I couldn’t believe it. I ran along the sand at what felt
like snail’s pace at the end of the four toughest 2.5km laps on the beach at
Port Douglas. Jo, Matt, Bonnie and Will from the Sunshine Coast were yelling my
name as I doubled checked that I was in fact about to finish in 2nd….It
was confirmed as the commentator called me over the finish line. I anticipated
the wooden spoon at this race as it had be a looooonnnnnggggg time since racing
a proper professional race in Australia…. Or anywhere for that matter. My long-time
rival Sarah Crowley was racing and some faces that I didn’t even recognise as
new pros are appearing each week on the Aussie circuit. The field was small; 5
pro women. My lead up had not been ideal. On the 16th of May I was
re-admitted to Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital for another round of
radio-active iodine. This time I was given 6x the dose I had in October and
with that came a week of nausea. I did everything in my power (drugs!) to avoid
vomiting as any of my bodily fluid is radioactive and dangerous to others. I
felt pretty awful and when I went off coffee knew I wasn’t doing ok. With
admission, treatment and spending another morning in a CT/ nuclear scan machine
reignites all those awful emotions associated with Cancer and the fact that it
seems like it will never be over. Obviously locked in a hospital room for 4
days in isolation and feeling pretty dreadful meant that training was the last
thing I was able to do, nor wanted to. I started back training the day after
discharge even though I was still feeling pretty ordinary. When an impending
race is quickly approaching the pressure to tick sessions off is there. By the
weekend I was feeling a lot better but decided to err on the side of caution and
cut back on the volume as last time I had this treatment I spent the next month
battling sickness. I made sure I was recovering well and getting in the nutrition I need
to keep my immune system supported.
Then it was time to pack up the bike and head to beautiful
Port Douglas. The weather was warm and a little more humid that home but I don’t
mind those types of conditions. Race morning greeted us with near perfect
conditions. The swim started 1.5km down the beach and walking down to the start
it seemed a lot longer! They relax the wetsuit rules up north as extra
protection against the jelly fish….. not much they can do about the crocs
though! The ocean was a little choppy but I was more daunted by the distance
that seemed far longer than 1.5km! At 7:41am we were off! I had a horrible start
and was last into the water and then falling flat on my face when the first
wave hit me. Not a great start to the day….. I managed to recover and catch up
and pass 4th by the first buoy and then latch onto the feet of Renee
Baker. One girl had made a huge gap on the rest of us very quickly and Sarah
was slightly ahead but out wide. The swim is fairly straight forward with a
line of buoys parallel to the beach. Nearing the end of the swim I was still
sitting on Renee’s feet and I could see one more white ironman buoy and the
next was the yellow turning buoy. Sarah turned in for the beach at the white
buoy and Renee swam on to the yellow. I popped my head up and asked a young boy
on a paddle board ‘which one?!’ and he pointed to the yellow so I swam on with
Renee, he did however let Sarah swim on in the wrong direction. I could see
another water official paddle over to Sarah and send her back, by this time she
was now 100m or so behind us. Renee moved into T1 faster than me but we exited
together. Renee passed me pretty quickly and I then waited for Sarah…. And waited.
At the first turn around point, Sarah was still 40seconds or so down. I was
about 2mins down on first place, sitting in 3rd. By the 20km mark
Sarah still hadn’t passed me, but it wasn’t long after she passed me yelling
some profanities about the swim mishap! I let her go and continued on at my
pace trying to keep as much distance between myself and 5th place.
At the end of the bike I came into T2 in 4th, pulled on my Mizuno
Hitogami’s and set off for the beach. The 4 lap beach run is an easy course to
see those ahead and behind you. It’s also tough seeing 1.25km like that! Man I was
running slow…. 4:15-4:20pace…. This isn’t going so well. At the end of the
first lap I realised that the lead girl wasn’t on the run course which
instantly moved me into 3rd place. At this point Sarah and Renee
were running together a minute down the road and Ange about a minute behind me.
I found myself focused on trying not to let Ange catch me when I realised I should
be thinking about trying to catch the two in front. That changed everything.
The second 5km I felt the best I had in the whole race. The wind was getting
stronger on the run out and I could see Sarah was struggling having tried to
repair the damage down in the swim. She was paying for an epic effort on the
bike. I passed her around 6.5km and told her to ‘think about next weekend and
just finish for some money’. Oh my gosh- I am in 2nd! Unfortunately
it was too short and too late for me to do anything more and Renee had a
cracker of a race taking the win just over a minute in front of me. I was ecstatic
with 2nd! I felt really bad for Sarah, but she is one tough cookie
and soldiered on to finish. She gave me two really encouraging things to think
about from this weekend: 1) that I stuck to my race plan and it worked and 2)
that I can still do this with everything I’m going through and to what extent I
can go once this is all over with? Up until her saying that I hadn’t even
thought about it.
For now though, there’s not much on the triathlon scene for
a couple of months. I’ve been roped into running the Gold Coast Marathon with
my little brother in about 4 weeks which will be interesting! Aside from that I’m
playing the waiting game for 3months to see if the radio-active iodine was
successful in the treatment of what Cancer remains. Until then, nothing more I can
do but get on with it!!!!
Rachie xo
