Perspective

It's been 2.5 weeks since Cairns and it's been a bit of a roller coaster. Going straight back into long days at work and a few stressful situations is not something that would usually affect me; that's often the norm at least a couple of days of the week.

However, coming back from the race then back into that environment hit me for six. A combination of the "come down" effect I heard about, the adrenalin drop out,  no training, topped up stress levels and lack of sleep = a very bad fallout.

What this highlighted is the importance of pre-race recovery, rest and time out. I'm sure I knew about this somewhere in the back of my mind (I'd certainly read enough articles on it) but my stubbornness got the better of me and I (stupidly) thought I could somehow sail through that period, that I wouldn't need it, I felt physically fine so there was no need to stop.  What a nugget.

I was ignoring the fact that I was mentally exhausted. An extended season due to race changes, a build up of work pressures and general fatigue had left me feeling a bit disenchanted with the whole triathlon scene. My life had been so squarely focussed around this one race for so long, triathlon seemed to engulf my life from so many angles, that the switch just flicked and I was done. Couldn't face the pool, my bike or the thought of running. In fact, the thought of any exercise just couldn't motivate me so it wasn't just triathlon. I had athlete fatigue and needed to give myself the break of not worrying about it for awhile.....until that fire in the belly started to come back and I could look at my bike again without feeling a sense of dread.

It's loosely called giving-yourself-a-break and living-like-a-normal-person. I've slept in. Eaten crap. Sat around. Watched other people run and ride their bikes. Stared at my swimsuit without guilt. Gotten scared by the numbers on the scales. Whatever. Sometimes, the obsessive compulsiveness of this sport creeps up on us and we beat ourselves up because we miss a session or two and think we're done, a failure.

You know what? I trained solidly for 7 months. Can anyone seriously say that 2.5 weeks of chilling out and enjoying life is going to ruin that?

What this self-imposed training exile has allowed me to do is think about what is important in my life; what I value, who I value, what adds happiness to my life. Are there things that cause me unnecessary stress? Can I simplify things? And I've realised a lot of things which I won't share here -  but have made some changes as a result and feel infinitely happier.

I've challenged my thinking on certain beliefs, on my lifestyle, on where I see my life headed. I've had the headspace, the time and the energy to seriously think through these things and consider where I want triathlon to fit in this picture. And as a result, I feel more positive, more recharged and more determined then I think I did when I originally started this half ironman journey. Because there are lots of things that are important in life - you've just got to figure out what they are for you.

That's why there's "I" in tr-i-athlon

After finishing the race you've been working towards for so long, I found it was easy to lose perspective quite quickly. Triathlon is an all-encompassing sport and we spend so long in our little world that it is easy to forget that what we do, compared to the general public, is pretty damn exceptional. But rubbing shoulders with gifted athletes, or athletes who have been in the sport (or even one of the sports) for many years can make you feel intimidated or perhaps even a little disappointed by the result you have achieved if you fall into the trap of comparing your effort to theirs.

One of the reasons I love triathlon is because it is an individual sport. You don't rely on anyone else, success or failure is all up to you and almost solely in your control (race mishaps or mechanicals aside). You can't hide behind anyone if you're having a bad day, wait for team members to correct your errors. It's you, making the small decisions each step of the race.

Being an individual sport, you have to remember your individual circumstances. Some people will come into triathlon with a strong, or long, background in one of the three disciplines. I race the 30-34 age group, so I'm aware that some of those girls may have been running, swimming or cycling recreationally or competitively for up to 15 years. I haven't. There's little value in trying to compare my efforts or my performance against other people as you simply do not know what their relative "training age" (as my coach puts it) will be.

I was given the analogy of my career. When I was fresh out of law school, 1-2 years in, how was I as a lawyer? My response - not very good. Not well trained, but did my best with what I knew. 9, almost 10 years on, things are different. Well trained, confident and things are much easier now. Similarly with sport, we need to consider our training age. For me, until I started triathlon, I never ran - what a horrible suggestion :) Queenslanders don't run, it's too bloody hot! I was repulsed at the thought of running and I've never forget my first triathlon last year, struggling terribly to finish the 2km run. Awful. I'd never ridden a bike (aside from when I was a kid, rolling around the neighbourhood on my pink mountain bike) until 2 years ago. And while I did swim squad for close to a decade, it had been close to 15 years since I had been in a pool. Triathlon was a bloody struggle starting out, but I think this is part of what I loved - such a challenge to do things I'd never done before.

