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I'm off to port Macqaurie
I did it. I qualifed for Port next year. My goal was to race a 5:10-5:20 to ensure I made it. I pulled off a 5:15 on very limited preparation. In fact 3weeks of training and 1 week of tapering was all I had to get ready for this race. I stuck to my race plan very strictly to maximise the chances of me being able to get through the 21km run. The plan was to swim hard, bike easy and then run 10min on 1min off for the entire run.
I had a great swim. I decided to start on the left hand side as it seemed to congested towards the middle and right hand buoy. This strategy paid off as I only had to get past one person before I had clear water right through to the first turining buoy. I keep swimming hard to this buoy and it was only once I reached the first turn that I started to pass slower swimmers from the wave in front of us. The rest of the swim was uneventful. I found some good feet to drag off and this guy basically led me around the course. Don't know my time yet, still waiting for splits.
The bike
My bike time from rack to rack was a 2:42.(still waiting for splits) It was very important here for me to hold back today. This is something I'm not used to doing to often, but it worked well and is something I should think about more in the future. From the word go I capped my heart at 150bpm. At Forster last year I averaged 163bpm. So it was going to be a big drop in effort. Luckily for me the course suited my riding style down to a tee. I'm at my best in the hills and there were plenty of those. I snapped my left tri-bar pad at about the 1hr mark. Luckily the hilly course worked in my favour. It was a bit annoying not being able to ride on the bars though during the flats for the last 90min of the ride. Being in the last wave ment that I was catching people all day. I didn't like being in this sort of position as it gave you a false sense of doing well. I had about 3-4 people in my category pass me on the bike and for the first time I made no effort to go with them. I stuck to the race plan and by the time I entered T2 I was feeling fantastic.
1 week out from the race I was still falling apart running 12km. I knew things were going to be tough and I think that running running 10min and then walking 1 min right from the start really paid off. I got to the 12km mark on the run in pain, but it was managable enough for me to keep going. At this point I decided to run 5min and then walk 1min as I didn't want to aggrevate my leg any further. I ended running approx 1:57. I was so happy not to DNF this race. I thought at some points my leg was going to give up on me. It didn't. it hurt, but not enough for me t stop racing.
After crossing the finish line in 5:14 I realised I had done enough. I was confident and relieved that I qualified for Port. I put plenty of pressure on myself going into this race as it was my last shot at trying to qualify. I'm in and I'm one very happy camper at the moment. I can't wait to start my build up to Port. I'll probably need another 4 weeks of Physio to really get on top of this injury and then I get to start training my ass off again.
fluro
I had a great swim. I decided to start on the left hand side as it seemed to congested towards the middle and right hand buoy. This strategy paid off as I only had to get past one person before I had clear water right through to the first turining buoy. I keep swimming hard to this buoy and it was only once I reached the first turn that I started to pass slower swimmers from the wave in front of us. The rest of the swim was uneventful. I found some good feet to drag off and this guy basically led me around the course. Don't know my time yet, still waiting for splits.
The bike
My bike time from rack to rack was a 2:42.(still waiting for splits) It was very important here for me to hold back today. This is something I'm not used to doing to often, but it worked well and is something I should think about more in the future. From the word go I capped my heart at 150bpm. At Forster last year I averaged 163bpm. So it was going to be a big drop in effort. Luckily for me the course suited my riding style down to a tee. I'm at my best in the hills and there were plenty of those. I snapped my left tri-bar pad at about the 1hr mark. Luckily the hilly course worked in my favour. It was a bit annoying not being able to ride on the bars though during the flats for the last 90min of the ride. Being in the last wave ment that I was catching people all day. I didn't like being in this sort of position as it gave you a false sense of doing well. I had about 3-4 people in my category pass me on the bike and for the first time I made no effort to go with them. I stuck to the race plan and by the time I entered T2 I was feeling fantastic.
1 week out from the race I was still falling apart running 12km. I knew things were going to be tough and I think that running running 10min and then walking 1 min right from the start really paid off. I got to the 12km mark on the run in pain, but it was managable enough for me to keep going. At this point I decided to run 5min and then walk 1min as I didn't want to aggrevate my leg any further. I ended running approx 1:57. I was so happy not to DNF this race. I thought at some points my leg was going to give up on me. It didn't. it hurt, but not enough for me t stop racing.
After crossing the finish line in 5:14 I realised I had done enough. I was confident and relieved that I qualified for Port. I put plenty of pressure on myself going into this race as it was my last shot at trying to qualify. I'm in and I'm one very happy camper at the moment. I can't wait to start my build up to Port. I'll probably need another 4 weeks of Physio to really get on top of this injury and then I get to start training my ass off again.
fluro
posted by Paul Fleuren at 2:00 pm
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