The Big Bay Swim - 3.2km

This morning, I did the Big Bay Swim from Port Melbourne to Williamstown. The route is 3.2km but due to the strong currents and the lack of markings of the route, I my swim would have been close to 4km. This swim is an absolute Personal Best. I have never swam this distance before, not even in a pool and this swim would be in the deepest water ever!!

The girls who did it with me were Claire, Renee, Lidia and Juzzie. We were all nervous about this swim as it would be all our longest swim. We all arrived there around 8am but we had plenty of time to chill out especially as the swim start was delayed due to a tanker being in the way.

The swim was a special one. We were first blessed by Father Bob McGuire. It was a heartfelt blessing as we acknowledged the owners of the land and also gave a blessing to a good swim by all.

When the start gun went off, many people ran into the water. At this point, I was one of the last people in the water, I was so relaxed and didn't even swim until I was chest deep in water!

Once I started swimming, it was fine. We had great directional mark ups up to the 1km mark. After that, there was nothing! That is also when the currents started to pick up and I was in deep deep water! My body was sinking as the waves were picking up. I have never had this sensation before in an open water swim. Shallow water waves (like the ones at Elwood, Sandringham or Brighton) is nothing compared to swimming in the deep ocean. The waves were so strong that at some points, my elbows were not high enough for the waves and were crushed upon impact.

The currents and the lack of direction brought me away from the shore which was a worry. Looking up, I could not see anyone in front of me. Not realizing that I had swam too far away, I had to stop a few times to let the lifesavers tell me where I am suppose to go! There were seconds of worry during the swim as I was in the middle of the ocean!!! But I ploughed through the waves and just kept swimming.

When a lifesaver finally came and told me that I needed to go around the pier, I knew that I was nearly there. The last few hundred meters were pretty satisfying. When I knew where I had to go, I swam faster and more efficiently and passed several people. I saw many people at the finished line and that's when I realized how far off course I had swam. I came in after Renee (she had a coffee in her hand at that point), Clare and Lidia. Juzzie came in shortly after me.
I completed the swim in 1:08:15 and depending on the distance I actually swam, it was awesome. I enjoyed the swim, even with the waves and being in the middle of no where.

Check how oily I am?!

"so....I didn't win this race did I?"

After the swim, there were some showers and a place to get changed. We relaxed a bit and waited for spot prizes to be announced. As not many people were there, the organizers made sure we would win something. I won some cupcakes, (Engine) swim cap and goggles.

It was a great day and another great achievement that I would never had done over 2 years ago. No worries for the Shepparton 70.3 swim of 1.9km now. It is just a matter of being able to ride 90km followed by a half marathon!!

Great Day!!!

Geelong Olympic Distance (OD#2)

Today I raced my second Olympic distance triathlon as part of the Geelong multisport festival over 10-12 Feb 2012.

I should add at this point that I fell off my bike during a training ride on Saturday morning. We walked through much of the sand/gravel before the ride and so much sand was in my cleats. We were doing a course familiarization of the ride course and when it came time to turn around at the lights, I could not get my cleats out of the pedals...there was nothing left to do but to fall off my bike sideways. Luckily there was no traffic on the roads so I fell (as gracefully as I could) on the road. The result of the fall was scrapped knee and elbow, bruises on my quads, groin and hip from the fall itself and the bike falling on my legs. I also have bad whiplash and my neck hurts!!! Will see the physio on Monday.

Throughout Saturday, the rains never stopped!!! There was so much rain that they recorded over 16mm of it but the triathlon still went ahead (BIG phew!!!) As we checked in our bikes in on Saturday, all we had to carry to transition was our bag and pump. I went into transition and took a while to set up everything as my bike was naked!! I bought some pit stop yesterday so that was something new which I added on the bike along with my drink bottle, gels, repair kit, spare tube and for the first time - my shoes on the bike.

After we watched the long course people get through T1, we got into our wetsuits ready for the swim. Not sure if the time for the start was also delayed for the Olympic distances but we got into the water to warm up and off we went.

Swim

God the swim was long...the swim is 1500m but it felt like it went on forever. The first 600m, we swam past 2 red bouys and turned at the white one then we swam past 2 more red bouys for the 500m that also took a while. The hardest was the 300m as people from other age groups were catching up to us and it was hard to see where I was actually swimming to!! I read that you swim towards the ferris wheel so that's what I did. The last 100m was also hard as it was not easy seeing where the swim finish was. During the Gatorade series, I would say that my swim is not down the bottom of the pack but I guess you wouldn't sign up for a race like Geelong unless you know that you can swim 1500m comfortably. I came out of the swim 37 out of 41. I didn't push myself hard enough in the swim. There was several moments where I was trying to swim past people but they were totally blocking me. There was even a girl who was doing back stroke the entire way through the swim (panic much!). When I got my direction and breathing right, I worked on my technique and making sure that I was stretching out as much as I could and also pulling through right. Must work on this for 2012-2013 season.

