My running has been improving slowly getting my times faster / km and a lot more comfortable. The week leading into this race i had only managed to get one run of 6km is all week. Not ideal but it is what it is. Headed out saturday morning with training partner Daniel Hopper for our usual 80-90 km on the TT bike and legs were suprisingly ok and with the weather starting to warm up was even better not to be rugged up to the hilt. With bike leg only 18.5km long in the race the intensity would be the killer after a crap couple weeks of training.
Woke up sunday morning after a late night saturday and was on struggle street but i knew that i needed to get down early so i could get a solid warm up and with the wind that was howling the bike was going to be tough. Registration done online made for a quick easy number pick up and get out and warm up. Rode for 25 mins to get the legs rolling before i decided to pull on the running shoes..com Pulled on the new race suit from www.champ-sys.com (Thanks Andy) and headed off to get the run legs on. With all the warm ups done it was time to race.
Countdown was done and we are off and the gun runners were into it and i was eating there dust very quickly. The lead guys are very quick so settled into my own tempo (dont have much choice) was running at 4.15 min/km which for myself was improvement from 4.40 at last race. After first turnaround i felt in ok condition so just monitored my pace on my garmin as the run went on i slowed to 4.30 pace at the back end of the run. First run completed in 21.26 a 1min.34 sec improvement from previous race so considering the amount of training i had missed in the last couple weeks was happy. The hardest decision of day do i start with bike shoes already clipped in or not , went with standard cyclist response put shoes on first. Was postioned half way along transition area so required minimal running and after watching previous people taking ages to get going was the smart choice as we were straight into a headwind so all the power was needed.
Bike leg was straight into a strong headwind so had to get straight into a good cadence so the legs could feel half normal. With dark storm clouds starting to form the idea of the Uturns was going to be fun. Once we hit the tailwind section speeds around 50 km/hr along the Altona forshore dodging speed humps was a good buzz on the TT bike in full swing.One poor starter hit the deck and was taking a nap on the grass as we came past. The headwind section each of the 3 laps was hard going but the reward was ripping tailwind coming back. Bike leg was over very quickly and had made up a hand full of positions.In the back half of the last lap on the bike start preparing the legs for final run. This section of the race was going to hurt the most due to my lack of training in previous weeks. Headed onto the run and the first kilometer felt resonable so got into rythym early and wanted to keep pace even then after 2nd km was starting to feel the pinch and slowed during the middle section of the final 5 km rum.The next 2 km felt like i was dragging a car tyre behind me and my pace was around 4.40 min/km in this time i was passed by the few i had rounded up on the bike leg and was in damage control as i headed into the headwind towards the final turnaround point. Once i hit the final turnaround i pushed on and pace increased to 4.20min/km for the last 1.5 k to finish off strong. With final run complete in 23.08 was fair bit slower than first 5 km run leg but a 40 sec improvement on previous race . Total race time of 1.16.58 was a 3 min improvement on my first race earlier in the season.
Summer season fast approaching this means crits and triathalons a plenty coming up.
Damo
