunday greeted us with blistering heat, a cloudless sky and HUMIDITY. Eek it was not my favourite. Plus, my age group was one of the last to start so I knew this meant I was in for a hot run (I wasn't wrong).
I was definitely nervous on race morning. This was my first Olympic distance triathlon (1500m swim, 40km ride, 10km run), it was hot, I hadn't done a lot of running due to injury and my training wasn't overly consistent leading into the race. Ten months after my first triathlon, I knew I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. In my head, I wanted to hit 2 hours 30min. What I didn't really give due respect to is just how much conditions can affect your race.
By the time our age group was ready to start, the current had picked up in the canal and not in a good way. It meant that we swam about 900m against the current into transition. I felt like I got into a good rhythm with my swim but I was swimming near girls who I know I am faster then so I wasn't having a solid swim. Swimming against the current really messed with my head, and by the time I was about 200m from shore I had enough of the swim and was well over it. Really need to work on this mental toughness.
Into transition and I made every rookie mistake possible. I was disorientated from the swim and hadn't paid attention to the transition exits, which meant I ran around like an idiot with my bike, asking marshals how to get the "hell outta here". Not cool and wasted valuable energy. Once i got out of transition, there was no jump mount (again, too flaky on the legs) so after a very amateur mount, I was off on the bike,
As I pedalled out of town I made it my mission to catch up time. I picked up a number of girls on the way out and was holding a pretty solid speed, but the heat was well and truly out. I drank way too much electrolyte drink way too quickly and my stomach was not playing ball with me. It sat in my gut the entire race, fortunately not coming up again but it made for an uncomfortable 2 hours.
Noosa includes a 3 km climb called Garmin hill. I'm not great on hills and i had decided my tactic was going to be to spin easily up this climb and not worry about pace. This lost me time but I wanted to conserve energy as, being my first Olympic triathlon, I had no idea what to expect and how I would fatigue.
The 40km went fairly uneventfully and coming into town (again, an unattractive dismount) I was into transition, into my runners, and out onto the run.
Well.
This was, well and truly, the most excruciating athletic experience of my life. Well, in my head at the time, it was. 10km on burning hot asphalt, in the smoking hot humidity of the Sunshine Coast, with a stomach full of electrolyte drink that would not digest (meaning no nutrition for me) was, undoutably, torture. I went through the full range of mental battles with myself during that run and honestly felt like I had to stop and walk, to give up, that I couldn't go on. In fairness, people were lying on the side of the road completely dehydrated and in need of medical attention so it was legitimately rough out there. I felt like I was absolutely giving it everything and I had nothing left to give. If you asked me then, I would have swore on my life I gave it everything.
It was after the race, looking at the numbers, that you realise the power of the mind. It really can convince you of anything.
I finished my first OD triathlon in 2:42, 12min over my goal time but I have to take account of the conditions. Plus, this still placed me in the top third of the 25-29 females (a very fast category) and - the thing I am most proud of - I had the 27th fastest bike split. Out of ~130 girls, on a fairly average day for me, I was pretty pumped with that. 10 months after my first ever triathlon, I'd say this isn't a bad effort :)
The most interesting part is the run data. As I said, I thought I gave that race everything. My average run pace, however, was 5:30m/km. For me, that is training run pace. Hardly giving it everything I had. What that tells me is I had a lot more in me, but the mind is such a powerful thing, I was convinced I was cooked so my body behaved that way.
Here's me about 200m from the finishing line, just running past the TA crew. I hurt. A lot. I just wanted to finish the race at this point:
So..... next up? Gatorade Sprint (which turned into a duathlon....more on that in a sec!) then I'm off to Canberra to race on the 18th December in another OD race. After that, a little bit of time off racing, then to Geelong in February for another OD, Mooloolaba for the iconic Mooloolaba Triathlon in March and then the big one - the one I've dedicated the next 6 months of my life to:
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