T1

Transition was good, time to put on the race belt increases transition time but everything else went to plan. Not having to put on the shoes was great and being able to run to the mount line bare feet also helped. For the first time, I also put on the helmet before the glasses which also worked as I had the glasses on top of the race belt.

Ride

God the ride was hard. I really need to work on the ride as my cadence was so low!! I drank too much on the ride and finished it at the 22km mark but thank God that there was aid stations and I grabbed a bottle of electrolytes and filled up the bottle and I had more water to survive the rest of the race. The ride through the salt marsh was disgusting....the smell was foul!! The rain had also stopped but the roads were still wet which also slowed the ride down. I wasn't too comfortable on the ride. Due to the fall the day before, my left knee was bleeding and my left elbow was swollen. To lean on the tri bars on the ride was proving to be difficult but I had to find my "good spot" to hold onto for 40km. Must work on the ride more on the Felt bike. I did ride past several people and even took over few people on the hill climb which was good. Even better, I overtook a few people on the descent too (which is a first).

T2
I dismounted well off the bike! I was very proud of myself and I didnt have an anxiety attack or shaking profusely before the dismount line. Getting into transition, it was a bit of a run through mud and wet grass. It was a matter of placing the bike on the rack, taking helmet off, putting on the shoes and grabbing my cap....off I went. Due to the rain, extra preperations were needed to keep things dry. I had several plastic bags so I placed it on top (covering) the running shoes and also folded the towel differently so the towel was keeping my things dry which worked.

Run

The run was surprisingly very good. My legs were hurting but after about 1km or so, I could get into my running rhythm and kept as much as I could at running at pace of < 6min/km. I tried pacing at 5:30min/km but there were a few hills and that slowed me down. I also walked through several drink stations so that slowed my time down. The run through the park was good and when we went through the transition area and up the street, that's when it started to hurt running. I was running out of energy bad and had to resort to my wild bean shotz gel. Unfortunately I had no water with me so swallowing of the gel was hard and thank god for another aid station before the finishing line. Yes, the run hurt and my run time was slower than Noosa but I felt good during the run. I also ran with my Newtons for the first time in a race which worked out great. I had several blisters on the back of my ankles at the end but only noticed them during presentations. No shin splints to complain about either.

Here is a photo I took post race.

Anxiety & and the art of a graceful bke mount

What the hell is a bike mount you might ask?! Well in the world of (sprint) triathlons, one should never come out of transition with bike shoes on ones feet and mounting their bike after the line only having ran several meters (sometimes hundreds of meters) in a uncoordinated manner as bike shoes have large plastic attachments called cleats. In the world of sprint triathlon, running out of transition barefoot saves you seconds. Seconds which may place you between coming first, getting a podium placing, top 10, top 20...you get my point.

Anyways getting back to the point of this entry, after training with tri alliance for over 2 years now, I have finally found a way to mount the bike with the shoes still clipped in without worrying if I am going to fall over and crash my woman bits on the top tube. Instead of doing the hop-hop method which for over 2 years I have tried to master, I am using the right foot on pedal and swing left leg over seat (aka reverse dismount) method. This method only works if I am on the large chain ring due to the momentum I get from a quarter turn of the 54 teeth chainring and I generally stay in the large chain ring for the entire race anyway. I am no longer spinning my legs over the small chain ring anymore coming into T2. Keeping my ride and spinning on the larger chainring is sufficient. I have not done a tri alliance dismount since my stack of BRW 2011 where I fell off my bike and had a concussion. I actually practiced it today and it is something which I am now comfortable doing in a race.

Alright, what about the Anxienty part? Well when coach Greg had us to demonstrate our bike mounts, I had an anxiety attack. My heart rate shot up and I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. I felt like I needed to spew and tears were rolling down my face. My anxiety stems from my fear of disappointment. This is something which I need to work on. I felt the pressure (especially being a coach) that I needed to know how to mount a bike especially as I have been training with the group for over 2 years. My fear of falling and bringing shame onto the group was playing havoc on my anxiety.

The anxiety attack went on for about 30 minutes or so, even after I had mastered the bike mount. I do need to practice and be more efficient at mounting, placing my feet on the shoes correctly, putting my feet into the shoes, doing up the straps and then doing all that backwards for the dismount part of the race.

I am so glad that I have learnt how to do this part of the triathlon and now I can practice on getting better at it and the other legs of the triathlon especially the run.