Forster "ULTIMATE" Weekend

Righto; so I need to apologise. As has happened on occasion before I have let the old fella (my blog) slide somewhat.  I know there are guys who have been giving me a bit of grief about not keeping everyone up to date so again to those.  Either way sorry again for the delay and here we go.

This season started for me in Forster on the Elite Energy multisport weekend.  Having not raced since Roth I was looking forward to it, mainly to get going but also to see how the progress was coming along. As you would expect I didn’t start off lightly with a full weekend on the program racing the newly included Team sprint on the Saturday and then backing up for the Ultimate on the Sunday.

The Saturday was a pretty cool experience.  I’m not that accustom to short course racing so lining up against some of the best young whippets going round had me a little worried.  While the rest of our Team (Loz Parker, Steph Austin and Dan Robins) being more than capable, I was a little worried about getting hammered and stuffing it all up for them. The format was 4x (250 swim/5k B/2k run) in a G/B/G/B format. Loz got us off to a good start leading me out in a battle for 2^nd and 3^rd. I can say now, this is easily the hardest my motor has ever had to go, zero to redline in 0.000 seconds.  I remember getting on the bike in 3^rd after getting out swum and just going so hard I couldn’t breathe. All I could think was “how the F&^k am I going to be able to run after this?” Anyway I sucked it up and ran pretty much blind or naked as they now call it, pushing as hard as I could.  We were in 3^rd and I knew if I could hang on we would be in a good position to stay on the podium. Somehow I pulled out a sub 6:50 min 2k and handed the job over the Steph. Easily the hardest I’d ever had to push and the most I’ve hurt in 20 mins in a tri.  With Steph and Dan cleaning up my mess and getting us back into 2^nd It was hard to believe we finished on the podium…. WOW in this first ever team event in Aus. Trinova was up there, Rod Was so pumped hahaha. Was pretty exciting and so much fun, although it hurt A LOT!

Onto Sunday - the main event! This was a race I had been looking forward to for a while. After taking on triathlon full time last this Forster race was the first one I competed in. So in a way it was the measuring stick to see how far id come in the 12 months. The conditions on the day were fairly similar to the previous year. Not too warm but bloody windy. I was happy for the wind to be up. I’m one of those crazy guys who like the wind. Being a strong biker I know I can handle the windy conditions well.  While guys were complaining about it I was like, “yea it is a bit windy” but secretly I was loving it.

One thing I’ve developed over the last year is how I approach my races. I’ve developed a method where I like to just go into a race blank. I mean have some sort of expectation of what your goals are but overall just take it as it comes. It just allows me to focus on the moment and forget about what’s behind you.  Much like a rubbish swim. Hahaha.  I wasn’t too happy with the 28min 2k but hey just let it go and move on. Although the condition were tough it was far from ideal leaving me a good minute and a half down on the main pack of elite guys. Clayton doesn’t fall into that category.  The race today was decided pretty early with everyone else racing for everything from 2^nd back.

Getting on the bike and knew I had a bit of work to do to catch up to Tim Berkel and Mick Foxx who were a bit further up the road than the main group which I managed to reel In after about 5km.  Luckily for me we were straight into a head wind and there was a bit of a precession of guys trying to hide as best they could, so I was able to claw them in fairly quickly.  What made me happy was that it didn’t require too much more than my race plan to get there, so from there I just continued at my pace and a few of the other guys joined in.  At the first turn around it was pretty evident that Clayton was waaay up the road, but I thought Tim and Mick were catchable so that’s what set out to do. It took me a good 40km but I slowly reeled them in until we joined together at about the 90km mark forming a group of 5 or 6 guys. I remember thinking to myself at about this time as I had a look around to see the quality of the athletes I was with and thought to myself, “How the bloody hell did I end up here?” I’ll be honest if you asked me if I was going to be anywhere near these guys pre-race I would have laughed. So to catch them and ride with them (even though they may have slowed a little) felt pretty good. 

Rolling through for about 5km or so I soon found out what racing at the top end is about.  As we headed up one of the larger climbs (if you can call them climbs) I thought it would be good to get a bit of a feed in….. Big mistake!!  As we neared the top of a climb I got caught out.  In the granny gear sucking away on a water bottle the attack came and I missed it. With the other 4 guys quickly putting a good 300m into me over the other side of the hill before I could even respond. . .  Goooddam It!!! That’s when I thought to myself; just look where you are and what you’ve done today. I could have either: ridden super hard again and tried to bridge the gap with the risk of blowing to pieces, or I could be sensible, stay within my limits and have and set myself up for a good run and an overall good race.  I wisely choose option 2 coming in with a respectable 3:02 - 120km bike split 2 mins back on the main group.

The run – the time for truth! How far had I actually come? It’s no secret that I have struggled with the run, but what 85-90kg bloke hasn’t?? It is something I’ve been working very, very, very hard on.  Satisfyingly I held a good pace fading a little in the steep hilly sections for my first sub 90 min 20km running a 1:28 and finishing 11^th overall in what is easily my best result thus far.  I didn’t take an AG position having raced open but was satisfied knowing I would have taken out my category by a good 20 min with my overall time of 5:01:30 and today I had started to show signs that it is possible for me to get up there and race with some quality guys.

Most importantly for me in this race was that the yard stick.  Last year I had swum 28 (matched that), rode 3:10 (smashed that) and ran a 1:43 (absolutely demolished that) improving last year’s overall time of 5:25 by 24 mins.  Overall I couldn’t be happier; Ok maybe getting a single figure placing could put a bigger smile on. However seeing the progression I’ve made was enough to make me really happy. As they say. . . . . Onwards and Upwards!!