No Expectations, Only a Burning Desire.

Atmosphere Nepean Triathlon 2015

Considering the history that would be behind the veil of Australia's oldest triathlon it almost feels like a privilege to be able to attend this event. Let alone compete in the professional men's race as history is being made.

I'd always dreamt of doing the Nepean Triathlon at the end of a season. There is something extremely enticing about entering a non-drafting event where you still race against guys you have been competing against for years in the draft legal format.

Timing was always an issue for me when the Nepean triathlon came around. Coming home from a long European stint physically and mentally worn down, the last thing I felt like doing was continuing training solo at home for another month or more to then jump into another race equivalent to World Cup level of exertion.

Admittedly it is far from a World Cup; in terms of the depth of athletes. However, in terms of exertion it's certainly is equivalent. At least I thought so anyway.

It seems as though the non-drafting scene is a game of strengths. With the exception of Jan Frodeno of course, it appears as though you need to play to what you're best at in order to perform to your potential.

Every now and again in draft-legal races I find myself going easier than a maximum-sustainable-effort over the given distance, especially in the water and on the bike. I suppose you could say there are higher-highs and lower-lows in terms of how much it hurts. With non-drafting it's just a different kind of hurt, more levelled and consistent. Which I wasn't used to.

Pre race training in Brisbane prepared me for a hard swim. As soon as the whistle blew I pulled through hard and began sprinting...for longer...and longer...and longer.

Ben Shaw was right on my hip, eventually I began to fade a tiny bit and he noticed this and shot off to the left where Aaron Royle and Ryan Fisher were ahead and gaining. Without a second guess I darted straight across and sat on Ben's hip.

I was slipping further and further back and by the time we'd gone round the first buoy and again the second, I had dropped to Ben's feet. I had gone absolutely mad at the start and it was beginning to affect me as the swim dragged on. We were approaching 300 or so meters to go and all I can remember saying to myself don't you dare f***ing drop off now. Like I said about strengths earlier, I knew I had to play to this so I pushed harder than I ever have in a swim to maintain contact.

Coming out of the water I had dropped off about a meter, knowing that fisher and Ben are both strong riders, I knew could miss them by a matter of seconds if I didn't get sorted and consequently have to expend a lot more energy to catch back up. So I ran through transition and got to my bike as quickly as possible, and I managed to jump on right next to them.

We went out pretty solid and tried to gain on and gap as much as we could to athletes ahead and behind respectively. It was tough to gauge whether or not we were doing so. At about 30 minutes into the bike we saw Aaron heading back and, after we turned, Matt Pellow and Jake Birtwhistle on the chase pretty close behind.

There was a certain element of complacency within our group, we didn't necessarily want to rail ourselves but none of us wanted to get caught. Eventually we were caught by Jake and Matt ultimately because of the lack of will to dig deep on the bike. That being said it was still a tough ride considering we weren't allowed to draft off each other so as much as we were relatively complacent we still rode strong-ish.

After Jake and Matt bridged up things became a little cruisy. Eventually Jake moved toward the front to which that ignited some motivation and fisher began to roll up as well. Eventually Matt got sick of sitting and went to the front and pushed the pace as we headed into T2.

The dismount wasn't as manic as most races we do but there was still a sense of urgency and we all shuffled around and ended up dismounting quite close.

As we were running to our racks Jake almost parked up in my spot, I laughed on the inside and said "that's mine man"

The struggle of having half the field in Asics!

Any who. As we ran out I knew that having the u23 world champ hot on our heels meant it was going to be a quick 10k from the get-go.

He passed me as we were running over the bridge and his long legs got the better of mine as he descended the other side. Jake quickly caught up to Ben and fish and I was holding pace about 20m back. Eventually Ben began to fade and I caught him by the 2km mark. As we approached 5km, much to my surprise I hadn't lost much time on Jake and fish. I had started out fairly conservatively so with that in mind and because I was feeling strong I kept telling myself I can hold them there, which was roughly 30m ahead.

I had no idea where the chase group was at and if anyone was gaining on me so I just kept looking forward and running as hard as I could. With about 1 kilometre to go I began to feel myself fading, at this point I gazed back and noticed a black figure which I knew to be Brendan Sexton.

I had a moments hesitation and almost confided in an easier pace. Thinking that Brendan was too far back to catch me, I almost let auto pilot take over to cruise me in. But knowing that when he is having a good day he can run like the wind I regained focus and didn't take any chances. I pulled myself together and pushed to maintain the pace I'd held for the past 9km.