When you look at your own personal background and your own personal training age, how can you not be proud of your achievements? Going from barely able to run 2km 18 months ago to finishing my first half-ironman (21km of running!) is something I am proud of. However, if you fall into the trap of comparing times, placings etc to those of other athletes (and we've all done it), you lose sight of your personal achievements and can move from celebrating your success to feeling disappointed.

We have to remember that what we do is something that 99.4% of the rest of the population could never dream of. My dad is the one who put this into perspective for me. I was a bit down about my run and was letting it get to me. He looked me in the eye and said "I can understand how in your world what you've just done might not be a big deal because it seems like something everyone does. But step outside and have a look around - the vast majority of people in this country could never fathom what you have just done and will never even attempt it. You should be incredibly proud of what you have accomplished because most people will never do this in their lifetime".

It was very humbling seeing the passion in my dad's eyes as he said this. He was so proud and I could tell just didn't understand how I could be remotely disappointed. And he's right. There's a big "I" in triathlon and it's got nothing to do with anybody else. Our little triathlon world can suck us in and make it easy for us to lose sight of our own goals and our own paths - when what everyone else is doing is irrelevant.

For me, at training age 2, I'm going to keep working hard at everything. I have my goals and I love that this sport lets me explore a totally different area of myself then my day job does. I love seeing what my body is capable of. And best of all, I love celebrating my friend's successes. That's the other benefit of triathlon - as an individual sport, you also get to celebrate individual success and that will take many forms. Whether its qualifying for a world championships, a PB or finishing a first race - it's so exciting to be involved in these moments.

Postcards from 70.3 Cairns

Executive Summary
First half-ironman. 5:42:45. Top 20 finish 30-34 female. It was a massive challenge start to finish but I am rapt with this result.

The detail
I arrived in Cairns on Wednesday and it had rained non-stop. Literally, non-stop. However, as race morning dawned, the wind was still, the sky's were clear and the forecast was for a hot, hot humid race.

5:20am and walking down to transition, I passed some Danish backpackers who were just heading home after what was evidently a large night. In broken English, I got a "good luck, cycle hard" and smiled.

Arriving in transition, I felt calm and relaxed. I had plenty of time to go through the motions of pumping tyres, filling bottles and checking mechanics. As I was filling up my bottles I took a sip of my drink (which I had made up last night) and gagged. Overnight, something had happened and my usual mixture (plus an electrolyte tab) had almost fermented into a sickly sweet taste. Undrinkable. I had to water it down, but to do so I would have to dump roughly half of each bottle (meaning half of my nutrition).  There was nothing I could do so I found some water via a volunteer and set about fixing the problem. I'd have to figure it out on the bike (Lesson # 1 learnt).

Swim 
To get to the swim start, we all had to shuffle down the relatively narrow pier to jump into the water and swim out to the marked starting point. Trying to shuffle ~1200 HIM athletes down a narrow path was always going to be hard and, as it turned out, some people logistically could not get near the swim start for when the gun sounded. Very unfair when everyone was where they needed to be prior to the start.

Unlike other HIM races I've watched or entered (but then withdrawn), Cairns was a mass start like Ironman. I'm aware that mass starts are hectic, rough and can be downright menacing and was mentally prepared to battle for the first 300-400m before finding some feet or water and get into some sort of stroke.

However, this was something else (again, this is my first one so I don't have anything to compare it to; maybe its always like this). Within the first few minutes, I copped a strong kick to the nose and face and by some miracle my goggles didn't dislodge. My momentary stop in shock, though, led to the beginning of 20min of feet grabbing, belting, head dragging and a few men from the teams (who started 5min after us I think) grabbing my waist and actually pushing me down under the water so they could swim over the top of me. To me, it was frightening and dangerous and I'm someone who has grown up in the water and surf swimming. It was like this for the first 1100m, just a constant battle with no clear water and men grabbing and belting me. I wasted so much energy trying to stay afloat, yelling at a few who were being complete pricks and calming my heart rate down after the couple of underwater pushes.

Basically, by 1200m I just wanted to get the hell out of the water as quickly as possible. It was difficult to navigate back to shore but at least it wasn't the shit fight that it was going out. Got to the stairs, ran up them and under the showers and started the 500m run to transition (yup 500m!!) . Found out later around 37 min. Slowest swim time ever but given the conditions, pleased with that.

Bike
Basically, the half-ironman was being run exactly the same as the ironman. We ran up to the transition tent, grabbed our cycle bag and into the change tents were some people were helped by volunteers to get wetsuits off etc. I just ripped mine off, grabbed my sunglasses and number belt, shoved the wetsuit in the bag and then....well actually I can't remember what I did with it. Must have put it in the right place as I have it now! Ran into the monster transition, found bike easily and ran out navigating around everyone. The mount line was tiny so I ended up running a fair way up before jumping on and heading off.

