Where's Lucky??

Where has Lucky been?

Great question reader who accidentally googled 'Mark Luckin' instead of 'mark luck in'

Firstly, unlucky! Just press back and you can be on your merry way, or perhaps you'd like to read on? I guess the most simple answer would be work, a little break and life in general. After Vegas 70.3 worlds, simply and honestly I was a damaged man.

Racing in 42 degree heat, having a day go not nearly as well as planned and putting so much into the race for the previous 5 months hit me pretty hard! I raced Mandurah 70.3, but for fun, I raced in speedos with a couple of friends and had a great time.

 

Post this race I took time off. It was time for a break! Plenty of catching up with friends, a few parties and a lot of work. Post Chrissy training was sporadic at best.

 

Then I got the call up that every under trained triathlete dreads... "lucky! can you run in our team for the Albany Half?!" It was the Total Tri boys and I couldn't say no. 'I better head out for a run on Thursday' I thought to my self. It was a shock to the system to say the least

 

What a mess....we'd managed to put a QUALITY team, well 2 out of 3. NJ swimming and professional Johan riding I was fricken' stressing out. I did NOT want to let the team down!

 

NJ managed the fourth fastest swim time over all, and Johan had held his spot of an impressive time. Pressure was on and as I saw Johan ride in, after a super quick transition, I was off

 

'I FEEL GOOD!!', I thought to my self. 'World record?!' I thought to my self. I went through the first 10.5k somewhere around my usual half pace. One more lap to go, here we go! And then.....BLAMO! I detonated. DET-O-NATED, and then, with about 5k to go I actually started walking. It was humbling to say the least! At least I managed to hold onto 4th for the team, we were happy with the day.

 

 

What a fricken beautiful bike

 



Albany was a good wake up call for me. But I needed one more thing to get the blood pumping so I went to the Total Tri Australia Day Triathlon. Seeing some of the top boys duke it out, was the final piece of the puzzle (also I got to do a little commentary, it was awesome fun)

 

So I'm back! Next up for me? Well I'm just confirming that but I can't wait to race again, after getting a little fitter first perhaps. Chrissie is at the shop with the Total Tri boys currently getting a tune up so lets dance!

 

Thanks for you interest if you are having a read and I hope to bring some good news soon, lets get training!

 

Cheers :)

Vegas 70.3 World Championships

As I sit in LA airport waiting for my flight (a tidy 3 hour wait) back to Aus, I've come to the conclusion that it is finally time to write a little race report on my first experience racing the 70.3 World Championships. Emotions are a little less raw and I've had time to think. So here we go, time for some terrible terrible terrible jokes (just to run with the same theme as previous posts)

Let me preface blog by saying it's hard to put in words how difficult this course is and how difficult this race is/was. The swim is hard (explanation coming), the bike is tough, hot, undulating and unforgiving and the run is....pain.

I can't wait to come back (seriously)

I woke up race morning after a good sleep (rare), and a great last few weeks prep under myself thanks to Guy and Kate. Seano and I prepared (think testosterone fueled push ups, boxing and burpies) in the room, then met up with Lisa and Andy (next door) and grabbed a lift down thanks to Dad.

As check in was the day before (see above), all we had to do in transition was check and pump up the tyres and ummm, re check that. After completing this we all met up again and found a quiet spot. We all were due to start approximately 1.30 hours after the pro start so we had some time to wait around, get nervous/calm/drink lots and pee lots.

Finally after sending Lisa and Sean off Andy and I made our way down to the start. Our wave was the last, 18 - 29 males. Actually sorry it was the 18 - 29 college wrestling scholarship holders wave.

We all entered the water single file and after a quick warm up I headed to the front row of the field, I wanted a quick swim and I wasn't going to get caught up behind. As soon as I lined up I knew this was going to be a tough swim. Firstly it's in Lake Las Vegas, fresh water. This means no floatation as you'd normally expected and let me tell you, sculling there for 15 minutes is tiring!