It wasn't imperative for me to have a good race at Nepean, ultimately I just had a burning desire to prove to myself that world championships was just an off day. In the end I feel like I did just that so I am reasonably content.

All in all I was pretty stoked with how I performed and it has made me all the more excited to head to Noosa for the final race of this season.

Gatorade Race 3

Following a short lapse in running, due to a mere overestimate to readiness-for
-progression, I found myself lining up on the shores of Melbourne's Elwood beach for race 3 in the Gatorade Triathlon Series.

Among preparations for the short term goals it was decided, quite uncertainly, that I would enter for this race. Only, with conditions.
Considering the little niggle I had, it was a question of whether or not it would be worth racing. I desperately wanted to have a race before I headed to Devonport for the Australian Standard Distance Championships so eventually Danielle gave me an ultimatum. Either throw elastic laces (or leave normal laces) into joggers for the run, or I wouldn't be racing. So off I went to Rebel Sport in search for orange elastics to match my new Kayano's.

Unfortunately I missed registration on the days prior to Sunday so I rocked up under assurance that I'd be fine entering on the day. To my pleasant surprise, I entered without any dramas.

As goes the old adage "what can go wrong, will go wrong". Due to no registration catastrophe I was concerned what would go wrong. So, I found myself setting up transition with Kayano's on feet staring at my transition area thinking that something was up. I looked to my feet and back to the bare grass and said
It was bound to happen, this morning's first mistake has been made. Fortunately I had enough time to jog then put shoes in transition.
Lo and behold concentration was the cause of drama #2
Of course it wouldn't be normal to be without a #3. That one just came down to pure idiocy.

Despite leaving it a bit late I managed to get in a long enough swim warm up and before I knew it we were walking up the beach with a clock displaying 2:30 till go time.
We lined up and filtered through to the starting area and I picked my spot off to the right. Minimal chop, current and the sheer lack of numbers in the field meant that starting place would be dependant on where the strongest swimmers went. That, there was few of so Pete Kerr, Ryan Fisher and myself were far right and slightly on the inside of the buoy so a quick start was crucial in order to merge in front rather than having to charge through the guts of the field.

#2 - Concentration
No clear indication (from my recall) was given about a start being imminent so there I was standing more so upright with a short bend in my front leg.
The horn went and I did the classic elbows up and lean back as I attempted moving forward. I Found myself at the back with no direct path through anyone so I did my best to follow Pete. As we started swimming I got myself between athletes and on Pete's. Knowing how he swims in the open water I wasn't panicking, I just needed to stick to his feet.
Not long into it I got a glimpse of where Fisher was up the front and I knew I had to get closer to him so I began making my way around the inside of the field. By the time we got the the first buoy I was sitting comfortably on Fisher's hip.

I figured the majority of the pack would still be on us so I didn't look behind after the first buoy.
As we rounded the second one, I had a look and saw we had about a meter between us and Ben Anderson. We were cruising along quite comfortably so I thought I would try and go around Fisher and take over for a bit, as I did we were coming up to a sighting buoy and I was at his hip. With enough room to squeeze between him and the buoy I continued swimming up to the front and all of a sudden he shot to the right and forced me in the direct path of the buoy so I had to quickly manoeuvre around it and as I came back I figured it was his way of saying
Don't worry, I've got this.
So I found his feet again and sat there till we hit the shore.


Running through to our bikes wasn't very rushed, I was just trying to focus on the processes of transition. Once I got to my bike I stripped the wetsuit down to my knees and continued getting it off by the usual lifting one leg after the other and standing on the wetsuit. Whilst doing so, putting on and clipping up my helmet.
Fisher managed to get out quicker than me so I found myself sprinting all the way to the mount line to try catch up lost time. Once I passed the mount line I swung my right leg over and pushed off the ground with my left and tensed as usual to reduce the shocked of impact.
No matter how many times you do it there is always that moment of uncertainty for the future of your family jewels.
I accidentally slipped half of my right foot into the shoe, I either had to pull it out and sit it on top or grab the strap and put my foot in. So I lost a bit more time trying to put my foot in while moving at quite slow speeds.
Eventually I got it in and began sprinting up to Fisher. I saw him looking back waiting for me to catch, so without a seconds thought I yelled, Let's go, as I was meter's away from shooting past.
He jumped out of the saddle and eased his way onto my wheel as I came around.
I glanced back to see if he was on and also who was chasing. I saw one athlete behind us and I wasn't too sure of who it would be. There was no chance I was going let anyone get a free ride so I began ramping it up and settled into a solid pace.
It wasn't communicated but we both knew that given at least 10km of rolling turns as well as no ground being made from the chase packs that they would eventually switch off.

