Ironman Western Australia

What a day! I came into this race with what I thought was full respect to the Ironman distance and now I leave as a finisher with so much more respect (and fear) than ever.

The day itself was full of all different feelings from excitement, nerves, immense pain, feeling great, wanting to quit, thinking I was going to finish in the top 5, then thinking I was going to walk 21km and even a little boredom during some stages of the 180km bike ride haha.

Once we landed in Western Australia on the Wednesday before the race both Abbey and I were feeling a little under the weather but my last few days of training leading into the race were really good so I was confident it wasn’t anything to serious and maybe just a little nerves mixed with some long travel and the fatigue that can come with a taper sometimes.

I slept really well the night before the race. I was pretty fatigued most of the Saturday before the race, so I was happy to put my head to rest and get some good sleep before the big day ahead. Alarm went off at 3.40am Sunday morning and I was excited for the prospect of competing in my first Ironman. All went smooth in the morning leading up to the race start.

The gun went off at 6.35am and I had a great start off the beach and found myself in a nice position early on in the swim, I was sitting on the feet of Lachie Kerin, Blake Kappler and Joel Wooldridge. Unfortunately once we made the turn at the first bouy another athlete I won’t name but is a total wanker in my eyes thought he would grab y legs and constantly pull me down and under water to fight for position in the group. After a few hundred meters of this I was pretty fatigued and couldn’t hold onto the group any longer and a gap opened up to some really good athletes. I ended up leading a small group (including wanker) around for the first 2.2km lap and once we made the aussie exit I decided to drop back and let someone else do some work for the remaining 1.6km. The swim ended up being around 200m long and we exited the water in 54mins. The swim was particular hard once I found a rhythm again after the earlier incident but I was quiet frustrated to be 2min behind the group we started in, but thats life and couldn’t change things now.

Photo- Korupt Vision

Onto the bike we had a small group of 4 athletes. I found the first 50km of the bike really tough! I was struggling to keep up and finding it hard to push power. After 50km I seemed to settle in and everything started to feel a lot easier so I was able to calm down a little. Between myself and Levi Hauwert we pulled 99% of the time on the front for our group, which really wasn’t a bad thing because we had a technical official riding with us most of the time so its always safer being on the front and avoiding any drafting penalties. The crosswinds on the bike were really tough and made for some really difficult sections on the course, at some points it was hard to stay upright and on the road. I tried to make a move around 150km to get away from the group but I just didn’t have the power and energy to really make the move stick and once we pulled into a tailwind the group pulled me back in, so I decided to just take it easy over the last 20km.

(for anyone that cared in the lead up to the race, I did try to do my first piss while riding and I was unsuccessful haha)

Photo- Korupt Vision

By the end of the bike I was excited for the marathon ahead. This was the main discipline my coach and I wanted to nail and my legs felt good to go leaving T2. I had to have a quick stop in T2 to go to the toilet which felt like an eternity! Once I was on the run course my legs felt really strong and I was ticking away at 3.57 per Km for the first 10km and it was coming with ease. But as its happened to so many over the Ironman distance with the flick of a switch the whole day became really hard. My pace started edging over 4min per km all the way up to the halfway point. I was still on track to run 2hrs 50 marathon but once I started the 3rd lap my running quickly became a death march and I was just trying to keep my pace under 5mins per km.

The pain I felt in my quads was like nothing else and I was complete helpless to the fact I was in real trouble! I tried my best to stay motivated and keep running the fastest I possible could no matter what the pace actually was. I had faded from 7th to 8th and at 32km Fraser Walsh came past to put me into 9th. I could see 10th and 11th coming after me but I was determined to not give up any more positions.

At the final turn around at 38km I could see Joel Wooldridge running well and only 50seconds behind me. I told myself I had to run as fast as I could and even if he caught me I would know I gave it everything I had and I can live with that at the finish line. There was a slight tailwind which gave me a boost, I was able to get back down to around 4.15 per km pace and hold off Joel to finish 9th place in a time of 8hrs 30min 5s.

The day as a whole was beautifully hard. The highs were high and the lows were low. I was overcome with emotion at the finishline when I saw my wife and family. The preparation into this race was by far the most enjoyment I have had getting ready for a race and working towards a goal. I can’t thank my coach Ryan Williams enough for the work and dedication he puts in to make me the best athlete I can be.

I would like to thank my sponsors for all their ongoing support and belief in me as an athlete and a person.