Secondly I noticed as soon as I got to the front row, hitting and kicking was on, 10 minutes before race start. It was fricken rough and I honestly felt bruised before starting, but there is no escaping this and you would be stupid to sit at the back. Finally we got the 30 seconds call and the inevitable creep forward started. Then BOOM then gun went.

UFC #112 is the most apt description I could use to describe this swim. Now I'm a pretty big guy (sarcasm) but I was absolutely pummeled at the start of this swim. Swum over, punched, kicked and touched inappropriately! I tried dishing out my own, but I was simply over powered. This set me up for a difficult swim but I carried on as best I could. To be honest I thought I was swimming terribly until with about 400 to go I noticed I was swimming next to a yellow cap...(my colour)

Those goggles look familiar I thought...a couple of strokes later. Haha that's Andy! Immediately I laughed to myself, however I almost came close to drowning when about 100 meters later Andy stuck his head out of the water mid stroke and said "hey man!"

Upon exiting the water I managed to get up the ramp before Big T. I tried not to act to excited but couldn't help turning around and having a laugh with him. There was a little run into T1 and after a fairly uneventful T1 I was running up the ramp and mounting my bike.

Straight out of T1 and I knew my bike legs weren't with me today. This really hit me hard as the people who have been training close to me know how much effort and the massive gains I have been making this winter re the biking. Immediately I tried to overcome it and stay positive however the further I rode the worse I felt. What was more demoralising was how many people I was getting past by. It felt like 100's and it was destroying me.

The bike was pain, I was shattered and mid way through I developed some really bad back pain. I soldered on but I was not in a good place. Mentally I kept trying to get my self back in the game but it wasn't happening. It was hot, hilly, a little windy and unforgiving. There was no hiding out there. I was however stoked for Lisa, who when I passed her was riding really strong. I was a proud twinny.

Finally I reached T2 some 2 hours 40 mins and change later. I entered T2, sat down, but my shoes on, took a breath and ran out of transition....

I felt good :) immediately I thought, wow, at least my running legs are here. However I got a good reality check about half a mile in when I passed a guy who was literally breaking down right in front of me. I checked by Garmin, it was 42 degrees. Straight away I threw my race pace plan out of the window and entered survival mode.

As I entered the first aid station I grabbed everything they had to offer. I was drenched for maybe a minute, honestly it was fricken brutal. About 2 miles in I passed Andy, it was genuinely shattered for him as he was having a bad day. As I ran past I gave him the last couple of pieces of ice I had in my hand and tried to say something inspiring and motivating. I'm almost certain it came out as "do run lots of good, I believe you, go friend". Oh dear...

 

About half a mile later I passed my mate Scotty who was also not having the day he wanted, my words would have been just as inspiring I'm sure :/ about a further half mile a passed Seano, he was looking strong, so I patted his bum (hey, I'm only human).

The run was 3 laps, 3 laps of heat, water water ice perform (the sports drink) water coke coke water ice!!! (my aid station yelling ritual) Oh I'm dry... only one mile to the next aid station... I was happy to be running well, and loved the support. But it was still, really really brutal.

With about 4k to go I really really hit the wall, hard. Up until that point I hadn't been passed on the run but things were getting desperate. It's probably fairly well summarised by Andys comments post race when he saw me with about 2k to go and said I looked f*cking really bad haha. However I didn't stop running.

Finally I reached the finish line to see Mum and Dad waiting holding out an Australian flag. I was no where near close to my wanted result but there was no way I wasn't going to grab that flag. As I crossed the finish line I felt pure elation.

(please note not actual finishing time)

All I wanted after was the med tent, however after having a quick look in there, I steered clear. There were a lot more people in trouble. My highlight of the day was running (read walking slowly) back to the finish line to see Sean, Andy and Lisa cross the finish line. We've all spend the winter together prepping for this so it was nice to be there over the line.

