Today saw Ellie complete her first Triathlon. This has been in the making for some time but during an injury this was hold, last year she tore her plantar fascia. No running and various treatment. About 2 weeks ago the doc she said she could start running again, but not more than 15mins. However she was able to train in swimming, and riding. She had completed 3 Open Water Swims lots of riding – minimum of 30km up to 100km. Perfect for Olympic Distance Triathlons, however as the run was the weak part she would need to pick a short event. During one of my races (Elwood) she volunteered the event we she got a free race entry. We picked St Kilda the last race allow her foot some time off to heal.
The last few weeks was crash course of transition practice, I went out and purchased the bits and made my own transition rack for around $100. 4 session later transitions later she felt ready. My next trick was to enrolled her in the Tri Alliance Race day tips and tricks. During the session our Tri-the-Try coach Bernadette asked who was going to run out of transition with shoes on the bike, Ellie was pointed out and said I know you are! Ahhhh my training paying off.
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| Transition Practice in the local park |
This morning I picked up Ellie and drove her to the event, when we got there we walked over to the Tri-Alliance Taj filling up water bottles on the way through. After dropping he bags off in the TA Taj we went over to transition. I left her to rack her bike and setup her transition area. When she got back to the tent we went through everything in transition to ensure all was ok, it was not she had racked her bike the wrong way. A quick dash back in transition and change of setup ready to race.
Around 6:20 I asked her to start getting her wetsuit on, just as she was her mobile rang, her mum was coming down to see the event and Taxi had dropped her off at the wrong spot. I took the phone from Ellie and get her get the wetsuit on while I gave directions. Once the wetsuit was on time to walk down to the swim start and listen to the race briefing, followed by a quick warm up swim. Ellie’s mum found me and I arrange a spot where she could start to watch the event. As Ellie’s wave was about to start I got Dave to call out good luck to Ellie in her first Tri, the horn sounded and off they went. I found a spot on swim exit to support her, she came out and run to transition. As she worked her way through transition and out on the bike I cross over to the bike course to support. I saw her pass me approx 2.5km in and again at the 9km mark. I then quickly headed down to get pics of her on the run course, followed by a quick dash to the finish.
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| Swim Start |
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| Ellie coming out of the swim |
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| Heading out to the turn around on the bike |
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| Heading back to transition |
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Heading out on the run
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| Final turn before the finish line |
Ellie finished in 50m 44s, not bad for her first Tri.
We did a race debrief and Ellie knows mistakes were made, but at the end of the day the brief was to finish and have fun, which she did.
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