Sunday, March 17, 2013

A–Z of Triathlon

A             Age Grouper / Aero
B             Brick Session / Body Marking / Bonk
C             Tri Clubs over 200 in Australia
D             Drafting / Dehydration
E             Endurance / Electrolytes
F             Fartlek / Field / Freestyle
G             Gels / Goggles
H             Hypothermia / Hydration / Heart Rate Monitor
I              Ironman Widow – Partner who never sees him/her due to all the training required
J              Junk Km’s
K             Killer workout
L              Lace System for Shoes / Lactate Threshold
M            Ironman M-DOT / Max Heart Rate
N            Nutritional
O            Olympic Distance – Noosa a Must do for any Triathlete
P             Race Plan / Pronation
Q             Quadrathlon - Four disciplines - Swim, Kayaking, Cycling and Running
R             Rack (Bike Rack) / Race Director / Red Card
S             Sprint Distance (Short Course) / Swam Cap
T             Transition areas / Target Heart Rate / Timing Chip / Triathlete / Tapering
U             Ultra man – Ultra long distance Triathlon - 3 days approx 500km
V             VO/2 volume of Oxygen used
W            Wetsuit / Wave / Wipe Out
X             Xterra Triathlons – Road/TT Bikes replaced with Mountain Bikes and Run is Trail Running.
Y             Yellow Zone – no overtaking on the bike. / Yellow Card
Z             Training Zones

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Club to Club Report Race


This morning saw me finish some unfinished business. A few years one of my first open water swims was Club to Club between Edithvale and Aspendale Life Saving Clubs. Open water swims in my early days never felt good, put me in a pool I was happy as a clam, open water well there were good days and bad days.  The first time I raced this race I didn’t even get 50ms out in the water, the waves were more like surf beach, say 1.5m to 2m waves, but as I said this was early on and I’ve had a lot more experience in the open water.

On the way down to the event, Ellie and I checked out the bay conditions, we could see the waves had some white caps and wind was blowing from the South East. The good news was the bay swell was pushing up the bay which meant the swim should push us up the course.

Bay Condiitons
 
We parked, registered, headed back to car to grab our wetsuits, goggles, etc and then start the some 20min walk to Edithvale to the swim start. Once we reached Edithvale, we made pulled up our wetsuits tried to start our warm up swim, but the race organizers called us all out of the water for a “Race Debrief” several swimmers commented that it should have been a race briefing. After the “Debrief” as the first wave lined up, Ellie and I got in the water and did a bit of a warm up swim.

During the warm up swim the thing I noticed was how cool the water was. During the week we had a few days of rain which will cool the water down, however it was clear and clean. Last night I checked the bay water temp and it was 21c. I was glad to have my full sleeve wetsuit instead of sleeveless. I swam some 50m out felt good, I watch the wave starts for from my floating position in the bay noting the 2 sand bars, before too long I headed back into the beach just in time to see Ellie’s wave start.

Very quickly it was my turn to line up along with all my fellow 40-49ers both women and men. Lot’s of chatting to kill time and nerves. We received our final instructions follow by the 10 secs warning with that one swimmer said see you guys and headed off, so  the rest of us followed suit. I run/waded out to the first sand bank and then started swimming, I felt a push on the left of the swell of the bay, I passed the first buoy and headed out deeper into the open water and found the second sand bank before finding the channel buoy and head up the beach towards the final can.

Out in the channel the water was warmer than by the shore the trade off is that the wind was up and waves were pushing strong up the bay, you could feel the wave suck you back in and push you along. As I came up to the final buoy and turned into the shore and run up the beach.

I completed my bogie race and ticked off another race in 27m 51s.

Towards the finish line


The finish line



This completes my summer racing season, look out for my season in review.