Thank you to Mum and Dad, Mandy and Gilbert and Matt Illingworth for the cheering on the day. It was so uplifting every time we saw you. Thanks Kate, Jono, Paul and others for watching at home :) Also a massive massive thanks to Total Tri, the boys there have been there for me at every step over the winter and their assistance has been invaluable. Ryders Eyewear, still hold the title for me as the only pair of sunnies I have ever completed a full race in, they are amazing. My On runners, I was running on Clouds, all be it hot clouds ;) SiS, no nutritional problems for me, no cramps no nothing! Also a massive thank you to Jarman McKenna, thank you so much for your assistance.

Finally thank you Sean, Lisa, Andy for all those cold mornings spent together on the winter, we may have not had the results we were after but all you showed massive character out there. Sean, you are the man. Jono my house mate for putting up with my early starts EVERY morning, and the pushes on the bike. Brian for putting up with my moods at training. Guy and Kate, your help was invaluable and thank you greatly. Finally Paige, who had to put up with all of the above and more, thank you and I love you :) (lucky girl).

It seems a bit silly writing such a detailed report and having such a long list to thank, but for an age grouper, these kind of races are a massive journey, or at least it certainly was for me. To be honest, I didn't race the kind of race I was after, what I knew I was capable of. I finished 20th, 10 to 15 places lower than I honestly expected, however what I learnt from this race was invaluable, and I will be back next year. I know what to fix and I am looking forward to the upcoming challenges.

Up next for me Mandurah 70.3 where I hope to validate for next year. Until then, I have a plane to catch! Thanks for reading!

Cheers

A Hed wheel review

Before leaving for Vegas 70.3 I was in a predicament. No race wheels. I didn’t want to take my disc over to the hilly course that is Vegas. I needed something light, aero and fast. Total Tri had me covered.

Enter the Hed Stinger (6 and 7)

I’ve been using a variety of wheels for races over the last 4-5 years, but these new Heds are something else. They are far and away the best wheels I’ve used, why? Read away!

I’ve been riding these wheels for almost 2 weeks now, in training and in a prep Olympic distance triathlon for Vegas 70.3 worlds. The rolling resistance in these wheels are incredible. I honestly feel as though these wheels are giving me a much larger amount of free speed than I have ever experienced from a set of race wheels. Smooth fast and confidence inspiring, exactly what a light guy like me is after in a set of wheels.

The R & D put into these new wheels in prevalent as at speed I feel like I’m putting out less watts. Actually all I have to do is look at the data, I am putting out less watts. In fact last weekend I had one of my quickest bike times over an Olympic distance race. I raced an unknown course, a couple of days after 30 hours of travel and out rode everyone on the course, love it.

I’d love to say this is all due to my fitness, but that would be a lie, I have to thank Hed for that increased in speed.

Like I touched on before, being a smaller guy I have suffered in the past from being thrown around by a set of race wheels. I was absolutely stoked when I rode this set for the first time and on subsequent rides after and did not suffer like usual. I’m confident in the wind in the aero position, a refreshing change (that said I’m sure these wheels would be a superior ride for all weights).

As well as them being incredibly fast in a race environment, for a race wheel they have been bullet proof to train on an extremely comfortable ride. Climbing, rough roads, aero position, descending you name it, I’ve been comfortable on these, a complete package I have found to be very rare on a set of race wheels.

Simply if you are after a comfortable, smooth, confidence inspiring and fast ride. Look no further. Oh and boy they look good ;)

 

 

Great wheels.. Thank you Total Tri and Hed for the opportunity.

McCall Olympic Distance

Dear diary....

Lucky here reporting in from Boise Idaho after a great weekend in McCall with Guy "it's not a perm it's natural!' Crawford and Kate "I let Mark win as I feel sorry for him" Bevilaqua, racing the McCall Olympic distance triathlon.

McCall is the most beautiful town I have ever been too (I'm not that well "travelled") with stunning woods and an amazing fresh water lake. Oh also it's at 5000 feet

After a really enjoyable night of celebrating Guy and Kate's birthday at this amazing place on Friday night, we were up at 5.30am for the 2 hour drive to the race. It was PAIN but we made it there without a hitch. Upon arrival Guy decided due to a nagging cold he would be dns-ing. To say I was excited was an understatement

No but seriously I wasn't actually happy for him not racing, I was looking forward to see whether I would be in his zip code, but it did increase my chances of over all victory!

