Gold Coast no more

Well my time on the Gold Coast has finally come to an end, it's been a great 7 weeks there with loads of great training and sightseeing.

My last week and a half on the GC were pretty jam packed training, a 2 day trip to Frazer Island and helping out at a local charity triathlon race in aid of breast cancer.

The trip to Frazer island was amazing, it's a sand island with a 75mile stretch of beach where your only way around is by 4x4. I went with a tour group so we were travelling around in a 4x4 bus which was cool, but at times you were thinking how in earth was this bus going to get through the trails. One of the disappointing thinks about Fraser island is that the sea is so amazing you just was to get in a swim, but it is so dangerous that you would probably die, either from the incredibly strong rip which would pull you out to sea for miles, the jelly fish if they stung you would kill you and if avoided those two the tiger sharks would eat you, and there were lots of them I saw them. Also the tour guide said the biggest ever tiger shark caught was caught off Frazer island and it was 8meters long, that was longer than our tour bus, so with all that I was quite content to stay on the beach. In contrast though, what was amazing was that the inland lakes were fresh water, as the sand would act as a filter and filter the water for hundreds of years. These I had to go for a swim in as they were just so beautiful.


After I got back from my trip to Frazer island I only had a few session left to do before my taper started. One of the the sessions was an hour and a half run with the Southport guy's in the local wetlands which was a conservation sight. IT was great to be running off road I as I hadn't really don much of that since arriving, but one of the best things were the number of kangaroos that were around. The guy's warned me about them before we started but I figured we would be luck to see one. Practically every corner we turned there was at least one if not more and some with little joeys in their pouches, it was just great to see. One of my final rides was the beachmount climb which i did earlier in my stay, but this time I took my camera to capture the views as they were just amazing, plus it was a really nice climb which I loved doing so was happy to go back up it again. I have to say a big thank you to the Southport Triathlon team for welcoming me to their club while I was there and also a big thank you to Gus Sweeney the head coach who was a great help while I was out there. You guy's made me feel like I was back home training with my club. Hopefully see you guy's in Hawaii in 2011, good with your race season guy's.

Although I was sad about leaving the GC as it had become like home over the past 7 weeks, i was looking forward to getting to Perth to see another part of Australia which everyone says is just beautiful, plus I was looking forward to meeting up with the GB team and to get racing again. First though I had to get packed and try and find away around the massive excess baggage charge I was likely to face at the airport. I decided to as much of my clothing into my carry on bag and even take the small rucksack off on my check in bag an took that onto the plane full of kit to try and get my baggage weight as light as possible so my charge would be as small as possible. After packing my bike though i was not so confident this would save me much as my bike box seemed to weigh a ton, It felt even heavier than when I came out, I couldn't understand it, so I just figured I was going to have to take the hit on the excess baggage charge. It must have been my lucky day though, when I checked my luggage in the girl at the desk just ask the weight of my bike, which I lied and said 23kg as it still had it's 23kg tag on it from the way out. My bag ended up being 15kg and she just checked it in and told me to take my bike to over sized baggage, no mention of any charge, so I wasn't hanging around there for her to change her mind. I practically sprinted off to the over sized baggage desk to get ride of my bike before anyone could say anything. That was an absolute bonus of a start to my trip Perth.

I've been in Perth now for 3 days, it seem a nice city from what I've seen and I've met up with some really nice guy's and girl from the GB team so that has been nice training and socialising with them. It's definitely a far smaller affair out here for the long distance race than it was for the Olympic distance, the GB team for a start has only 79 members in it and I think the over all entry is about 700, hopefully this means the drafting issues from the GC will not happen here even though it is another pan flat bike course. However the strong winds could be a strong factor on the bike and the it's supposedly going to be 31oC tomorrow so the run could also be hard even though it's flat as there's no shelter anywhere on the course. I'm looking forward to it though, it should be a good race.

Well I need to go and get my bike sorted out as I have to go and check it into transition soon before we have the racing briefing.

Good luck to all the GB team racing tomorrow.

