The weekend started on Saturday morning with the loading of a car full of more sporting gear than you can shake a stick at. Bottles for this, bags for that, food, wet suits, you name it, it all went in Roly's car.
All went well until we had passed Goulburn, at which point we were stopped for a random breath test. This wasn't the problem as of course Roly, having not drunk for 2 weeks, passed with flying colours. However, what we weren't aware of was that the rear bike rack apparently was obscuring the number plate such that it couldn't be read from the rear....and so $350 later we were on our way...still with a rear number plate that couldn't be seen! Meanwhile endless streams of cars with similarly obscured bike racks were racing past - we were just the unlucky ones! Not a good start to the weekend.
Anyway, we eventually made it to Canberra just after 3pm, deciding to go straight to transition to register and rack our bikes. After queuing for what seemed ages, we were let into transition and racked the bikes, then went and checked into our accommodation at the ACU, only to have to return back to transition for the compulsory briefing. By this point the sun was out and it was literally scorching. Quite why they made 1300 triathletes sit in the baking heat for 45 minutes listening to information we had already been given, while getting sun burnt is beyond me. Great preparation!
The upside of the briefing was that I got chance to catch up with Andrew and pick his brain about race tactics and nutrition in particular. He recommended that I only carried 1 x bottle of endura on my bike with my front aero drink bottle full of water, the plan being to fill both bottles up at the aid station at the end of every lap. What this meant was that I had to discard one bottle and pick up two bottles at the aid station every lap. Either that or I wouldn't have enough liquid...a dangerous tactic, but one that I would probably go with to save weight, unless it was scorching hot in the morning which would therefore necessitate carrying an extra bottle or Endura.
Once the race briefing was over, we drove out of Canberra a little way and found a nice pasta place where we indulged, then on to Coles to buy breaky, before returning to the accommodation for more prep and then off to bed.
After a fitful night's sleep as per normal before a race, the alarm went at 4am. T - 3. I threw down a rather dry blueberry bagel (another idea of Andrew's) and some bran bread, saving the rest of my food for closer to the race given that my wave wasn't until 7am.
The weather was surprisingly clear on the drive to transition and so we laid out our gear out in almost perfect weather conditions. If only we knew what was on its way...
After yet another "final" race briefing, it was down to the water for final preparations, which involved some more bran bread, a power bar and half an up and go. I was now ready.
My wave was due to go 30 mins after the pros, but due to the fact that the swim entry was the same as the swim exit, we all had to be in the water about 15 minutes earlier than we have been normally, in order to give the pros chance to exit the swim without having to push through a load of age groupers trying to get in the water.
After a bit of a practice swim, Tim and Roly, who were due to start in the wave 5 minutes before me, were away, leaving my wave, the older guys and the teams the only ones still left.
By this point, the weather was starting to really turn, the wind had got up and there was something rather large and murky blowing in across the lake (aside from the duck poo that was seeping between my toes). We had heard rumours about storms throughout the morning but this looked rather ominous. Luckily this distracted me for a while such that we were soon given our 1 minute warning to start. As usual I settled towards the back of the pack, a few metres behind the start line.
...and then we were off.
As normal, all hell broke loose at the start with flailing limbs very much the order of the day. For some reason, like the ITU experience, there were still people around me all the way to the first buoy which was definitely very strange. Luckily, the sighting to the first buoy was pretty easy as we just headed for the large tall building on the horizon.
After what seemed like ages, I rounded the buoy and headed towards the second. By this time, the rain had well and truly arrived and it was bucketing it down. There was also a fair amount of chop and swell as the storm blew across the lake - all of which made for some particularly interesting swimming conditions.
I rounded the second buoy and set about trying to find the third one. The briefing had told us to aim for the flag pole. However, unfortunately, with the storm, the fog had also blown such that I couldn't see a blooming thing! Great...anyway, not to worry, just follow everyone else like a sheep.