This race was a super small 'rack your bike anywhere' kind of country race. After a bit of a rushed set up Kate and I were ready to roll. With a lot of travel under my belt, 'the sniffles' and 5000 feet of altitude I had no idea what I was in for. It was a mass start and after a quick briefing we were lined up ready to go

The gun went and I took of like a *insert funny and appropriate analogy here*. It was a 2 lap swim out and back with a small run in between. I managed to get a small gap at the end of the first lap, where I was joined by a team swimmer, 'Teamy McSwimmington'. Unfortunately I managed to loose her feet a few hundred meters from the end of the swim but managed to come out with a little gap on the rest of the field which included Andy Potts, Clayton Fettel and Michael Phelps swimming in a team (true story).

After the worlds slowest T1 according to Guy, I was off onto the 40k of PAIN. Unfortunately I had neglected to bring my bike Garmin to the states so I was riding without power. They say your learn something new about yourself in every race. Well in this race, I learnt, I have the worst internal gauge of perceived power in the history of personnel power perceiving people who try to personally perceive their own power ever.

Guy advised me to race pretty hard, so heeding his advice, I went for it hard on the bike. The course was absolutely STUNNING but there wasn't much time to view. I was riding like a Jack Russell on speed and the road was quite bumpy and pot-holey. Also I had Chris Lieto and Norman Stadler trying to out ride me.

I reached the 20k turn around in "record time" according to the polite marshall and headed for home. I saw I had a gap of maybe a couple of minutes on the next couple of competitors that included Kate, who thanks to the $740 I paid her earlier was keeping the agreed upon distance back.

The rest of the ride was pain mixed with stunning scenery mixed with squires mixed with "oh cool a squirrel" mixed with pain. I made it back to T2 and after a quick dismount the running shoes were on and I was off for 10k. The run down hill made me feel like Usain Bolt's world record was in reach, next up Mo Farrah was in my sites. The next 6 meter 1% small hill dispelled any chance of that, oh dear, pain was back.

The run took us through some suburbed area then onto some cool but extremely taxing trails. I saw Guy a few k in, and it looked like he was taking a video on my phone. As a result I ran closer to him and yelled "HI MUM". This resulted in an extremely awkward embarrassing photo of me mouth wide open waving mid stride. Smooth.

After completing the first lap it was back out on the same to finish up. I pushed pretty hard in the last 5k and some drooling and funny noises ensued. However I managed to stop these as Kate and I crossed paths, I had to maintain my 'image of ultimate coolness' in front of her....yep, that's probably the worst joke of the whole blog.. here's a picture to ease your pain..

Finally I reached the finish line and boy was I glad to get there! It was a tough day but it was great to blow the cobwebs out. Kate crossed the finish line a few minutes later she also had a tough one. After the race we hung around for presentations and free beer! (Rocking the Total Tri hoody below)

So what do you do as a triathlete when you have been suffering for 2 hours? GO AND GET PANCAKES FROM THE PANCAKE HOUSE. Boy that was awesome but the inevitable carb high that followed was short lived, I crashed soon after and managed a good 12 hours sleep.

So now it's 2 weeks until vegas and I have a really good week or so before taper. I'll write another post before that. Until then thanks for the sympathy laughs when reading my jokes.

Cheers

Geraldton Half Marathon

"Please mark come with me to Geraldton, the trip won't be as nearly as enjoyable with out you, I need you to come! Also you are the best triathlete I know and have you considered male modeling?"
These were the final words from my good friend Andrew Tyack that convinced me to make the trip up to Geraldton this weekend gone for their annual Half Marathon and Marathon race.

Andrew, Big T, T-unit, T-dizzle, Andy pants or the big A as he is affectionately known and I made our way up to G-town on Saturday around midday. After about an hour of driving and awkward conversation (I mean seriously, how many times can you comment on the weather? (note: Andrew and I are actually like brothers so that last sentance was my poor attempt at a "joke")) we both decided it would be a FANTASTIC idea to start making a short series of quick videos to document the weekends happenings. These will be put together and shown in the next blog.