I wasn't too sure if we would extend our lead by much but the idea of this race was to just go for it from the very start so Fisher and I just put our heads down and held a solid pace.
Before we got the the first turn around I was making my way around to pull another turn and I heard Fisher say, sorry mate, I'm ******.
This didn't bother me I just figured I'd sit on the front till he wanted to come around or just call him through for a turn when I needed it. So throughout the next 15km that's what happened. I tried to make his turns on the downhills and flatter sections as it would have been easier, mentally at least, to push himself and feel like he is getting something out of his effort speed wise. Nevertheless, whenever he came through he made it count.

Surely enough a 40 second gap at 5km stretched out to 1:10 at 10km. And through to roughly 2 and a half minutes by the end of the bike.

#3 - Idiocy
As we came up the the final u-turn, 100 or so metres from the dismount line, I had my feet on top of my shoes and between the u-turn the left hand turn into the car park adjacent to transition I had swung my right leg over ready to dismount. I remember looking at fisher and thinking, shit he's leaving it late.
As it turns out, we had to round the corner before we dismounted. So inside leg down and leg poised ready to jump off I was coming into the left hand turn. I panicked and threw my leg back over, turned the corner like a beginner and made it to the mount line slower than when I mounted the bike only 29 minutes ago.

So Fisher had opened up a little gap at this point, and of course - it got worse.
The run through to transition was ok, when I got there I went to put my bike, front end in first like usual. But the finish chute and fencing was blocking my front wheel so I couldn't rack it. I pulled back and turned the bars to try make it fit but that didn't work either so I had to pull my bike back out  and spin it around and put it in the other way. By the time I had done all that Fisher had his helmet off and shoes on.
I got my shoes on eventually and as I started running I noticed he had at least 100m on me. I didn't want to sprint out to try catch up but I went solid enough to make a little bit of ground..

As planned Fisher pulled up about 400m in where Danielle was waiting. So I continued on running.
In the back of my mind I knew there was no chance of the other athletes catching me. Even though I had my joggers on I still wanted to have a hard hit out to see how I'm running off the bike so I went out strong. Once I hit the turn around at about 2.5km I began to pick it up a little more.
I ran a solid 400m after the turn around before I saw Jesse Featonby running toward me.
This cemented the thought of not being caught so I put my mind to my technique.
For the first time in God knows how long I was feeling strong, comfortable and in control.

Feeling like I did the week prior to this race and finishing off like I did gave me a great deal of satisfaction. Knowing that the months of hard work, as tired as I was, has paid off.
It had given me a slight confidence boost for the Australian Standard Distance Championships the following weekend in Devonport.
It was good to dust off the cobwebs at the SuperSprint event and get my mind back on track and thinking about the finer details of racing for D'port.
For the opportunity I would like to thank SuperSprint, perfectly timed event and perfectly run. Can't wait to race again in the great city of Melbourne under the organisation of SuperSprint.

Fast & Furious F1 Format

Not long into the new year a series of races in elimination format gave me a chance to open up all cylinders and see what I could produce.

The historically recognised racing format, TriF1, has made a triumphant return and fittingly - race two was help at the Formula 1 track in Phillip Island.
As it was so many years ago we competed in a super sprint style eliminator where there were 3 rounds of a 250m swim, 6km bike and a 1.6km run. and roughly 45 minute breaks between each.

I wasn’t sure how to approach this format but I figured it was basically a training session so I’d approach it as I would any other tough brick session.
For race 1 I was fairly relaxed, there was only 15 athletes so I knew getting to the first buoy wouldn’t be a mix between a WWE royal rumble and WWII. Of course I was wrong in thinking that… I ended up swimming on a 45 degree angle for at least 3 quarters of the swim, avoiding the heels and fists. the  final 100 is meters I managed to get onto the inside and found a bit of clear water to bring myself back toward the front.

the run to transition was frantic, I was a bit down from the leaders and I knew 6km wouldn’t be much to catch and recover so I ran through transition and out to the mount line as fast as I could without risking a stack around the corners.
as I jumped on the front pack was no farther than 50m ahead so I used whoever was around me and we made our way up.
Not much happened throughout the next 5 laps around the tight hotdog course, I wasn’t sure what to expect so I did what I had to and got a feel for the intensity.
As we neared the dismount line everyone was still together, the usual attacks were made in order to dismount first, as expected, and I waited for my moment and managed to get off second and ran through to my spot in the position. My transition wasn’t fantastic and I ended up running out of T2 in about 4th.
Heading out to the first turn I saw Marcel just in front and I was holding pace with him, I looked down momentarily and as I glanced up he was a slightly smaller figure in the distance and was noticeably moving much quicker. I knew I wasn’t going to catch him so I focused on Chronis and reeled him in. Once I made that gap I noticed Brendan Sexton was still hot on my heels and Marcel had finished extending his lead, I maintained a 50m gap to Marcel down to finish lap one. I was feeling pretty strong but I knew I still couldn't make up that time so I did my best to hold pace as well as being slightly conservative in case I needed to have a sprint-off with Brendan.