As always the biggest thanks of all goes to my beautiful wife and family for everything they do for me day in and day out.

Until next time!

Cheers,

70.3 Melbourne

It’s been a long while since I last wrote a blog, but last week when I saw $220 withdrawn from bank account paying for this website I thought I better start using it or just flush my money down the toilet!

I was really excited heading down to Melbourne on Friday . There were a couple of question marks going into this race, one being the weather on race day and the other was whether we would be completing a triathlon or if the swim would be cancelled and the race being changed to a duathlon (run/bike/run) format, anyways this race was purely a hitout for Ironman Busselton in 3 weeks so the nerves weren’t quiet as high as they usually would be. I was just happy to be able to break up the solo training and race against such a high quality Australian field.

I woke up on Sunday morning to perfect race weather. I completed a quick warm up jog with Cunno and was down to transition to set up for the day. I had chose to race in my sleeveless wetsuit as I wanted to make a comparisson to my swim at Sunny coast 70.3 to be able to make a final decision on what wetsuit to wear at Busselton.

Photo- Korupt Vision

The race kicked off at 6.06am, it was a very frantic start to get around the first turn bouy which was only 50m from the waters edge. I had a solid start and got around the bouy in a good position but the front guys seemed to turn on the after burners and really stretched out the swim. I had to work hard to get around a few athletes and eventually ended up on Jarrod Osbourne’s feet. Once the split of the groups had been made the swim was pretty comfortable, this probably isn’t what you should feel when you’re in the second pack, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to bridge the gap so I was happy to sit on feet and come out of the swim with some good bikers. We ended up swimming off course a little bit at the back end of the swim, which forced me to go to the front and lead the last 500-400m of the swim, which once again probably isn’t the best situation for the chase group. We exited the water 2 minutes behind the back of the front group.

Once I got through transition and was out onto the bike, Jarrod laid down some solid power right from the beginning and I knew I had to go with him early if we wanted to split up the group. The two of us got away in the first 3km and had a gap to the rest of the group. At around 15km Kieran Storch rode up to us and went straight to the front and thats when the bike got REALLY hard. My legs were pretty stale from the start of the bike, probably due from the limited taper and Ironman training but once Kieran started pushing the pace my two VMOs were on fire and I was really struggling. After about a 15km onslaught Jarrod made his way to the front and while the pace was still very high it was a relief to be able to get a few deep breaths in. Unfortunantly for Jarrod his tyre flatted nearly instantly once he got to the front, luckily his sealent worked its magic and resealed the wheel because he was having a great day. But this meant that Kieran went straight back to the front and the onslaught continued. We also had Nat Lindsay in our group by now and at 40km Kieran started to pull away from the three of us and I know there was nothing I could do as my legs were in shambles. Keiran actually went on and bridged the gap to the leaders which ended up being a huge opportunity lost for us, but in the moment I didn’t have the strength in my legs to do much about it. We kept on riding very solid for the next 30km with Jarrod doing the bulk of the heavy lifting. We werent losing any time to the leaders until Keiran reached them at 70km and they started to pull away + we started to lose the wind out of our sails and suffer a little bit in the last 20km. We still managed to ride 2hrs 5min at an average speed of 43.1km/h.

Photo- Korupt Vision

Onto the run, I was very surprised to see Mitch Cunno leaving transition next to me. He quickly told me he got given a very unfair drafting penalty, which is ridicilous for the bloke that had ridden at the front of the race for majority of the day! Anyways there was still 21.1km of running to get through before we could chat about that. My legs were absolutely cooked from that bike ride and I had real concerns about getting through this run. I had a plan of running 3.35-40 per KM. I do think I can run a half much quicker then this but I wanted to get a solid run on the board leading into Busso. Mitch and I ran together for around 11km which was great as his pacing was perfect for what I wanted to run. Unfortunatley Mitch had some stomach issues and needed a toilet break + his morale wasn’t to high after his penalty. I was comfortably in 9th place by the 15km mark and I could see that 8th place wasn’t to far ahead and this was the last spot that gets paid some money. I made a solid effort to close the gap but by 18km I was pretty fried and the slight headwind we were running into got the better of me and I had to settle for 9th place in a time of 3hrs 52mins 6secs.

