I’ve left it kind of late because I
figured that there was no point recounting my less than desirable race
experiences. However, that was it – the race experiences – that were stopping
me from sharing the entirety of my travels with everyone. Therefore I’ve
decided to stop whining and take the bad with the good. Amidst the general
report I try to mix it up with the callous competition remarks across the four
races just to avoid becoming a monotonous, negative Neville. It'll be focused on the races but I'll throw in some other things you may enjoy.
I will be starting from plane trip No.1 so
I feel the length of this recap will be the equivalent to that of a J. K. Rowling
Novel, most likely the 5th, and longest, addition in her Harry
Potter series. Enjoy!
Sitting on the plane in Sydney I thought
that I better get some photos just so I could share them and have some
memories. On second evaluation of said photos I will not be sharing a single
one because I look awful, and yes they were self portraits of my excitement. I’ll use my outstanding descriptive writing skills to
paint a picture…
I was alone in my row, praying for the hostesses to begin the pre departure shenanigans before the seats around me filled up, I raised my head and looked behind me I cast my eyes from left to right only to catch a few watchful sets of eyes staring back into my soul, I had never seen less people on a plane, I was shocked, excited and a little bit optimistic for every other flight I were to be on. From that moment I fell in love with the upper deck of
aircrafts, I didn’t know how many were on the lower deck, didn’t care though this was a big win for me. During the 6-hour flight I was getting fidgety so I got
up and did some stretching. As I was stretching my peck I caught the eye of one
of the air-hostess’ and she must have thought I was trying to open the emergency
exit door, as she looked absolutely petrified and scared for her life. I gave
her a cheeky smile and a little wave of a semi flaccid the arm and all was well, I think.
The first, of many, flights was done and I
was eagerly in search for the rest of the team in Singapore’s, Changi Airport. Without technology this task could have taken days, that place is huge.
Eventually I found them and we said our hello’s and all that junk then before I
knew it we were on the next plane toward an exuberant yet unmistakably
ghost-town-like Tiszaujvaros.
Not much exciting happened on that flight.
I didn’t have as much room as the previous flight and I was next to a bloke who
lived 40 minutes away from me, in Sydney. Funny story about him but I wont go
into that. Gotta keep the rambling to a minimum.
After a long and tedious 13 hours we
arrived in Frankfurt. The wait there was great – Wi-Fi !!
The team, minus Joel, got lunch and waited
till it was time to get on the next plane. Again nothing exciting happened.
After this, it wasn’t long until we touched
down in Hungary. We were all very eager to get into Tizzy and see what it was
like. As soon as we stepped outside my first words were – “Dayum!”. It was a
huge shock, the exhausting heat that struck us and we hadn’t even stepped out
into the sun. However, there were smiles all round. Hello European Summer.
After we were all settled in and had our things
unpacked and bikes put together there wasn’t much to do but lay in our 5 foot
long beds and fry in the little sauna like rooms. Likewise for the coming days
leading into the race, apart from training and the evening trip to Mamma Rosa’s
for dinner. I’ll skip those trips though, nothing special there.
The day was upon us. Race one of our
preparations for World Championships. All had not gone to plan for Matt but I
certainly was excited to give it a good crack.
Plan – be fit and have taken necessary steps
to avoid any dramas from traveling.
Actuality – had niggles from the NTA camp
which prevented me from running when I needed it, didn’t avoid dramas from
traveling and had Wisdom teeth out mere days before I got on the plane (under
instruction from the team doctors due to pain I was experiencing on the NTA
Camp).
Any who, all that aside. Lining up for
introduction I wasn’t thinking about any of the above dilemmas I was just keen
to smash it. I’ve always gotten a bit nervous for the swim start and there was
no exception this time – I was packing it!
We were all called down and ready to start
etc. then for some ungodly reason I stood still as the starter yelled “on your marks” and I took a step
forward as the horn went. Good news was I still managed to react fairly
quickly. Bad news was during my impeccable streamlining I could hear two
athletes battling it out right above me. As I came up, to my expectation and
their shock, one bloke’s hand landed right on my shoulder and the three of us
were in a tussle. Sadly it was a losing battle, them Belgians are big. Of
course by the first buoy I was in last position, given how I was swimming this
is definitely not where I wanted to be. Unfortunately the swim was much shorter
in this race because there were heats and finals instead of the usual sprint
distance. Despite my mistakes I wasn’t dead last out of the water but I was
certainly at the tail end. Things weren’t looking great and I was stressing
about it. I was in no mans land between the second pack and the stragglers
behind me, again not where anyone wants to be. Eventually I gave up trying to
catch and let the group behind pick me up.
Then came run time, I went out way too
hard and I could feel it, but as far as I knew my body could handle it for at
least as long as it took to catch the few guys just ahead of us.
Unfortunately, there was no hope for me.
After roughly 1500m I hit the wall hard. I was basically jogging and had never
felt more horrible during the run leg of any race I’d ever done. Being the only
one on the Australian junior team to not make the final and having raced as I
did, you could imagine how I felt. Thankfully my coach, Keiran put it into
perspective for me and noted the conditions of the race compared to what I was
used to at home and the circumstance I was in. From this point my focus was get
to Spain and prepare as best I could for World Champs.
