It’s been two years since I was on the start line of Huskisson long course triathlon, after a terrible race in 2016 I raced the sprint in 2017 for a mental break and enjoy the weekend a bit more.
Coming into this year I was so excited and ready for this race!
My day started with setting up transition next to some big names in Australian professional triathlon, this made me really excited and a little bit nervous to race against such good athletes and get a feel for where I am at in the long run. It was a long wait to find out whether it was a wetsuit Swim or non wetsuit. The water was 22.3 degrees so we missed out on wearing a wetsuit by 0.3 of a degree!
Once all Swim warms up were done and we had all said our good lucks the gun went off and we were racing! The pace in the Swim was on from the start thanks to Michael fox and Kieren roache, within 100m we were all single file trying to find any sort of feet in front of us. I was hanging around 15-20m off the back of Alex reithmeher and Tim Berkel for the whole first lap of the swim. I tried so hard to bridge the gap but was just lacking that top end speed on the day. On the second lap this gap started to open up more and more and I ended up about 1.15 down on the chase group with Ben Bell about 30 seconds behind me. (Swim time 29:32)
I got myself through transition 1 as fast as possible and put onto the bike, my legs felt pretty smashed at the start and it wasn’t to long until Benny Bell bridged the gap to me on the bike, I was actually really happy about this because shared pain is half the pain so they say! I really struggled the whole time on the bike, I never thought I was going to get dropped but every peddle stroke was hard work and I definitely wasn’t as strong as my legs have been in training. We both rode as hard as we could to limit the damage to the front guys and I can honestly say I was so happy to get off that bike and start running! (Bike time 2:12:41)
Benny is an absolute freak when it comes to transition (and running) he had dropped me by the time we had left our bikes and I was feeling the pinch in my legs after that ride. I just had to settle into my run and hopefully build throughout. It was bloody hot and windy all day and on the run was no different! I had some good patches and I had some bad patches but I could see everyone else out there suffering just as much as me!
I was so happy to see the finish line after 4hrs of racing and to cross the line in 6th place overall was an unreal feeling! (Run time 1:21:19) (overall time 4:05:58)
I am happy with my race and slowly but surely getting closer to the top dogs, I can’t thank everyone enough for coming out and cheering me on during the whole race it really means a lot to me.
Massive shout out to the people that support me.
- Peak fitness Huskisson
- Raine and Horne Huskisson
- Gray and Julie Parkes!
- Innovative air and electrical
- Asport cycling and fitness
- Just go driving school
- Wild ginger
- Fusion multi sport
Also to Mark Emmo and Elite energy for a fantastic race, my coach Nathan miller and my mum and Dad
Thanks for reading!