Geelong Long Course - The Race Report

"Treat it as your last Long Brick training day before Ironman Melbourne" was the advice given to the Ironman Melbourne Group by the Head Coaches and this was the strategy I went with for the entire weekend.

Swim - 39:38 (43/49)

My swim wave (F 18-34) went off at the same time as the M18-29. As always, I started on the shore about 3/4 of the way back as I am still not the strongest swimmer and this would minimise people swimming over me as much as I could in the first 50m or so. When the gun went off, I actually found myself swimming through groups (same as Shepparton). I tried as much as I could to not swim over people and would swim on either side, I still haven't found enough aggression during this phase of the race yet.

Around the 1.2km mark was where the wave behind me caught up and because they are the stronger swimmers of that wave, they were also more aggressive. Because I was not as stressed about this race, I reacted very calmly when I was kicked in the cheeks, gauged at the googles, grabbed on the legs and punched on the head. I just kept swimming - what else could I do, it is not like they really could stop and apologised or let me swim ahead of them, I just kept swimming. I did stop twice to check that my timing chip was still on my ankle as my Rocket Science band is too big and the strap was nearly coming off. I swam at my comfortable Ironman pace as per the coach's advice. I knew I could swim faster but I needed to keep my pace. One thing I did differently compared to Shepparton was that I kicked less during the main part of the swim which helped on my bike leg. I came out of the water at 39:38 which is about a 2min PB on Shepparton.

Nutrition - 1 gel & half bottle of Gatorade 15min before start.

T1 - 3:10 (24/49)

Coming out of the water and into T1, I felt great, I looked down at my watch and I knew I had swam at a faster time and when the watch still had a 3 in front (instead of 40+min) I was ecstatic. I decided to race without socks and without an extra pair of knicks. The Elite Tri Suit I just received (Rocket Science) had some padding in it and I found the 2 knicks scenario very uncomfortable during Shepparton. I had some gels taped onto my bike this time around too as I found the 2 gel flask on the back of my trisuit quite heavy and hard to handle. I decided to put the shoes on during T1 and ran out clip-clopping as I wasn't confident enough riding up the hill without having my feet in the shoes.

Bike - 3:09:25 (42/49)

Photo taken by my Mum

The ride up the hill was not as bad as I expected. I did drop a gel but luckily I had taped on extra. I accidentally threw the empty gel packet to the side of the road, this is very unlike me (I always tuck it somewhere) and the sight of gel packets on the side of the road really pisses me off. As I did this, a TO was standing right there and saw it, my stomach turned as I thought I was going to get a DNQ or a warning was going to be given but nothing happened (at the end) but the thought of my first warning played on my mind. Never doing that consciously again!

To be honest, I enjoyed the bike course much better than Shepparton as I didn't get bored. The challenges of the undulated course followed by sharp turns and even sharper U-turns made the course interesting. We had to then ride back into Eastern Beach and onto Western beach before having to ride up the short hill again out. The wind picked up on the 2nd lap of the ride (as always) but it didn't bother me. The difference between this ride and the one at Shepparton was that I actually rode past people. This could be due to the caliber of competitors at the Geelong race more than my own athletic ability but mentally, it was a positive. On the 2nd lap, I also introduced liquid foods (with protein) and I found that this helped to prevent bonking on the course and I rode past even more people towards T2.

When there was a head wind, I just found a good gear to stay on and just paid extra attention to my pedal stroke and repeated the line "J curve, J curve" over and over until the course would change direction or when I needed to take in nutrition (every 30min). The weather was not too hot which resulted in only 1 bottle of water consumed over 3 hours (not ideal) but this also meant that I didn't need to stop for any toilet breaks.

This was also the first long ride with the SRAM RED crankest (53/39 with a 165mm crank length) and I noticed the difference during the race. My hips were not as tight (seat height went up due to shorter crank length) and felt much better during the run.

The course was more trickier than Shepparton (riding through the park, undulated, sharp turns and U turns) but not as much head and cross winds - I rode it with about a 5min PB.

Nutrition - 5 gels, 1 bidon of water, 0.2 bidon (concentrated Shotz), 0.2 bidon of liquid food

T2 - 2:20 (36/49)

No fancy dismounts but I had my feet out of the shoes.

This is where I saw my mum on the side lines, she was proud as punch! T2 was interesting as I had to actually sit down to put on my socks for the run. Other than applying more Vaseline in the tricky areas, I just took my helmet off and that was it. I decided to run without a hat as I hadn't been training with one and I have started to find them slightly annoying.

Run - 2:06:51 (44/49)

Photo by Brianna Laugher

I ran past mum again and she was trying to wave me down for a photo - how cute. The run was interesting, undulated but fun. I didn't stop at all throughout the run and only slowed into a quick walk through the drink stations. I had a gel every 30min on the run and it came close to the timing of the drink stations. I introduced coke into my nutrition at the 10km mark and it made things much easier to deal with. No toilet stops on this race as I didn't drink too much on the bike course and only took small sips on the run. No electrolytes, lollies or bananas, just water (with gels) and coke. Some drink stations had coke which was not as degassed as others and I found myself burping whilst I ran - made for an interesting run to say the least.

At the 19km mark of the run was a bloody steep hill which we all had to conquer. I tried as hard as I could to lift my knees and activate my calves but the last 1/3 of the way up looked like a horse trot rather than a graceful run - oh well at least I didn't walk it. The last 1.5km I ran with someone from Shepparton Tri Club, I said to him "Lets do this last km well, its all we have to do today, nothing else" and he came along with me all the way to the finish line. We sprinted the last km like how Coach Greg taught me during our Sunday runs and ran across the line with everything I had. I made sure I zipped up my tri-suit and took my sunglasses off and sprinted to the end.

Nutrition - 4 gels, water and coke 

I paid little attention to my Garmin watch the entire race - I only looked at it once after the swim, once during the run as I knew I was way off my 6min/km pace (was hovering at 6:30min/km at that point) and at the finish line.

My Stats:

Total time 6:01:26
941 out of a total of 1077 finishers
158 out of a total of 206 for 30-34
44 out of a total of 49 for Females (30-34)

Swim - 39:38 @ 2.88km/h
Bike - 3:09:25 @ 28.51km/h, 2:10min/km
Run - 2:06:51 @ 9.98km/h, 6:01min/km