Easier said than done, and of course –
more misfortune headed my way.
Finally we arrived at the next
destination, the one I was most looking forward to. It wasn’t as I had pictured
it; I suppose it never is, but nonetheless a beautiful place.
The rooms were really good and had
everything we needed, except a kettle – an athlete essential. Luckily there
were copious amounts of coffee shops within walking distance.
In the first few days we were doing a lot
of exploring and we found some pretty cool places and saw some cool things in
the small Basque country of Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Not long after we had gotten settled in
and had a few recovery sessions and started to get stuck into the solid side of
training I noticed I had difficulty breathing. Apparently there had been a few
athletes who have suffered from this when they first arrived in Vitoria. I had
a talk to Ryan Bailie on a long run that we did and he noted some symptoms he
had and that he was diagnosed with sport induced asthma. My symptoms were very
similar so I talked to the medical advisor and organized a ventolin puffer.
That didn’t seem to work so we headed to the local doctors and had an
assessment done. Nothing out of the ordinary showed up there. However, the
doctor said I could have a mild form of bronchitis given what I had been
experiencing and the color mucus I was coughing up. Sorry guys, I couldn’t
figure out a less gross way around mentioning that.
Once that was all sorted and I had a few
days off training I was able to scrape in one brick session before it was time
to start tapering for the Junior European Cup in Eton Dorney. Mind you, I
wasn’t allowed to go too hard incase I wrecked myself.
I wont go through the days of taper, that
won’t be much fun.
The next adventure begins – off to Eton
Dorney. I wasn’t expecting much of the hotel we were to stay at in Windsor, as
it turns out I was wrong again. It was the nicest. By the nicest of course I
mean the best bed and buffet combination. For any athlete those are two of the
biggest deal breakers between a good hotel and a bad one.
This race was a first for me. Usually when
things go wrong I panic and continue a downhill spiral.
The pontoon position was one of the most
unfair that I’ve ever been on. First position was a dead straight line to buoy
1 followed by two 90-degree right hand turns and back to the swim exit. So me
being number 58 on the far right I was a long way away from the desired line.
Figured ‘it-is-what-it-is’ and there
wasn’t a thing I could do about it so I found my spot and listened hard for “take your marks”. I was actually pretty
happy, both athletes beside me were scrawny, but I was still pretty nervous
about being drowned like I was in Tizzy. All went well and I had a good start,
gained half a body length on the two guys next to me and swam hard through
clear water. Only mistake I made was that I gauged off the athletes to my right
so I didn’t need to look up and I swam in a dead straight line…
After a good 250-300m I looked up and
noticed we were not far away from the first buoy and I was very far over.
Because of that mistake by the time I made it across there were dozens of
battlers hitting the first buoy and I was very wide. This threw me out of at
least getting in the second pack. So I was pretty upset about that but to my
surprise I forgot about it and swam hard back into shore, then focused on doing
absolutely nothing on the bike… Sounds like a dog act but I have my reasons! I
needed to be confident in running well off the bike and Tizzy did not provide
me with that confidence and when you think about how horribly unfit I was I had
to prioritize and save as much energy as I could. So I was a prick and sat on
and pulled a turn every now and again. Made it even worse by attacking the last
few kilometers and getting into transition first. Probably could have done
without the accelerations in doing so but I had never gone into transition with
a large amount of people and I didn’t want to be involved in any accidents.
I hit the run and was feeling remarkably
good, but I contained my excitement and adrenaline and kept it together. Not
long into the run and as expected a few athletes came around me, some I sat on
and others gapped us slightly. Things were looking good so with the tailwind I
picked it up slightly on the return 1.25km. Without any dramas in that I did so
again on the 3rd quarter of the run. This was into a headwind so it
wasn’t a pick up in pace but in effort. I saw that I was catching some of the
athletes that had passed me in the first 1.25km and that gave me motivation to
continue pushing. Coming into the last 800m the few that I bridged back up to
accelerated and my fitness stopped me seconds after I tried to go with them.
The run wasn’t exceptionally quick by any stretch of the imagination, but it
was controlled and solid which was what I needed.
We didn’t have many days to spare before
and after the race so that trip went pretty quickly and all of a sudden we were
back in Spain with 10 days until the big one. The next few days were recovery
focused followed by a couple of hard swims and a couple of solid rides and
runs. There was one particular swim session which I felt incredible in and I
knew I was back to where I needed to be with the swim, unfortunately the impact
of running and thus fatigue in my legs for the final solid bike session knocked
me back down a little.
Things were progressively looking better.
By the time we were to fly out to London my health was almost back to one
hundred percent. Unfortunately my fitness was far from where I wanted this
close to a World Championship event. But once again I didn’t let it bother me.
I had my strengths that I figured would get me into a decent position to push
through the remainder of each of my races.
Reflecting on it now I think that doing
the both Aquathlon and the age group sprint races was a bad idea. Thought I’d
be all right but in the end I struggled a fair bit. Just a quick recap on the
two then we’re done!
