It’s a bit strange but I’m sure a psychologist could tell me why I find it much easier to write race reports for bad races than good ones. This last race was a good one so this will be brief. Essentially, everything went right.
The swim was supposed to be too easy with the point-to-point course being down current. Fortunately for me, not only did the river virtually stop flowing, but a front blew in for the second half of the swim creating an ocean-like chop and headwind. It was a rolling start (self-seeded where your race starts only when you cross the start line). The genius advice from supercoach Raf Baugh (frontrunner sports) was to position myself at least 5mins back. The idea being that going off the front leads to a lonely bike which is always harder to pace. The plan worked perfectly as I swam through the field to the front of the race, had the fastest amateur swim time and passed all but one of the guys who started before me. It also meant that I knew I was officially in front of everyone who was alongside me on the course.
The ride was mostly uneventful. The road surface in Liuzhou is famous for being smooth and fast but a storm front blew in and the mixture of oil, water and smooth road created the slipperiest surface I’ve ever ridden on. Had a near-death experience when a guy passed me on a descending corner just as his water-bottle ejected from his bike. Watched this thing bounce unpredictably across the road as the speed, corner, slippery road and oncoming athletes riding wide made it impossible to take any evasive action at all. Missed it by millimetres.
China rides on the right which means you must overtake on the left. On the first lap of the ride I went past a tall blonde guy in an orange suit, so obviously for the rest of that lap I had “Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side” stuck in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtLONl4cNc
On the second lap two course marshals nearly wiped me out by riding too far across in the other direction so naturally “pass the dutchie” was replaced by “I’m a mother*&cker on a motorcycle”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u7wy_-MuHc
Finished the ride with the second-fastest category bike spit (beaten only by a British former pro cyclist who also outrode everyone in the race who wasn’t an Olympic gold medallist)
You never know how your run is going to feel until you start running and after 3kms, I knew this was going to be a good day. I had the honour of having a brief chat with two of the greatest of all time in Al Brownlee (2 Olympic golds) and Craig Alexander (5 x world champion) as they flew past on their second lap. I passed 3 guys on the run but I could tell there were 2-3 guys still ahead of me on the course. I knew at least two of them were not in my category and I figured that most of them had probably started ahead on the swim. I figured I was doing well but was leaving nothing to chance. Pushed hard when it got tough in the last 3kms and got the confirmation that I’d won as I crossed the line.
Finished with a category fastest run time and ended up 15 minutes ahead of second place. Finished with a 4:18 (my PB is a 4:10 but this race had 9 mins of transition and strong winds – I reckon those two times are roughly equivalent)
There was a brief over-excited show of emotion (embarrassing to my kids) in the form of a roar followed by a brief sob. Looking back, qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii is something I first dreamt of when I was 10years old (before many of my training buddies were born). Since I decided to give it a decent crack I’ve withdrawn from a race due to injury (Busso 2015), Had a race cancelled on me (Melbourne 2016), Crashed my bike (Cairns 2016) and had the swim cancelled due to a shark (Busso 2017). Qualifying for Hawaii has turned out to be the hardest of all of my ‘life goals’ to achieve.
I still haven’t had my best race in a full distance ironman and I still haven’t conquered my hoodoo of cracking in the heat. Hawaii has both of those things so the bar will be raised further.
Aloha
The swim was supposed to be too easy with the point-to-point course being down current. Fortunately for me, not only did the river virtually stop flowing, but a front blew in for the second half of the swim creating an ocean-like chop and headwind. It was a rolling start (self-seeded where your race starts only when you cross the start line). The genius advice from supercoach Raf Baugh (frontrunner sports) was to position myself at least 5mins back. The idea being that going off the front leads to a lonely bike which is always harder to pace. The plan worked perfectly as I swam through the field to the front of the race, had the fastest amateur swim time and passed all but one of the guys who started before me. It also meant that I knew I was officially in front of everyone who was alongside me on the course.
The ride was mostly uneventful. The road surface in Liuzhou is famous for being smooth and fast but a storm front blew in and the mixture of oil, water and smooth road created the slipperiest surface I’ve ever ridden on. Had a near-death experience when a guy passed me on a descending corner just as his water-bottle ejected from his bike. Watched this thing bounce unpredictably across the road as the speed, corner, slippery road and oncoming athletes riding wide made it impossible to take any evasive action at all. Missed it by millimetres.
China rides on the right which means you must overtake on the left. On the first lap of the ride I went past a tall blonde guy in an orange suit, so obviously for the rest of that lap I had “Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side” stuck in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtLONl4cNc
On the second lap two course marshals nearly wiped me out by riding too far across in the other direction so naturally “pass the dutchie” was replaced by “I’m a mother*&cker on a motorcycle”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u7wy_-MuHc
Finished the ride with the second-fastest category bike spit (beaten only by a British former pro cyclist who also outrode everyone in the race who wasn’t an Olympic gold medallist)
You never know how your run is going to feel until you start running and after 3kms, I knew this was going to be a good day. I had the honour of having a brief chat with two of the greatest of all time in Al Brownlee (2 Olympic golds) and Craig Alexander (5 x world champion) as they flew past on their second lap. I passed 3 guys on the run but I could tell there were 2-3 guys still ahead of me on the course. I knew at least two of them were not in my category and I figured that most of them had probably started ahead on the swim. I figured I was doing well but was leaving nothing to chance. Pushed hard when it got tough in the last 3kms and got the confirmation that I’d won as I crossed the line.
Finished with a category fastest run time and ended up 15 minutes ahead of second place. Finished with a 4:18 (my PB is a 4:10 but this race had 9 mins of transition and strong winds – I reckon those two times are roughly equivalent)
There was a brief over-excited show of emotion (embarrassing to my kids) in the form of a roar followed by a brief sob. Looking back, qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii is something I first dreamt of when I was 10years old (before many of my training buddies were born). Since I decided to give it a decent crack I’ve withdrawn from a race due to injury (Busso 2015), Had a race cancelled on me (Melbourne 2016), Crashed my bike (Cairns 2016) and had the swim cancelled due to a shark (Busso 2017). Qualifying for Hawaii has turned out to be the hardest of all of my ‘life goals’ to achieve.
I still haven’t had my best race in a full distance ironman and I still haven’t conquered my hoodoo of cracking in the heat. Hawaii has both of those things so the bar will be raised further.
Aloha