By this time my lats were also starting to ache and my stroke was becoming noticeably slower. Just keep it going, over half way now...it will soon be over I kept telling myself.
To be honest, this part of the swim was simply about focusing on some kind of form and hoping that I was actually moving forward. I was now being passed by those swimmers who had started two waves behind me and so literally there would be no-one behind me. I could therefore quite conceivably be the last one out of the water!
After what seemed like ages, I rounded the final buoy and headed for the white archway which luckily was clearly visible through the murk. However, despite swimming hard, it wasn't getting any closer! At one point I actually looked back to see if I had made any headway from the last buoy...
And so after another dose of HTFU I got my head down and focussed on my stroke, eventually making it to the archway, standing up in just over 42 minutes. A little slower than my target time of 40 minutes but still a whole lot better than it could have been. And that was the worst over. Game on - time to fire up!
The run from the swim to T1 was about 350m during which I managed to pass quite a few people, although in my haste I also mucked up my watch, pressing the lap button twice which in turn gave me a time for T1 of about 2 seconds. In my post swim headspace I then decided to stop the watch so that I could hopefully record an accurate bike time, only for a minute later realise that that wouldn't give me an accurate overall time.
It was still bucketing down as I located my bike, and as a consequence, everything that had been laid out dry as a bone only 2.5 hours earlier was now totally soaking wet including my top and towel. Lovely. And so on went all the wet gear and the helmet. Unfortunately my glasses were also soaked but I still put them on anyway. More automatic pilot than anything else.
Out of T1, over the line and I was on the bike and quickly into it.
Andrew had recommended not taking any nutrition onboard until at least 15 mins into the ride and so I sipped on a bit of water and some endura for the first part of the ride.
Due to the incessant rain, the first lap of the bike course was very wet and pretty damn treacherous. Being the hesitant rider that I am in the best of conditions meant that I didn't push the pace, with the aim being to average 30km/hr if possible. That, and Andrew's words of not pushing the bike too hard were ringing through my head throughout the first lap.
The descent into Coppins was particularly interesting and a little fraught, in fact at one point I didn't think I could actually put the brakes on any harder! The climb out wasn't too bad though and I seemed to pass a fair few generally on the hills.
Just before the end of lap 1 was the singular aid station and as it was critical in my hydration plan that I replenished both my water and my endura, I slowed right down. I had actually managed to drink all my water by this point which was a good sign, and about 2/3 of the endura, but this meant that picking up spare bottles was vital. I took on a water bottle from the first guy before realising I didn't have time to empty it into my aero bottle before the endura pick up, so quickly decided to instead shove both bottles in the cages behind me, slow down after the endura stop, empty the water into the aero drink bottle and then discard the empty bottle before the end of the aid station. Manageable, just, but it meant that I was passed by a fair few riders in the process.
Once I was rehydrated, it was on to lap two. The nutrition was also going well by this point, and I had settled into a routine of a jelly gel thing every half hour, interspersed with 1/3 of a power bar, all with water. The power bar was actually going down particularly well and seemed to be working well as I still felt strong.
By the time lap 2 started, the rain had stopped and the sun started peaking out, all of which made things a lot easier and also meant that I could start taking a few more risks and pushing the pace a bit more. Again, I kept drinking both the endura and the water interspersed with the power bars and jelly shots.
The only issue I was having was the fact that my toes were numb from about 30 mins in, which meant that I had to slow down every 45 mins or so to restart the blood flow to my feet...that and my gears were jumping a bit.
Again, the aid station worked well, despite me dropping the first bottle I picked up, and I managed to replenish both bottles again.
On to lap 3, and I decided to try and push the pace a little as I felt like I still had petrol in the tank. All was pretty uneventful until the climb out of Coppings Crossing when I saw Roly ahead of me which in turn gave me a fillip as I quickly caught and passed him towards the top of the climb. He told me that Tim was only a minute ahead of me and so I immediately picked up the pace to try and hopefully catch Tim before the end of the bike.
