Antilag

Well…..

As a Triathlon N00b, that could be viewed in two very different ways – either as a success because it was by far the longest event I’ve done or…. an unmitigated f*** up.

Bit from coloumn A, bit from coloumn B? Dunno, I’m actully a pretty harsh critic of myself.

Annnnywayyyy…

Apparently, this is a biiiiiiiig weekend for the NSW Triathlon community. Miss Jess was certainly into it, I’m not really that much for that kinda thing but I am down for the first real step in the road to November’s 70.3’s (and that in truth is the only reason I chose to do the event at all… that and the fire breathing bike :D). So anyway, lots of bike kms, even some swimming and running (which is about as likely as a politican being honest) to make sure I could finish the event at all, a wetsuit and also an early BIRHTDAY PRESENT!!!!!!!!!!! of a Garmin 910XT!!!!!!!!!! from Miss Jess 😀 😀 😀 – I’m also not the most emotive of humans (except various looks going from mild disapproval to full on I Am Going To Kill You With An Axe) thence this is mighty good and welcome. I’m the human versoin of Grumpy Cat so a rare smile says a lot.

Altho the 910XT is about as confusing so far to use as a policy annoucement from a politican, I’m working on decrypting it’s abilities. Might take me a year but I will get there, you can never have too much data.

First things first – packed the Commodore full of bikes, wheels, wetsuits, energy bars, bike repair toolboxes, more tyres, more wheels, pumps, helmets, removed stowaway cats, wondered what a small green bird was doing, found a small place for clothes, Jess and I wedged into what space remained and went for a drive to Forster. Frankly the Commodore is the clown car of bike carriers – it’s amazing how many bikes can fit.

After a what is becoming a boring drive up the coast now that Buladelahalalalalalala is bypassed – got to Hills Tri Club HQ, unpacked the clown Commodore, wondered what a green bird was doing in it, got the room filled with the amazing array of crap out of the car, built the bikes, tested the bikes, went for a course check on the Venge and the Roubaix, posted shit on the Internet, did a bit of socialising…. or what passes for socialising for me which amounts to feet up on the table and disappearing into a corner, ate food, went to sleep.

Race day – humid as grandpa’s nutsack or a fangirl posting Robert Downey Jnr pics to Tumblr. And my bowels decided to not co-operate. Like a green budgie on a shitting spree over clean clothes. Not THAT with the tri suit and a wet suit wasnt going to be a good thing – luckily the No-Poo worked. Or whatever it was they recommended in the chemist – frankly at that point I would have taken a cork and a hammer to smash it in. Thence after the bike is racked, the breifing is done (WHAT is it about officials and briefs? Havent they heard of boxers?)  and the rather disturbing process of getting a wet suit on – involving cooking oil and body glide, I swear sometimes I jsut dont have to write the jokes – a bit of a warmup swim to get used to the wet suit, at 1:20pm it was OFF AND…. smashed backwards by the first ill timed wave.

And frankly the swim just went downhill from there.

Open water swimming at a place where I’ve had some bad experiences isnt recommended. Nor was it exactly anything else other than soul crushingly hard. At 400 meter (out of just over 1km) I had to grab hold of a waterski and cough up a lung of water. I was damn close to throwing it in, but the bloody lifeguard told me to try and keep going.

Prick.

Another misreble 200 meters later that felt like hours…. turn towards the beach. Another misreble 200, turn along the beach. Then 150, head for the breakers. And get dumped. And drag myself out, somehow not last in my wave. And really feeling pretty misreble and pissed off. Drag my sorry ass up the beach to transition, strip the wet suit off (Gotta work on that), get the bike out and get going on it. And as much as I love riding, it took nearly a full lap of the bike course to really recover from the swim and settle into the bike leg. By which time I’d burnt up enough on the legs in brute force to make it also not thta nice a ride until the last few kms when the legs came back. Rythym and technique are so important and it takes a bit of time usually to get mine on a bike, even with the kms I do.

And now the run. Feeling somewhat like shit, dragged my ass around the 8 km course. And to be honest….. actually wasnt as bad as I expected, I went with a jog/ walk strategy and it worked resonably well. In fact towards the end I was even picking the pace up a bit more. And even didnt feel that bad at the finish.

Results? Eh. Finished. Swim fucked the race up for me. Bike was…. okay it was decent enough for the horrible start to it. Run…. actually smack bang what I wanted from it. I’m kinda thinking I wouldnt mind the Duathlon season coming up, my run is definatly imprving and I’m not feeling crap in the legs.

But I really am going to think carefulyl about any more open water stuff. That really was a race wrecker.