Race Report – Sydney Triathlon April 2012
23 Apr 2012
The last race of the National Series. Thank you God for the Superb Race conditions. The memory of windy and wet Mooloolaba was still too painful! It was a wetsuit swim. A sunny Sunday morning with the water temp about 20 degrees. No wind that I can remember. This was the very first time my husband Ben actually accompanied me to a race start. Usually he is asleep, with the kids but learning from my mistake last year, I brought no kids with me, and stayed right at the race finish. The thing with this race in particular is the walk between Transition and the Race finish is almost 2kms. Uphill or downhill whichever way you want to take it. Not good for kids tagging along. I laughed to myself when I saw a few dads with kids in tow whinging that their legs were tired. Also, this combined with road closures means a lot of walking to the race, and away from it so staying right there made it a very hassle free weekend, a lot quicker and easier to do things, and was way easier on my legs.
The swim was great. I really enjoyed it. As usual my wave was over an hour from the start so lots of swimmers in the water by the time I started. This year I was definitely prepared for the hill climb as you ran out of the water. The bike leg was ok. Surprisingly there is a lot of hill climbing in the course. There were plenty of people drafting that I could see, and I probably saw about 3 or 4 cyclists get penalised while I was on the course. I know of two really experienced triathletes that went the wrong way. One being the current Australian Champ in my age group! And the other a fellow World Champion in Beijing who has been racing for 35 years! The course had changed from last year, and even I was not expecting to turn around at the top of Macquarie Street to do the second and third laps. Both these people just went straight ahead, and ended up at transition so had to go all the way around and back up again to get back on the course…this was a good 5 mins extra. (Both still managed to come second and first in their races) By the time I hit the run leg, the temp was very warm. But the atmosphere was fantastic. By that stage my aim was to really enjoy my last race of the season and remember really what its really all about. Race hard but have fun.
One thing that being in Team Pure Sport has made me think about is my nutrition, while training and racing. I have never considered that it was a crucial part of my race plan. I realised that I had it all wrong and it affected my ability to race hard. After some advice from my fellow Team mate Peter Forster, for Sydney I tried racing with two bottles of PureSport, one with only one scoop of powder and the other with three scoops. I love the Banana Berry flavour. I found that this worked for me. Really well. Another thing I have noticed is my recovery after the races. It’s a lot quicker and I find I am not as sore and stiff. I put this down to PureSport recovery drinks and my great Merida time trial bike.
