Well after a few good weeks of training under my belt i decided to give the Leftbank Triathlon a crack.
I'd had a pretty easy week, so i knew i was going to be fresh but hopefully not to fresh - zing. Woke up nice and early, but my usual pre-race brekky of a banana or two and a Powerbar went out the window as i took a bite into my first banana and realised it had been horribly horribly beaten and therefore bruised. Not to worry. Got to the race with plenty of time and got a very good spot on the racks (not numbered). Before i knew it race start had come around and i was floating in the freezing river without a wetty. It was only a 400m swim, so i figured i would loose more time than gain ripping a wetty off after such a short swim.
After a bit over 6 minutes swimming i was out of the water 3rd behind Karl Reindler and some other person, a fast sprint (long run rather) into transition, it was on with my race belt...on with my race belt, i said ON with my race belt! The damm belt buckle had snapped, i lost about a minute trying to tie the damm thing on but eventually got it on. After being passed by a few people without faulty race belts it was back into it, onto the bike. Swim split: 7.21 (including transition).
The bike was a 4 lap 19k ride. What was taxing about this ride was the short and sharp hill at the start of every lap, followed by a deceivingly difficult positive gradient climb to the turn around. This was taxing, but what i found more taxing was the extremely large amount of competitors on course not staying left!! arrghhh!! Remember folks, when not passing please please stay left, no matter how wide the road is. Anywho, i put the foot down and had what i though was a reasonably good ride. kept a pretty reasonable pace through out and was pretty happy. Bike split: 33.31 mins
From here it was off the bike and onto the run. The run was also surprisingly difficult, with it starting flat then turning into a nasty uphill, a turn into further uphill, then a run all the way down, back to the flat and repeat. 4k. I had a reasonably good run and felt good through out, i smashed the last lap and worked my way into 2nd, but wasn't quite running as fast as i want. But hey that's something to work on over the next few weeks. However turns out i had the 5th fastest run split overall, so some good signs there! Run split: 17.55 mins
Final result: 2nd in 20 - 24 age group and 9th overall, with a time of 58.47, so reasonably happy with that :)
Well its back into serious training now, ultimately for Singapore 70.3 in March, but State Sprint Champs is in 3 weeks so looking forward to a good hit out for that!!
Cheers, markus