Just a little dilemma though, what would
preparation be without them? The day before the race I was taking off my
wetsuit and basically 3/5ths of the calf tore at the seam. Not good
at all! All was sorted out with the guys at the Blue Seventy tent though, brand
new wetty. Win!
I was most confident for the Aquathlon, I
was in a good state mentally which triumphed and kept my mind off my physical
state. Shortly after we were called into the athlete holding area they started
introducing the athletes, I had no idea and therefore became extra nervous when
I heard the introducer announce “2012 ITU
World Aquathlon Champion and London Olympian, Richard Varga”.
Nevertheless, nothing I could do about it
so a big smile came across my face as I realized I could really give it a good
crack and see how things are going in the water. We were denied a swim warm up,
not exactly ideal but hay, everyone missed out. Luckily for me I brought
resistance bands and went through my routine at lighter resistance followed by
harder resistance. It worked a treat!
Grabbed an excellent spot on the pontoon
and before I knew it I was underwater. With incredible urgency I kicked hard
and popped up half a body length in front of my competitors, all except one –
Varga!
Alternating looking up at the buoy, then
over to my right every second stroke my eyes glued on Varga, he was edging
closer and closer as we headed for the first turn, I was exactly where I wanted
to be and it was an awesome feeling. I had an excellent line and didn’t zigzag
one bit, coach would be proud. We hit turn one, two then turn three and were on
the back straight. By the time we got back in line with the pontoon, roughly 650m,
he had gapped me slightly. Expected.
Around 850m a couple of the elite and u23
guys came around me and I jumped on their feet, such a relief! But by this time
my arms had, had enough of swimming that fast and I blew up slightly. Still
managed to come out around 4th or 5th position in 11:46 –
a whole 1 second quicker than my pb in the pool, I was fairly stoked about
that!
Onto the run… felt good, actually ran
horribly. Not much more to say about that. Clearly I was much more excited
about the swim! In the end, I came home with a second place in the World Junior
Aquathlon Championships, cannot complain.
Mere hours after that race I tried to sit
on a park bench. Nothing I have tried has ever been more dismal than those 2
seconds of simply taking a seat. My ITB’s were hammered, not a good feeling
less than 30 hours before another World Champs race.
Tried my best to recover and before I knew
it race 2 came around. I was feeling ok compared to the previous day still not
fantastic though. Once again we had no swim warm up. I assumed my bands would
do the job as they did for the Aquathlon. I foolishly gave more room to the
spectators then they needed and as I was very rushed – all the other athletes
already standing in the athlete holding area – I double over my bands to do my
warm up, without at least giving my arms a light activation.
Adrenaline was pumping through my body
though so I thought nothing of it, until I got 100m into the swim. I felt awful
and didn’t even make it to the buoy first. I sat on feet for the majority of
the swim and toward the end a few athletes came around me. I did make an effort
to make sure I was with them though, considering how fresh these guys were I
couldn’t miss being in contact with them for the ride, especially given that
the bike course was 2.95km long.
Things weren’t looking great but I was
gaining on the gap a few had as we ran to transition. For some unknown reason
some nitwit put plastic boards down on a sharp corner and as soon as I hucked a
left I fell straight down and hit my knee pretty hard. Although, I did recall
hearing “slow down people are falling
here” as I got up… gee thanks!
Anyway got up and into transition not too
far behind the handful of athletes in front. Jumped on the bike and just stayed
in contact with whoever was first at any given time. Some guys started to come
past and I noticed they were in different age categories but it became
difficult to keep track of who was who. After the race I found out that some
kid managed to get 90 seconds ahead of us. Thought I did well keeping track of
em all, obviously not!
There was a few of us who jumped off the
bike together, I was pretty relaxed and tried to keep a high cadence leading
into T2 so I was as fresh as possible. The run in was disgustingly muddy and
slippery, as we were running down to our racks I nearly slipped over on several
occasions and could barely get any speed. Then, just my luck, I started to feel
both my calves cramp. At this point I was filthy! If I had to stop and stretch
them out it wouldn’t have been nice being another athlete and hearing words
come out of my mouth at ridiculous decibels.
Thankfully they didn’t cramp but god they
were tight the whole run. It was amazing the confidence I got running past
people out of transition rather than losing places, this made me feel pretty
damn good and I focused on catching the next guy, and the next guy, and so on.
Not a whole lot of that happened though. I began to fade toward the end, my
shoulders felt heavy and tight, my knee was hurting with every stride and my
ITB’s weren’t giving me any relief. Given all that knocked me back in the lead
up I finished off strongly with a run time I was happy with despite my lack of
confidence after seeing the run time from the Aquathlon.
All in all, the trip was excellent and
there were many positives taken. Never a dull moment with triathletes, wouldn’t
have had it any other way (with the people and international experience, of
course).
Huge thanks to everyone who was apart of
it, there were many humans involved in the process so I won’t name them all,
forgive me but you know who you are. Not just the athletes and coaches but
family and friends. I envy the patience and understanding you all have.
Till next time.