By now, the side of the road was littered with punctured bikes, presumably due to the rain that had fallen and the debris that had blown onto the road. It was carnage with so many people broken by the roadside At one point, at the top of Coppings, there must have been 4 people standing together...almost like they were waiting for a bus! As a result I spent most of the last lap counting down the km's, paranoid that I was about to have a puncture - luckily it didn't happen and I made it to T2 in good shape and with a bike split of just under 2.47 having managed to eat both power bars and half the bag of jellies. Perfect.
After quickly racking the bike and putting the trainers and visor on, I headed to the exit, quickly spotting Tim also making his way on to the run and about 100m in front of me.
Tim seemed to be moving well (and quickly) and so I quickly decided to settle in behind him and not expend energy trying to catch him too early in the run. The half marathon route took us out along the lake foreshore one way before doubling back, past transition the other way before again returning to transition. All done twice. So basically a psychological nightmare! All flat aside from a little hill at about the 7/18km mark.
By about the 2km mark, I had caught up with Tim and we then ran together for a while. Apparently Roly had beaten him out of the water and then they had both spent the ride overtaking each other at various times before Tim took the lead half way through the third lap. He was feeling strong (and running quickly - 4.30's to be precise) and so I stuck with him for a bit.
At about 6 or 7km I was still feeling good and so decided to push ahead whilst I still felt like I could. At the back of my mind I kept remembering Andrew's advice of the previous evening where he had recounted his first Canberra experience which had involved going through the first 10km in 47 minutes only to hit the wall very soon after and take over 70 mins for the second 10km!
Lo and behold, I went through 10km in 47 mins! Great - when would I hit the wall then....but on I went, by this time maintaining an average pace of around 4.45's. Still below the aim of sub 5 mins km's which is what I was aiming for.
By this time, the sun had come out in all its force and I had started to sweat a lot. Time to up the fluid intake at the drinks stations. With that and the couple of jellies that I still had left, things were still going well and I was managing to hold a decent pace without ever feeling that I was really struggling and my HR still felt under control. On to the second lap and the seemingly endless loops of the water front, back past transition, past Tim and Roly running in the opposite direction and back again. By about the 15km mark, I was starting to feel the first signs of tiredness and the legs started to get heavier and heavier with the pace dropping a bit. Only 6km to go. Then 5km. And then I was on the final leg back to the finish line. I popped my final jelly with 3km to go and concentrated on maintaining my form and focus. 2km, 1km and then I was into the final km and then into the finish shute and the archway which signalised the finishing line. Over I went, stopping my watch with a half marathon time of 1.42 - an average of 4.50's - the same as my marathon pace and under the target pace of 5 min/km.
Because I had mucked up my Garmin timings, I wasn't sure of my finishing time, knowing only that my watch showed 5.16 - so taking into account the time the watch had been on pause whilst in T1, I could have broken 5.20!
After gathering my thoughts, I turned my attention to the next hurdle - removing the timing chip. This was a lot harder than it should have been, and very nearly ended up in me passing out right next to the finish line as the limited blood elsewhere in my body immediately rushed to my head...
Eventually, and having removed the tag, I grabbed some coke and set about waiting for the boys...just as the heavens opened and it started absolutely bucketing it down. I managed to seek shelter in one of the drinks tents happy to have finished and be out of the rain.
Tim came home about 10 mins later reckoning he had managed a 5.31 (no watch) with Roly finishing a further 5 mins back with a 5.37. I still had no idea what time I had done at this stage...
After grabbing some ice cream (what a great recovery idea!), we headed back into transitions to grab what was by now our very wet gear. My towel was absolutely soaking as was my wetsuit and bag.
We then made our way back to the car, changed, racked the bikes (taking care to remove the number plate and place on the rack) before starting the long drive back to Canberra.
It was only in the car on the way home that I checked the results on line to find out I had actually done 5.18. Not too bad for my debut half ironman...
Very happy with that to finish the year off...
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