Anywho we reached Geraldton after about 5 hours of driving. We drove straight to out accomodation at the Best Western that Lucky had booked about 12 hours earlier. Good news. We had hit the jackpot with the honeymoon suite.

Ok so this may or may not actually be a photo of the "suite", also, we may or may not have actually booked the honeymoon but I had every intention of making it as awkward as possible for my mate Andy. A quick trip into town for some dinner and we were back in the room to watch the remainder of the tour. The race started at 8 so we were ready for a late start by triathlete standards! A quick video update and we were off to bed.

After a solid sleep we were up and after the usual pre race breakfast we were heading down to the start line. In the rain. And wind. Oh god it was windy. After watching the marathoners start Andy and I had a quick discussion about pacing and the race. We both had no idea what-so-ever what kind of pace we should go out at as we have both been running complete base mile pace only for the last couple of months.

As we lined up we had a laugh and waited for the start. Boom the gun went and I quickly found my self leading from the front. About 300 meters in I heard someone yell out from the back "I don't think this pace is sustainable Mark!" It was Andy, I laughed and heeded his advice, slowing right up and popping in behind someone for a couple of k.

After a couple it seemed things were going a little slow so I went to the front to push the pace. To my delight Andy came with me and two other competitors. I settled back down and myself and "that guy in the red shirt" put a little gap on Andy and "that team runner".

As we hit the 7ish k mark (two 10.5k loops) we hit a fairlllyyyy strong head wind. Immediately my red shirted friend jumped in behind me. To be honest I straight away thought "bugger this I am not going to let this guy sit behind as I work into the head wind" so I dropped the pace pretty substancially (or as the cool kids say "I dropped some *insert pace here* bombs". (up until this point I had been running approx 3.50's). I'd love to say it was 3 minute per k pace, but it was closer to 3.20's - 3.30's for about 1 - 2 minutes.

Thankfully I managed to gap my friend, I was happy now at least he was working into the headwind like I had too. To be honest after this effort I thought I would really struggle, but I felt really excellent and settled into the previous pace. I continued on a fairly uneventful course, and really enjoyed the scenery with the occasional look behind.

When I reached the final turn around and started running for home I was stoked to see Andy had moved into 2nd place. I crossed the line with a 1.19 in the end according the Garmin, which I was really happy with. I ran a really controlled, smart race and put the effort in when I needed to. More importantly I honestly felt excellent duing the whole run. I was really happy. Andy crossed the line about 3 minutes later also with a PB. A Freo tri club, Total Triathlon, Honeymoon suite sharer one two.

After the race we headed back showered and hit the town to re load on the carbs. Man i love coffee

We headed back to the surf club for presentations. As I arrived I remembered that there was $300 for first place in the half! Wow I thought to myself, I'm going to be a millionare!! We hung around to cheer the last people over and I was eventally called up with Andy to accept a trophy and the cash. As you can see by the photo I was pretty stoked (rocking the Total Triathlon polo)

My On racers were beautiful to run in, my Ryders sunnies were kept on for the entirety of the run and I could hear the boys from Total cheering all the way from home ;) Thanks all for your continued support.

It was back into the car for some shared driving home. On the way I had some time to reflect on the prep for Vegas so far. Sure I've had some set backs with the (fake) broken wrist and a serious bought of the man flu, but things are really good considering. I am happy and for someone working full time and managing full time work and training am giving it my all.

I think it's important in this sport to not only not get too obsessed but, especially for us more competitive age groupers, get some perspective. I'm under no illusion that I'm some world class athlete (yet) but I'm doing my best I can do now, as an age grouper who works full time, while trying to stay grounded and make some people laugh on the way. I think we'd all enjoy the sport a little more if we took it a little easier.  I've seen too many people lately get way to involved and worked up about training and racing. Enjoy it! :)

For now, it's back to training I'll check in soon. I'm off for a run

Also if I find some actual run pictures from the race I'll post some.