2015 is my final year of School Sport and I was fortunate enough to be announced co-captain with Carly Scott. School Sport was hosted in Penrith at the 2000 Sydney Olympics rowing venue – it's very similar to Champion Lakes only much bigger, with Olympics sized stadiums. Our race for seniors was a normal Sprint Distance Triathlon (750m swim, 20km bike & 5km run).
The weather was forecast to rain the whole time we were in Penrith, but we somehow got lucky and it was dry for all days except the last day – but the rain came after the race so it was good for us racing.
In the weeks leading up to School Sport I aggravated my achilles so my training volume was low for the last weeks. Initially I wasn’t that worried about it until I got on the bike two days before the race and it hurt with every pedal stroke. I tried not thinking about it and just managed to get through the ride, given that I was focusing on this race the whole season it wasn’t really a great timing for it to happen.
Wednesday: Race Day Individuals
On race morning I tried to not think about my achilles too much as my race was later on in the day after the younger age groups, the Junior’s and Intermediates. When I arrived I wanted to get on the bike straight away to warm up but due to restrictions we weren’t allowed to take our bikes out of transition, so I could only run.
Normally I would be walking around a bit before the race but this time I was just sitting still and hydrating. I couldn’t really feel any pain in my achilles which was a good sign and when I went to warm up it still felt good. I did my usual run warm up, then got in the water and did a swim warm up. After I warmed I didn’t have to wait long before we were called out onto the swim start pontoon.
It was a push start from the pontoon so we sat in the water for about a minute and during that time I wasn’t really thinking about anything, I just sat there and then they started the countdown from 5 and it hit me that I was about to race. I wasn’t really nervous because I wasn’t thinking about it until the 5 second countdown and then the starter horn went.
I tried to swim as hard as I could but everyone was just going around me. I wasn’t finding any feet until I reached the first turning buoy where my arm got caught in the rope but I kept my cool and just swam hard. But hard was not fast enough, I knew I was quite far back and the lead swimmer was on the bike before I was even in transition. I had a struggle to get my wetsuit off but fortunately I only lost two places and managed to gain one of those back after the bike mount.
Within half a lap of the bike I was in 8th place working with two other athletes (at the legal distance of 7m) however we lost one athlete who was dropped shortly after the end of the first lap. I was pushing really hard on the bike to keep up with a NSW athlete Hamish Longmuir, but we weren’t making up any ground on the leaders who were about a minute in front. Just before the end of the final bike lap I could feel my achilles aching but once I got into transition it was fine.
Hamish managed to pull away at the end of the bike and had a faster transition, and got out about 5 seconds in front of me, but I went out hard and caught him within the first 400m of the run and this put me into 5th place. About 300m after that I caught the next athlete and I was into 4th.
There was one athlete, Matt Hauser from QLD, out in front with about 40sec gap on the next two athletes, Oli Stenning from WA and Jack Teirny from SA. By the U-turn Jack had put about 10 seconds into Oli and my first focus was to catch Oli who was about 25 seconds in front of me.
As I got to the turn I was hurting bad, but I still tried to run faster on the way back and within 800m I was running next to Oli. I knew Oli was going to try and come with me so I went passed him as hard as I could and fortunately he never got on.
I could see Jack ahead and I was beginning to gain on him. With about 1k to go I had to make up 8 seconds on Jack to catch him and at this point he looked back at me and lifted his pace, so I ran harder to match but he kicked again up the bridge towards the finish and got away from me.
Once I was in front of the grand stand with 400m to go I knew I wasn’t going to get him so I decided to enjoy the finish with 3rd place. I entered the finishing shoot and knew I had given it all and was happy with the bronze medal.
Congratulations to Matt Hauser & Jack Teirny for their 1st & 2nd Places, and Oli who finished just behind me in 4th.
Thursday: Teams Race
The team’s race is not like a normal ITU team’s event. There is a swimmer, rider and a runner for each age group in your state.
WA’s swimmer was Drew Corrigan, rider was Oli Stenning and I was the team runner. Earlier in the morning it was raining, but again the weather was kind to us and it dried up a bit for the race. I was tired and sore from yesterday, and at first I didn’t think I was going to run that great, but I just did what I always do suck it up and get on with it.
I didn’t see the start of the race but I saw the swimmers exiting the water and running into transition, the senior boys from NSW were out first followed by the intermediates from NSW then Drew about 10sec behind in 3rd place. Within the first lap Oli was riding great and had caught the two NSW teams. When he came around to go out onto his last lap on the bike he had put a 20sec gap on both of them. As Oli dismounted I knew the team in second which was the intermediate boys from NSW and they had a real good runner.
WA Seniors wanted the overall win so I knew I had to run hard even with a 25sec gap. Oli got to me and I went to take his timing chip of his leg (our version of a baton) but I couldn’t get it off and then I tried to put it on but I was just wasting time, I eventually got it on and ran out full gas.
I looked at my watch at about 500m into my 4km run and my average pace was 2:40, I held that as long as I could and ran clocked a 2:50 first km. I settled in and kept running a hard pace.
I looked down the path at the U-turn and saw the intermediate NSW runner running quick, only about 25sec back, so I had put some time into him. The senior boys in second were NSW and they were at least 40sec down so we had a comfortable gap. At the 3km mark my average pace was bang on 3:00 however I was feeling really good so I lifted my pace for the last km and settled back in the last 200m because I knew we had gold and the overall win. My final km pace was 2:58 which I was super happy about.
Big thanks to my team mate Drew & Oli, Drew swam 7:56 for 600m and Oli rode 20:30 for 16km which is nearly 47km/h!
Also well done to the WA Team taking out 3rd place behind QLD & NSW. WA had a great race with Luke Bate (Silver), Jess Claxton (Gold), Cassia Boglio (Silver), Senior Girls: Kira Hedgeland (Gold), WA intermediate Boys (Sliver), Intermediate Girls (Gold), Junior Girls (Bronze)
Thanks to our WA Coaches Tony, Kylie, Katie and Stuart for looking after us and without this wouldn’t happen
Personally I would like to thank Mizuno Running Australia the Hitogamis were great, everyone go out a buy a pair! My coach Steve and guys I race and train with at Break Your Limits.
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