I’m a little bit frustrated with having to write something along similar lines to the last few 70.3s I’ve raced. I’m trying my best to stay positive with my training and racing but it’s hard to do when I feel as though I’m hitting my head against a brick wall.
I set off to Busselton 70.3 this weekend after a PB at Julia Creek sprint tri, a fantastic training block with minimal upsets, a proper taper and impending excitement about the race ahead. Even with a field of Australia’s best female 70.3 athletes, I was egar to see where I was standing amongst these girls. With an overnight stay in Perth I picked up fellow Aeromax athlete Rebecca at the airport Thursday morning , after a couple stresses where my USA trip had been charged twice to my credit card and my cash for the weekend put down on the car rental deposit, not to mention the wrong car being given to us too, we manage to stuff both our bike bags in the Barina sedan and made our way south to Busselton. Arriving with good time I got my run/ swim done that afternoon before having dinner with my lovely friend John Polson.
Pre race day was fairly straight forward with an easy ride and a swim in the crisp water, we didn’t venture far out due to the recent worrying shark sightings in the area. All the formalities done with rego, briefing, bike racking, an early dinner and an abnormally good sleep, the next morning I was excited and felt I was really ready for this one. Race day saw the impending rain clearing, however the chop had really picked up and the ocean was murky and rough. With a 1minute buffer to the pro men, we were off at 7:01 into the choppy ‘sharky’ waters of Busselton. I lost the feet of the main pack around the first buoy and was left with two girls tapping on my feet for the rest of the swim. They really shouldn’t have followed me as a fatal navigational error was made around the 3rd buoy which saw me swim in the wrong direction to the final turning buoy. Realising my mistake a few hundred meters too late and I had to swim back out to sea to make the final turn back to the beach. I ran into T1 with two other pro girls and left in 6th place. 7th passed me about 5km into the ride, but I thought if I could use her to pace me I might be able to make up some lost time. It is a course where you can see other competitors at the furthest turn around. At this point I was about 4minutes down on Michelle Wu and a little more on Lisa, who was leading. 4 girls were still behind me at this point. At the beginning of the 2nd lap I started to feel a little weird. I would describe it as dizzy or lightheaded. I didn’t feel right, that was for sure. I had kept up my nutrition so it wasn’t a lack of carbs/ sugar but I felt faint. I pushed on- either it would pass or I’d pass out and crash! At the last turn around I’d lost a little more time to the girls in front and Bec had put some into me. Not long after Bec flew past me at 100miles/ hour and I was left felling weak in her wake, even though my head had come good. Still never say die…. Onto the run and I felt as good as I can going into 21km of running after 1.9km swim & 90km ride. I plugged away, being passed by one girl and catching the girl who passed me early in the bike. I could see an exciting race playing out amongst the leading females, tinged with a pang of disappointment that I was too far back to be in the mix. I crossed the line in 8th in a 4:43- better than NZ but still with an extra 13minutes that never used to be there.
24hours later and I’m still struggling with the frustration of it all. The training, the lack of performance in the racing and asking myself what I’m doing so wrong. The training seems to be going great guns, but the difficultly I’m facing is transferring it over into the racing. I know somewhere in there is the athlete I have been in earlier times and even one better and maybe I’m trying to rush things with my return from injury. Perhaps I need to lower the standards and expectations upon myself at this point to allow myself the ‘time’ to return to racing, after all there’s still not a day or race where I don’t feel the ‘ghost’ pain of my injury lurking in my pelvis. And if it weren’t for my ever so attractive SIJ belt I have to wear when I race I fear my career would already be over.
Okay so there it is, my vent and my frustration with myself. Still I’m allowed the time it takes to write this to wallow. Put it in the bank and move on, as a friend had once said to me: ‘there’s no training like racing’. A day to chill in Perth with a little ride and swim, home on the red eye and back to work at midday tomorrow- YUCK. A few days of freshening up the legs and backing up to race my now ‘home’ race of Byron (Olympic) Triathlon this coming Saturday. Watch out for me in my brand spanking new race suit!!! Thanks Orca!!!! (had to lose a couple of kgs to squeeze into it!)
Thanks again to my wonderful sponsors; Mizuno, Orca, Enervit, Ryders, Oshe, Compressport and Allez sport and a big thankyou to Gilsey for copping the above on a daily basis.
Rachie xo
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