Portarlington Race Report

Two weekends ago I raced Portarlington, it’s one of the original Triathlon races in Victoria and a weekend away. Ellie and I headed down Friday night after week to the house that the team rented. On the way we stopped for dinner in Geelong before the last 30 or so km’s to Portarlington.  When we arrived at the house we found a few team mates there but half the house had gone to bed, so we quietly unpacked the car and went to bed ourselves. I woke around 6:30 go up had a shower followed by some breakfast. As others rose we chatted before we all started getting ready for the mornings Team warm-up. When we got down to the pier some other Team mates where there along with Coach Sarah all starting to setup the Tent, as per normal Ellie and I helped out. We did our normal warm up, ride out for 4k or so km’s and back again followed by some mounting and dismount practice on the hill. Followed by a little run, I kept the run short as I want to the keep the toe out of pain/over use.

Stretching after our run

After that we helped Supersprint out by setting up the racks, followed by an optional swim. The water was a little cold by shore but warmer out, a group of 10 so went in but only 8 of us made the call to swim right around the swim course, the other 2 swam back in. The water was choppy but swimmable, Geelong a few weeks earlier was way worse. After the swim I grabbed my race kit and all my gear and we headed back to the house to shower and change before heading out for an earlier lunch. After lunch we headed back to the house to chill out what some TV and do not much. It was not long before Ollie, our head coach arrived back from his long ride and prep for Ironman Melbourne. During the course of the afternoon a storm blew through and winds whipped up, Ollie was worried about the team tent and started to head back down to transition area, so I offered to go help out. We spent some time checking all the nuts and bolts and ensuring the tent walls where held down by transition rack bars. We headed back to the house and chilled out before dinner at the pub with a few team mates before hitting bed early, as we were getting up earlier we packed as much as we could into the car. 

Crew Helping out Supersprint

Sunday morning I woke up around 2am with the sound of a toilet repeat flushing over and over and over, just as I was about to get up someone did and fixed the problem. Around 4:30am I got up for shower woke Ellie and headed out for some breakfast, Ollie was up shortly after as we all got ready. After packing the car, etc. Ellie and I headed down to the pier, Ellie had to be at the TriVic tent before 5:15 with transition opening at 5:30. I started to get our Team Tent setup with Chairs, etc. Ollie showed up and we got the walls on the back up and secured it was not too long before it was time to get my bike from the car and my transition bag and get my spot all sorted out.

The wind was blowing from the North West and after racking my bike my the seat and seeing it swaying I swapped the bike around to racked it by the handle bars. I setup my transition area then headed back to the team tent and chilled out before my race.  My race start was +10mins so around 25mins pre race start I got my wetsuit on and headed down to the swim start for a warm up swim, the water close to the shore was cold, but further out you went the warm it was. Back on shore the Supersprint staff took a photo of a few of us for their website.

Chilling out before the race

Ollie happy as

Supersprint TA Team Photo

I lined up with all my age groupers we waited for the horn and off we went, the swim was choppy but not as bad as Geelong was, I found the swim easy must be all the open water swim training in various conditions this year that paid off. As I came towards the land I felt the water change from warm to cold. With a few dolphin dives I hit the shore and run into transition. Tim another TA team mate was on the side lines yelling abuse at me. I got my wetsuit off, helmet on grabbed the bike and run out off transition. At the mount line Jess and Ellie where there to police us all. I stuffed up the mount but got going quickly up the hill and out on the bike course. I felt strong and good until the back end of the course when I hit the head winds. James another TA team mate racing in my age group and I played tag passing each other over and over. We headed back into town and down into transition as we came up to the dismount line there was Jess and Ellie as they said dismount before the line I said back not going to get me! I dismounted text book style and run back into transition re-racked my bike, on with my runners grabbed my visor and headed out up the sand steps. My run has not been great since I broke my toe mainly due to lack of training,  the pace has not been there, but the goal has been to finish these races. On the way out I felt great but at the turn around I hit head winds back I pushed on as hard as I could. On the way back I noticed a few runners with MP3/iPhone/iPod, etc nothing I could do about, etc keep on going. As I came down the hill and headed into the finishing chute and over the line.

Cold Ellie

Exiting the swim

Head out of transition

Getting the job done

At the Finish Line

My Final time was 2hr even

I grabbed some fluids and headed over to the Technical Officials to report the few runners out on the course. Ellie and Jess got assigned to talk to them as they came towards the finish line. As for me I headed back to the tent waited in line for a post race massage then changed into some warmer clothes. As I changed I found someone had been to the shop got me a Poweraid and Danish, such a good Girl Friend I have! When Ellie was done with her duties of being a TO (Tech Official)  we grabbed our bags, my bike, etc from transition packed the car and headed back to the house for a quick shower before heading home.

After we got home unpacked, etc. we headed out to see a local artist play by the name of Jenny Biddle. One long weekend with happy memories.

Jenny Biddle playing Fleetwood Mac's Dreams