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!

Half way there with two weeks to go

Yesterday I did the Bribie Island Triathlon Race #1: a 750m swim, a 20km ride and a 5km run. This is half the distance of the Noosa Triathlon, which is in two weeks time.

I'll add a more detailed race report here soon, and probably some photos too.

Race report from Aurora, Colorado

Today (Sunday, here in the USA) I competed in the Colorado Wild Women duathlon. It was a 5km run, a 12 mile ride and then the 5km run again. The main thing is that I finished it. I guess there shouldn't have been much doubt about that, though I was a bit worried about how much harder it might feel because of the effects of altitude. They were noticeable but not too extreme.

Overall, it went pretty well. I did learn one important lesson: don't do things differently in a race than you do in training because it might save time. At the start of the ride, when I went to mount my bike, my left pedal was closer to the ground so I clipped my left foot in first rather than spin the pedals around 180 degrees to put my right foot in first as I ALWAYS do. When I went to take off, I guess I was leaning slightly to the left, as I would normally do, and I toppled over. Anyway, with a grazed knee and a grazed elbow, I got up and took off. It was then I realised that my bike seat had been knocked out of alignment and my bike computer sensor had been knocked away from the wheel. I was able to fix the seat a bit, but I wasn't game to try and fix the sensor next to my front wheel lest I lose fingers in the spokes. So I rode the whole way with a slightly skewed seat (more uncomfortable than usual) and with no indication of speed or distance. At least my brakes weren't knocked because I would have had to stop and fix them if they'd been rubbing on my wheels.

Other than that, the ride went well. I overtook quite a number of people and not many people overtook me. I even overtook people going up hills, which I was pretty proud of.

The second run, of course, felt a lot harder than the first, but I ran the whole way. My overall time was 1:43:03 (a bit better than I expected) and I came 7th out of 14 in my age group.

The highlight of the race had to be the food afterwards. I've never seen (or heard of) such a post race spread: bagels (a variety of flavours with a variety of spreads available), grapes (green and rad), bananas, cookies (again, a variety) and drinks. The only thing missing in my opinion was ice cream, but I got myself some of that when I got back to my hotel :)

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.

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.