Well I have done my first TRI!
After a very hot night (didn’t get below 27c) and not much sleep we got up at 5am had a shower, breakfast, packed up all the gear and made our way down to Sandringham. When we arrived it was pretty full on, people everywhere, everyone trying to get into translations areas. Once I got my bike, shoes, towel, helmet, cap and sun glasses ready I put on my wetsuit up to my hips grabbed my swim cap & goggles and headed off down to the beach.
On my way out of the transition area I caught up with Lisa and we walked down together, according to Lisa my mind was somewhere else, she was probably right. When I first saw the bay and swim area I thought my god they have not put out the buoys and the swell looked like 1 to 1.5m from the South-West.
At this point we noticed the area temp seemed to be a lot cooler, looking at the data later from the
BOM it had!
I left Lisa up on the cliff to watch and headed down onto the sand, pulled up the wetsuit all the way, put on the cap and goggles and got wet, the water was warm but swimming out was directly into the swell, hard work!
I did my warm up swim came in and listed to the race briefing, lined up, chatted with a few guys in my age group and waited for our go. When we got called up to the start line, horn blew and away we went. I tried to keep out of the way of other people but did swim over the top of a few others (sorry!) round the buoys and made my way back in got to the beach started running up the beach taking off the cap & goggles and unzipping my wetsuit down to my hips.
If you know Sandringham at all there is about 500m run from beach to transition area, so after a lot of huff and puffing made it to transition! Wow! Time to find the bike, get the wetty off shoes on, sunglass on, helmet and strapped up, bike off the rack and away we go!
10km ride! – up towards South road around and then back to Half Moon Bay and back to Sandringham footy ground! During the ride I didn’t go out hard was the run up from the beach and swim left me a little breathless. In my head I said, right drink some water and start building up speed, got to the first turn did a u turn and back we go, passed the footy ground 4km’s down 6km to go, when I got down to Half Moon turn around I had passed 2 other people who had pulled out, in my mind I said, just finish it! As got back to towards the footy ground I had my final drink of water, thought to myself ok 2km run and your done. Got back into transaction put my bike back, off with the helmet, grab my running cap and off we go! I must say it was hard when starting to run.
As I got to the half way point of the run they had a drinks station, grab a cup drink and head for home! On the way back I saw one of the officials that Lisa and I see on the running events put on by
Start to Finish I said Hi and got a good morning back ( From memory I think his name is Terry!). On the way back I thought to myself how do people do this for an Ironman without feeling totally rooted, then I saw the car park to run back to the finish line, I kept on going over the line and there was Lisa waiting for me.
My Watch said 48m 10s official timing said 47m 08s.
Gave back my timing chip got some fruit, drink and a show bag, made my way out of finishing area and was greeted by Lisa with a Hug and Kiss and you’ve done it baby! After sitting down had a drink and bit of a rest I felt great again ready to do it again. After a picking up all the gear, shower and rest I felt pretty good, bit sore in the shoulders and calf’s along with been a bit tired.
We went and had a drink and feed and talked about the race. Lisa asked me the following question – would I do another tri? Answer –Ask me tomorrow.
Official Results
Activity Split Time Race Time Distance Pace Speed
SWIM 00:07:59 00:07:59 0.20km 39:55 1.50
T1 00:02:38 00:10:37
BIKE 00:22:59 0:33:36 10.00km 02:17 26.11
T2 00:01:04 0:34:40
RUN 00:12:28 00:47:08 2.20km 05:40 10.59
Next event ? We’ll let you know
Until next time from Team-LSD
