More races

Another weekend, another race. So it would seem at the moment.

Yesterday I competed in a duathlon at Runaway Bay. Normally an duathlon is run-ride-run but this one was an "Enduro" format, which was run-ride-run-ride-run. The distances were 2km-10km-2km-10km-1km, or at least they were supposed to be. The run legs were on the short side and the ride legs were too long (by about 2km per leg). Apart from a couple of people who did not finish, I came second last. I really didn't want to come last, and maybe I would have enjoyed the race more if I hadn't been worrying about that. The woman I beat I was ahead of after the first run, she didn't overtake me on the first bike leg, but somehow was already running when I started my second run leg. I was spewing, she'd skipped one of the ride laps (it was up to each individual to keep count for themselves). This made me more determined to not come last to her. I overtook her during the second ride, but kept an eye on her to make sure she didn't skimp on that one too. She didn't. I really would have been fuming if she had. Anyway, my time was 1:21:50. The fastest male did it in 55:29 and the fastest female in 1:00:59.

My brother, Andrew, also raced yesterday, but he did the Capricorn Half Ironman (1.9km swim, 90km ride, 21.1km run) at Yeeppon. He did it in 5:14:42, coming 16th in his age group and 162nd overall (out of almost 400 competitors). Not bad for his first race of this distance!

On Sunday next weekend, Simon is doing his first marathon at Mudgee. I'm going to Mudgee with him as his support crew and photographer, but on the Saturday, I'll be doing the 5km fun run. It's not exactly an important race, but it will give me my first 5km time, as I haven't raced over the distance before.

City2Surf

This is just a quick post to mention my trip to Sydney on the weekend to do the City2Surf fun run. Simon and I ran it together (he took it really easy and ran at my pace). We started with the "back of the pack" group (last to start), as we left it late to sign up, so we had lots of people to get around. It was over two minutes from the starter's horn to when we crossed the start line and a bit longer still before we had room to start running. Once we started running, we ran all the way.

This is not so much of an achievement for Simon, who's done three 32km runs in preparation for his first marathon (which is less than two weeks away now), but yesterday's 14km is my longest run to date. My previous longest run was 13.5km, but that was totally flat. The City2Surf is not flat. It has many hills, including the infamous "heartbreak hill", which was long and tough, but not heart breaking.

I already mentioned that Simon was taking it easy, but I wasn't pushing it either, at least not until the last 2km anyway. The thing that was most fun about it was that, because there were so many people and so many of them were walking, there were lots of people to dodge around and overtake. For someone like me who is always the one being overtaken (I am the slowest runner at triathlon training) it was pretty exciting. With all the weaving we did, we probably ran quite a bit further than 14km!

In the end, our time was about 1hr 31min, though this was from when we started running, so our official time (to be released tomorrow in the SMH I believe) will be a few minutes longer. Still, it's under 100 minutes, which I believe would qualify us for the second start group next year should we wish to do it again.

10km

I ran 10km this morning, my longest run to date. As far as I can recall, I've never run this far before in my life and certainly not in the last couple of months of training. My previous longest run was 7km, and that I did on Thursday.

The 10km run is a milestone for two reasons: (1) it's the length of the run in an Olympic distance triathlon, and (2) it's the length of the run I'm planning to do at the Gold Coast on July 1. Now that I know I can manage the distance (even though I didn't feel all that good), I can go ahead and sign up for the race.

I was pretty happy with my time (1 hour, 5 minutes, 11 seconds), as it was very close to what I was expecting (1 hour, 5 minutes). This is pretty slow compared to most runners, but I'm just happy that I made the distance.

Training

This is in response to a question about what training I've been doing in the lead up to this novice triathlon. I started training about five weeks ago, after watching my brother, Andrew, and my friend, Toby, complete the Mooloolaba Triathlon (Olympic distance, i.e. 1500m swim, 40km ride, 10km run). I've mostly been concentrating on running, because I've never done it much before. When I started I could run for about 10 minutes before I had to stop. My longest run to date has been 6km (which took me just under 40 minutes, I'm pretty slow).

I've been doing some riding too. I should be fine for the novice event, but before anything more serious, I'm going to have to put in quite a bit of work (and spend some money too). I currently have a mountain bike. I'm going to have to get a road bike. I've ridden a road bike once and found it's quite a different experience. It was also the first time I used cleats (I only fell down once).

I was going swimming, but I haven't been for about two and a half weeks. I plan to go this weekend. Swimming is probably my strongest of the three disciplines. I still plan to take some stroke correction classes at some point in the future though.

On top of that, I go to the gym and do weights and pilates classes. I keep reading and being told that core strength is important for runners, and I imagine it's important in cycling and swimming too.

This probably makes it fairly clear that my sights are set beyond the novice triathlon. Although I reserve the right to decide I'm not up to it closer to the time, I'm aiming to do the Noosa Triathlon on November 4 this year as my first Olympic distance event.