Another week and another race

My second week of training on the Gold coast has not quite followed the high of my first week. I started the week great with a really hard interval session at 5am on Monday morning with the Southport tri guy's, and a great 120k ride on the Tuesday. However the rest of the week I have been really tired and had very little energy. I think it could possibly from doing so much training the previous week when it was my first week back, but it may also be that I've been spending a lot of time post training reading my book in the back garden catching some rays and I've not refuelled properly and it's just drained me. At the back end of the week I was starting to get a little concerned a I had entered a local race for the Sunday and the way I was feeling I didn't think I would be up to much. To try and get ready for the I decided to really ease back on training on the Thursday and Friday and stay out of the sun as much as possible and make sure I was eating and drinking plenty and hope that Sunday would go well.

The race on Sunday was going to be a strange distance, the sprintman as they call it was the secondary race to the Gold Coast Half Ironman that was taking place at the same time and which a lot of the Southport guy's were doing in preparation for their Ironman race in 12weeks. The distances of the sprint man were 1k swim, 33k bike and 7k run which I thought would be a good quality session for me in preparation for Perth.

The swim again was an optional wetsuit swim even though the water was 22.1oC, the ruling for this race was, it had to be above 24 before suits were band. I was disappointed, but it was probably a good thing to get a competitive swim in in my wetsuit for Perth, as I've really not been wearing it much since I've been out here. With all the disasters I've had recently with my swimming I was hoping to rectify them and have a good swim, as I've been swimming really well in the pool out here. From chatting to Craig Dale after the worlds, he said he had had the same breathing related problems before and he found it was because he went from resting to sprinting and breathing every 2 strokes right from the start, so ended up taking in too much oxygen. He now starts races breathing every 3 then goes into every 2. When I look back on the races where I have had these problems it does make sense as they we were always kept n the start line for at least 5mins in those races so my heart rate would have slowed right down from my warm up. Any way I thought I would give it a try and long story short, it worked for me. I got to the front of the pack and when the gun went off I took off swimming hard, but breathing every 4 strokes for the first 3-4cylces then went back to every 2 as I settled into my race pace. Man I was so pleased to be breathing well as I was swimming well, so well I actually came out of the water 3rd in my wave, however I thought it was 1st out of the water as 2 guy's were really good swimmers and got out of sight really early with out me noticing. Thinking I was first wasn't all bad as it gives you that extra boost of confidence at the start of the race.

The bike leg was a fairly flat course with a few rolling roads in it and it went out and back over some really nice smooth roads and some really bumpy roads, they really made me feel at home, especially with the nice head wind. The only thing that gave it away were the clear blue sky's and the 20+oC at 6am, pretty perfect conditions for racing. I felt I was going well on the bike passing several people from the wave in front and only allowing 3 guy's to pass me from my wave.

On to the run which was a 2 loop in and out the house job I was 4th and running ok at the start. I past the third place guy with in the first km and had my sights set on 2nd place. He however was a good runner and I wasn't making much ground on him. The out and back windy route seemed to go on forever as I hadn't gone round it before hand and the maps meant nothing to me. Start of the second lap and only 3.5k to go so I upped the pace as I was feeling good and finally managed to catch the 2nd place runner who had pulled back ground on first place, who I was able to make another small increase in pace and pass him 500m later. I probably had about 1.5k to go and the 2 lap run course was now really busy with the all the runners from the later heats now on the course so I just had to keep running hard to get the finish and hope there was nobody else out in front or charging from behind. Coming into the finish area there was nobody about, so I figured I was be first home, delighted, I've come to Oz and taken my first victory of the season, or maybe not. Those 2 swimmers that I didn't see in the swim had continued to get away from me on the bike and run, so unfortunately I was 3rd not 1st. Still I was really happy with the result as I felt I swam, biked and ran really well and I am really happy with my fitness at the moment leading in to Perth. Plus that was my first triathlon podium on the season, what better place to get it than in the home of triathlon. Good days work.

Post race recovery today has consisted of climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge, which I must say was spectacular. If you ever come to Sydney you have to do it. If your wondering what's he doing in Sydney, I've just popped down here for 2days to do a bit of sightseeing before heading back to Southport to finish off my training. It's not a bad way to spend a rest day. If anyone is getting jealous though I will say that it is raining at the moment here in Sydney if that makes you feel any better. :-)