The first 20min or so of the bike course was pretty slow as we were sent around built up areas with only one lane closed. It made it absolutely impossible to stick to the 12 x 3 draft rule (as the width of the road wasn't 3 metres in most places). Once onto the Captain Cook Hwy it was a little better, but packs quickly formed and I was waiting to see a TO come past. They never did (I only saw 1 TO take notice of drafting the entire ride).  The road surface of the Hwy was excellent, however it didn't last as most of the ride was on rocky rough, dead bitchem. The road quality was pretty bad, but fortunately the scenery made up for it! The road roughness ended up messing with my shifting & gears, as well as my seat post (it dropped about 4-5mm and started making some horrible noises!) but what can you do - I wasn't about to stop to check this out, I knew what was happening and tried to compensate as best as I could.

At about the 35k mark, we climbed up, down, up, down the side of a mountain. Sharp, steep climbing for roughly 20min which stung the legs. Some people were walking their bikes up! I was pretty surprised by that. We heard afterwards that one of the EnduranceTeam athletes came off going down the steep climb after hitting a pothole (there was a few of those on the road) and got ripped up pretty bad. Lots of guys going down on aerobars which freaked me out as I was going down behind them - not safe boys, those were some tight corners.

The ride itself is an undulating course. The road quality adds that additional sting to the legs. The views, however, are what you hear - gorgeous, picturesque. I did spare a few moments to take them in!!  The sun was well and truly out by this stage and a lot of people were sweating like dogs. I felt relatively cool (thanks to this little number!) and well hydrated, although I had missed an aid station due to bikes everywhere and I knew I was behind on my nutrition but again - you live and learn (Lesson #2 learnt).

Coming back into T2 (at a different location), checked the Garmin and saw 2:49 ish and 32kph av. Really happy with that time on the course. Gave the bike to a handler (again, Ironman treatment!) and ran over to get my run bag and into the change tent.

Run
Within the 1st km, people were walking. It was hot, but it wasn't normal hot. It was hot in the way that sapped everything from your muscles and just left you feeling like you had nothing left. The first 4km was really tough. Trying to get the legs into a rhythm, and knowing (by how I was feeling) I hadn't taken on enough nutrition on the bike, it was going to be tough. I decided to break it down into 2km blocks between aid stations and this was the best decision I made. It made the half marathon in those conditions manageable as you knew you were only 2km away from the next water, hose off, sponge, coke, gel or ice. And truly I needed every aid station.

This was a point to point run so we ran probably 17-18km through the hot, barren cane fields in Cairns. There were some small false flats which I normally would not have noticed but, funnily enough, when you are suffering in the heat any tiny incline feels like Mount Everest!! I had moments of feeling good, there was a patch between 8-14km I was feeling ok (relatively speaking), but the rest of the run was an enormous mental battle. Just focusing on the 2km blocks, trying to stay as cool and as hydrated as possible, and not walk. I walked aid stations (to get in fluid), I stopped twice for 10sec to regroup but that was it. I didn't walk at all and I am proud of that, particularly as it was my first half marathon (or 21.2km as we were told).

The last 3km was hands down the hardest. Around midday, smoking hot,  so close to home, you could see it but I felt like I was running on the spot. People were walking between 19-21km; so close to home, spectators cheering but so spent they can't muster a shuffle. That's long course I guess.

I've never been so happy and delirious to see the flags down the finishing area, meaning I was 100m or so from the finish. I don't remember too much; what I can recall is at about the 1km mark pushing into 5:30km pace (that's right, really motoring ;) to pass a girl just in case she was in my age group. But once in the flags and then in the chute its all a blur. I can't remember the people or cheering. I remember slowing about 5m from the finish so a guy in front could have his finish line moment and then I crossed after him. Relieved to be finished. And so exhausted.

A volunteer put the medal around my next, I couldn't talk so I just nodded. She explained we would walk to recovery. I nodded, swaying a bit. Then I managed my first words: "It's so bloody hot" The volunteer's response: "Welcome to Cairns". Really summed up the day nicely!

Post-script
This was a tough race. I am proud to have completed it, particularly as my first half ironman. After changing from Busselton to Cairns 6 weeks ago, I knew it would be a challenge as the course and climates are totally different -  I learnt so much and I feel like I took on everything that was thrown at me during the day and didn't give up.

I've now got a base and some lessons to work with for the next 4 months before 70.3 Port Macquarie in October. I know what I need to work on and test and areas I need to really nail over the winter.

Now, for another nap and maybe some sun!