Nothing much changed on the return to the final u-turn and I was waiting for an attack but none came. Brendan and I rounded the cones and got back up to speed heading into the finish and suddenly his foot steps were getting fainter and fainter. I knew I was in the clear for a 2nd place finish with about 200m to go so I kept pushing through to the line.

Following a light jog and resetting of transition round 2 was upon us.
I was expecting a heavy arm and fatigued feeling in my arms as soon as we got going again but as we lined up in the deep water and the whistle went I noticed I was feeling strong so I went hard and didn’t slow up.
I hit the first buoy in second and held that place around the next and into shore. I jumped up quickly and managed to end up leading out and through to T1.
As we got through I was second to mount the bike, I knew there would be other athletes behind me so I didn’t drop the hammer straight away. Everyone stayed together and almost rolled turns evenly throughout the first half but I wasn’t letting anyone take it easy so I began to ramp it up on the fourth lap. Not long after that a break had formed and there was four of us working together. the pack held a gap for the remainder of the 4th lap but began to look at each other after than and eventually lost a fair bit of time.
Coming into T2 I was 3rd and ran out in the same place. Again, I aimed to catch up to Chronis and once I did I figured I’d see if I could take the lead and hold it.
By the first turn I had created a small gap and didn’t want anyone catching me so I picked it up on the downhill.
As I hit the u-turn I looked ahead and saw I’d extended my lead so I held the same perceived effort and stretched out my lead over Chronis, Declan and Brendan.
It wasn’t much of a win considering it was round 2 of an eliminator but it was good to finally play to my strengths and put something together and end up coming on top in a pretty tough heat.

I knew I had gone quite hard but judging off the feeling of race 2 following race 1 I knew two things. Everyone was hurting and that I can still recover enough to perform well after an intense 15 minute session.

“When you’re all ready we’ll get going”… one of the more strange things I’ve heard a starter say. Anyway, eventually we had all lined up again for the final time.
Before I knew it, we were off. I felt the same as I did in race 2 so I managed to get a good position and hold feet throughout the swim. I wasn’t necessarily being conservative but the swim did feel slightly easier. By the time I realised this we didn’t have much further to swim so I stayed put.
The run into T1 was faster than any of the other 4 transition runs so I knew it was going to be full throttle on the bike.

I mounted in about 2nd or 3rd and took time to see who was in the pack. I wanted to really smash this bike and make it as tough as I could seeing as it was a training session.
After about two laps the group had been split up and I took time to get to the rear of my group and as I did an attack was attempted. i sat back and waited to see who was going. eventually Brendan and Declan had ramped it up and there were now three away, after the u-turn to begin lap 3 I attacked around the group and caught up the break, I knew I couldn't just sit up and start rolling when it was my turn so I immediately went around and everyone got on my wheel.
I’m not sure when it happened but starting lap 4 there was only 3 of us. Brendan strategically lead into the u-turn and started us off on lap 4, He had created a 2 meter gap from an outstanding turn but by the time I’d caught him he’d slowed up too much and I went past. I put my head down and realised I he was out of the saddle and he wasn’t quite on my wheel, so I stayed seated but dropped it down a gear and ramped up the pace. After the turn I noticed I had a gap into a head wind so I used that to my advantage and pushed as hard as I could. Starting the final lap I had about a 15 second gap and I didn’t want to slow up. I jumped off the bike with about the same gap and lead out onto the run.
I was seriously feeling the ride in my legs, I knew I was going to struggle but I didn’t think it was going to be as much as I did. the run was pretty average but I just tried holding my form together and I ended up finishing 4th. It wasn’t my happiest moment but nonetheless I’m glad I did what I did because at the end of the day it was training for me and as usual I put in 110% in all 3 races.

TriF1 is an exciting format and it really provides a spectator friendly event so I’m glad I had the opportunity to be apart of the return of the F1 series.

It was the first triathlon I'd done on my Avanti Corsa DR and it performed incredibly well on the tight course. I cant wait to race on it again.
Huge thank you to the organisers and volunteers for making it such a great event.