Photo- Korupt Vision

I am very happy with this result to go top 10 at a stacked Aussie race on some pretty tired legs leading into my Ironman debut on the 4th of December. It has been straight back to work and pretending my legs don’t hurt as much as they do. I would like to say a massive thank you to my coach Ryan Williams for the constent hard work and dedication to my careers, to my wife and family for continually motivating me to be better and loving me know matter the result. Also thanks to my great training partners and sponsors who are always so supportive and hard working.

I am really looking forward to racing Busso in 2.5 weeks and I can’t wait to see what this Ironman stuff is all about. Thanks so much for reading guys (if you got this far)

Cheers!

Challenge Shepparton

I was so pumped to be travelling down to Shepparton on Friday morning for Challenge Shepp on Sunday morning. Shepp was going to be my first race lining up as a Professional and as excited as I was for that I was equally as nervous of going into the unknown of pro racing!

The whole weekend was a great experience, for me it all became real once I attended the pro race briefing on Saturday afternoon. It felt like a very serious atmosphere as the officials went over the rules and guidelines for our race, I couldn’t help but laugh because it reminded me of the scene from the movie “Top Gun” when all the new recruits get the run down about what was lying ahead of them (film clip below).

Once Sunday mornings 4.45am alarm went off it was go time! I had a quick bite to eat and a coffee then straight down to transition to get all my gear set up for what was going to be a very tough day ahead. Before I knew it my warm up was done and I was in the water on the start line with some of Australia’s best professional triathletes. I was most nervous about the swim as this is my weakest discipline and was most crucial to set me up for a good day of racing, all I wanted out of this whole day was to swim to my potential and make one of the swim groups to show i’m capable of racing at this level. Once the gun went off the pace was full gas! my arms were pretty heavy (I think from the nerves) but I found my rhythm pretty quick and was slotted in on Matt Slee’s feet. The swim is 1.9km M shaped course with 3 complete U turns in it. The main pack was still kind of together by the first turn bouy at around the 600m mark. After we made this first turn everything started to settle down a bit and different groups started to form, I started to feel more and more comfortable sitting on the feet of Lachlan Kerin and Matt Slee, with the eventual winner of the day Levi Maxwell sitting around 50m in front of us and a couple of other athletes in between. We exited the water in a time of 26.09min around 2.50 down on the leaders and 1.30 down on the 2nd bunch. I was stoked with how the day had started out!

Through transition 1 everything went smooth and we were all out on the bike course. This course is 2 x 45km laps on flat, bumpy and open country roads it is a deceptively tough bike course! At around the 8km mark two very strong bikers went hard in my group to bridge up the gap to the leaders, my only disappointment of the day was not trying to go with this move, I got a little timid and didn’t want to take such a risk of blowing up on the bike in my first pro race and just stayed at my heart rate early into the bike. The move paid off for the boys as they made the gap to front group. I stayed with solid on the first lap with Cameron Paul not losing to much time to the big front group. Once we started the 2nd lap I could see some athletes getting popped off the back of the main group so at the 60km mark I put in an effort to try bridge the gap across to those guys, by 75km I had made it over but was definitely paying the price as my quads were absolutely smashed! Finally I made it to the end of the bike in a time of 2.11.13 and sitting in 9th place.

Henry productions/Witsup.com

I started the run with Sam Tebeck who had just won Murray Man long course the following weekend. He was flying out of transition and as much as I wanted to go with him my quads and lower back were super tight so I had to stick to my own pace hoping everything would start to free up and become more bearable. Around 3km I caught back up to Sam who was suffering through his own body issues at the time and I now knew that everyone out here was struggling and I just had to hang in there till the end. just over half way into the run at 12km my back started to feel much better and I could start to run a lot more efficient. I was now in 6th place and was running at even pace with 5th (the last money spot) I dug as deep as I could on the last lap hoping to run myself into 5th but it wasn’t to be. I finished in a time of 3.59.52 which I was over the moon about to finally crack the sub 4hr mark and wrapped the day up with a solid 6th place.

I am really happy with how my debut went yesterday and can’t wait for my body to recover so I can start building towards my next race. I’m really looking forward to (hopefully) the many years to come racing as a pro triathlete! I can’t thank all my sponsors enough for their constant support they have given me I am very lucky to be supported by so many great local businesses in the Shoalhaven community. Massive thanks to my Coach Nathan Miller for the constant attention to detail and dedication to making me a better athlete and person, and as always the biggest thanks to my Mum and Dad for always being there for me no matter what.

Thanks for reading guys.

Cheers!!