Noosa

My gosh! What can I say about the Noosa Triathlon? If there is such a thing as "the perfect race" then that was it. I was so sure that I wouldn't do it in under 3 hours but I did 2:58:33!

It wasn't looking promising when I came out of the swim. My watch showed 30:35. I was expecting under 30 minutes. I did 1500m in 27:37 at the pool recently, so I was a bit disappointed. I learned later that most people found their swim times were longer than expected. Apart from that, and having my goggles kicked at the first buoy, the swim wasn't too bad. I stayed calm, tried to maintain good form (hard in a washing machine) and, most importantly, got out of the water able to run into transition.

The ride was where my race was made, though I didn't realise that until I was off the bike. It mostly felt good. Going up through the forest felt hard and slow, but I knew that wouldn't last too long. I hit a bit of a wall around 25km, but shortly after was "The Hill", a not too steep, but long and so fast decent. That seemed to give me the momentum I needed for the rest of the ride. I was a bit disappointed when I looked at my bike computer later to see I only managed a top speed of about 68km/hr. 70km/hr would have been cool!

Anyway, like I said, it was at the start of the run that I realised I had a chance to achieve what I thought to be an unattainable goal. I looked at my watch and saw 1:56. I thought "I've got about 64 minutes to do the run in order to finish in under 3 hours. Hey, that's actually possible!" After that, I looked at my watch a lot. I was monitoring my pace, doing calculations at every distance marker, working out how much my pace could slow for me to still make it. Anyway, it worked. I even had enough left to really push it for the last 500m or so. I have to say I don't think I would have managed it if not for the very numerous drink stations and hoses out on the run course. It was bloody hot (though it could have been much worse). Thank goodness Noosa has more water than Brisbane!

These are my official times:

Swim 00:30:36
Bike 01:25:44
Run 01:02:13

I plan to put up some photos that my lovely support crew took, but I'm always slack with that. Plus I'm sick. I'm soooo lucky the cold held off until after the race!

Sight seeing so far around Denver

Here in Colorado, it's almost 9pm on the Saturday of my first weekend. I won't go into any details of the last week of work, that's boring. I can recount the limited amount of sightseeing I've done so far.

As work is not actually in Denver, it's in one of the outer suburbs, last night I went into the city centre for the first time. I went with a couple of finance people from work (one from Brisbane, one from here). Brendan, the other engineer from Brisbane, didn't come, he was too tired. We went in on the light rail, and then basically wandered along Denver's equivalent of Brisbane's Queen St Mall or Sydney's Pitt St Mall(16th St Mall I think it's called). Much the same really. We got back to the hotel about 11ish. I had already ruled out doing the triathlon I had been going to do this morning, as I have a really sore foot. I wouldn't have gone out last night if I was going to do it.

However, I was planning to go swimming and riding this morning. I wasn't sleepy when I got back (I haven't kicked the jet lag yet). I thought I would just read a chapter of the final Harry Potter. However, I was too close to the end of the book for that and I couldn't put it down until I finished, which happened shortly before 4am. Silly Vivien.

Anyway, no swimming or riding for me. I had to hand over the car keys to Brendan at about 9 (I had them because I had been going to go to the pool). He needed to go for a drive to the John Deere dealership we visited yesterday (an hour and a half away) because he left his laptop in their tractor. He hadn't realised until he went to use it after we were back at the office. Oops!

While Brendan was away, I took the opportunity to do my laundry. When he got back, we went out and got lunch (at 2-2:30). Then we thought we should go somewhere but had no idea where. I remembered I had seen an ad for a brewery in Boulder on the web page of the triathlon I couldn't do this morning. Luckily, I remembered the name correctly, because when I entered it into the GPS in the car, it knew where it was. So that's where we went. We got there about 3:50pm, to find that they had a tasting bar (free tastes) which closed at 4pm, last drinks at 3:55. Just made it! The beer was very good though, Belgian in style. One of their beers is 16.4%! It's called The Beast. Anyway, although it was a quick visit, it was something that both Brendan and I could enjoy (not easy to find such things, the two of us having very little in common). We both bought a couple of beers for later too.

Then we went into the Boulder town centre where the pedestrian mall is. A couple of things we noticed about Boulder: there are lots of bikes and there were lots of people wearing Colorado University Buffaloes gear. I think the "Buffs" are the football team and I'm pretty sure they have a game tonight against FSU, Florida State University I think (saw people in their gear too).

After wandering up and down the mall, we went to the Mountain Sun bar & brewery (recommended by the guy at the first brewery) where we had an earlyish dinner and one of their beers. Pretty nice also. We then headed back to the hotel.

