To be continued (my first real race report)

So that’s that then. My first Olympic distance tri in the bag.

It all started on Saturday with an early morning drive down to Canberra with my wife and mother in law.

Canberra is a nice place but I found it hard to shake the small town feeling. For instance at dinner I went to the bathroom and walked past the coat rack. On the rack was a pair of pants.

That’s right a pair of pants

So someone (fingers crossed it was a cook) was walking around the restaurant with their plums out…….

Surprisingly I slept okay and was up about an hour before my alarm. I chewed down some cereal and grabbed all my gear

As you can see there is a fair bit of stuff there! No bike though……

I got there signed in and started to sort out my gear in the transition. As I looked around the other people I noticed I was

· The only guy who did not have shaved legs.
· The only guy who was not wearing a one piece tri suit
· The only guy who had a bike without tri bars
· The only guy who had no idea what the course was like (none at all – it would make the ride especially interesting. I spent most of the time figuring out where I was going)
· The only guy who had 6 people supporting him!

For an amateur hack like me to have my Mother in law, Father in law, Brother in law, a couple of friends (the other Jax and Greg) and the most supportive pregnant wife a man could want supporting me was a very humbling experience.

While I was warming up, I decided to ditch the wet suit. Despite wearing my wet suit around the house I was still not 100% comfortable (poor J having to put up with me prancing around the house in more latex than any man should)

My plan was to hang at the back of the pack and just cruise through the swim see if you can spot me

All was going to plan until the 700 mark when my goggles started to fog up. After struggling for a little bit I decided to ditch the goggles. Thankfully it was a fresh water swim so it was not too hard on the eyes. I was pretty happy that the swim was over.....

I was one of the last out of the water but feeling very good (around 40 min or so – I am sure I went faster than I was timed!)

The bike was tough with the first 20 k’s into a head wind. My favourite part of the ride was when I started to slow down going down hill due to the wind! Turns out my ride was mega slow (around 1 hour 45! How bad is that?) As I had thought pre race my big issue was with pacing. I felt great after the ride with plenty in the tank, I am pretty sure I could have gone much harder

The run was scenic (along bush tracks for a few k’s) and not overly hard. My only challenge was my right foot which went to sleep after 4k’s or so – it meant I had to stop every 1500 metres to get feeling back!

Before I knew it the race was over.

I ended up finishing in just under 3:30 with plenty of room for improvement.

I am happy I that I finished (a fair achievement considering where I have come from) and am sure that experience will serve me well for the next one……

Back into training tomorrow!

Cheers

Greg