I couldn't really go in search of the big triathlon store in Boulder on this trip. That would have been unfair on Brendan. Hopefully, I will get a chance to go back after Brendan leaves, and then I can go in search of the tri-culture that I've heard is big in Boulder.

We haven't worked out where we'll go tomorrow. I'm planning to ride in the morning (I've drawn myself a map of the local area and planned a route and everything). After that, I'm not sure where we'll go or what we'll do. Maybe Brendan will think of something. After all, I came up with the brewery idea.

G'day from the USA

My work (yes, that job I've been in for less than 2 months) has sent me to the USA. I'm in Denver, Colorado (well, on the outskirts anyway). I'll be here for 5 weeks, though during that time I'm supposed to go to a training course in Michigan for 3 days (if it doesn't get cancelled).

I probably should have mentioned that I was coming here sooner, but given my history of work trips not eventuating, I decided to wait until I actually made it.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that 5 weeks from today overlaps with a previously mentioned engagement, namely the Quarter Ironman triathlon at the Gold Coast on September 30. Alas, I have to miss that race, but at least I'll be getting back 3 weeks before Noosa. Also, I've brought my bike over here with me so I can train, and if I'm really lucky, I'll compete in a couple of races here.

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.

Noosa Triathlon and other events

I've been slack with my posting lately. There's been lots of stuff I probably should have mentioned but haven't. Here's a bit of an update of triathlon related stuff anyway.

First and foremost, I just entered the Noosa Triathlon. Entries opened today and seeing as this year is the event's 25th anniversary, it's expected to fill up fast. It takes place on November 4 and will be my first Olympic distance (1.5/40/10) event.

Noosa won't be my first big event though. I'm planning to do the Quarterman (0.95/45/10.5) event at this year's Gold Coast Half Ironman. It's on September 30 and entries opened yesterday. I haven't signed up yet as it's not likely to sell out as fast.

Now for one of those things I should have blogged about already but didn't. Last Sunday (July 1) was the Gold Coast Marathon where I completed the 10km run. I was hoping to finish in under an hour, even though I had never done 10km in this time in training. On the day, the adrenalin did the trick and I finished in 55:46!

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.

47 minutes 51 seconds

Well, I've done my first triathlon (a little one anyway) and I did it in under an hour. I came 4th out of 7 in my age group, 18th out of 23 females and 71st out of 80 overall. Things didn't go exactly how I thought they would though.

I thought the swim (300m) would be the easiest but of the three legs of the race, it felt the worst. The water was pretty cold, so I'm not sure if that made a difference. Most people seemed to finish before me. I got out of the water and my legs were like jelly. In training, I try to mostly using my arms for propulsion and just kick gently for balance. I think in the excitement of the race and in worrying about being left behind, I did quite a bit more kicking than usual. From the swim exit, I couldn't even run into transition. I was out of the water after about 4min 45sec, but then the transition took ages. It was hard to put socks and shoes on with such wobbly legs! My official swim split was 7min 17sec.

At least I managed to run out with my bike, and I managed to ride it. I feel now that I could have gone harder on the bike leg (10km). Lots of people passed me, but only two of them weren't on road bikes (and both of them were male). I know from having ridden a road bike once, they go faster than a mountain bike with the same effort. My split was 24min 32sec, which is an average speed of 24.46 km/h. Not too bad.

My second transition was much quicker than the first, because I wore the same shoes for the ride and the run (3km). This may be the reason why I had pins and needles in my feet, which lasted up until about the turn around point (about 1.3km supposedly). I felt like I was running slowly, but that may just be how the legs feel when you get off the bike. My run split was 16min 2sec. This seems a little too good to be true, as that is an average speed of 11.23 km/h (5.20 min/km). I don't see how I could sustain that speed for that distance given what I've done in training. I suspect the course wasn't long enough.

Overall, it was a good experience and I plan to continue training and to do future triathlons (though I was thinking the complete opposite after the swim). The race highlighted a few things:

1. I need to do a lot more swimming training if I'm going to do a 1500m swim leg,
2. I should get a tri suit so I can skip the putting on shorts step after the swim,
3. I need to get a road bike and proper cycling shoes that don't make my feet numb,
4. I need to get used to running without socks (I may need to get race shoes).

In short, I need to spend quite a bit of money (and train hard, but that's a given).

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.

Triathlon

Today I signed up for my first ever triathlon. It's on Sunday, May 13, and it's an event for novices: 300m swim / 10km ride / 3km run. I should be able to handle that. I'll be aiming to do it in under an hour. Details can be found here:

http://www.t3events.com.au/atctc/noviceTri.htm