Monday 12 November 2012

Huskisson Sprint Triathlon

It was a bit of a last minute decision to go race Huskisson two weekends ago but couldn't let the opportunity pass to race close to home and at an awesome place. I have not raced a non-drafting event for quite some time, almost all of my races through the season are draft legal but had been feeling strong on the bike lately so thought I should have a crack.
Left home just after 4am Sunday morning to arrive at Huskisson at 6am which I rode in from the bike turn around for a warm up. Arrived at the event went to registration and then racked my bike in transition. At that time there was not many people as the Enticer race was up first and is usually only a couple of hundred entered in that event. The Enticer was the first race at 7am and my race (Sprint) was at 8am so had a good amount of time for a solid warm up. The course was a 750m swim in Jervis Bay, an undulating 20km cycle out and back and a 5km run out and back along the footpath that runs next to the bay. The weather for my race was perfect, only the slightest breath of wind and air temperature of 20 degrees Celsius.

The U20 males was the first wave off in the Sprint with 34 competitors. The combined field in the sprint was 404 competitors. The race start was a bit delayed but just after 8am we were off racing. I had one of the best starts I have ever had, smashed myself out to the first buoy and already gained a 20m lead. Felt really good throughout the swim, maintained a solid pace and came out of the water with a 30sec lead. The run from swim exit to transition was extremely hard, coming off the beach and then up 50+ steps and then another 100m to bike. Was now out onto the 20km cycle leg, the course was fairly hard, there was no major hills but the constant up and down made it difficult. Felt really strong on the bike, was aiming to average 40km/h for the ride so kept looking down at the computer to make sure I wasn't slowing down at any point. Just after the turn around I was curious as to where 2nd and 3rd place was, it was not until 500m or more after the turn around I saw 2nd and 3rd place riding together. It was a bit of a relief that I had that much of a gap but still kept pushing along to increase the gap. Got off the bike feeling not too bad after how hard I rode and now had to focus on completing this 5k run in a decent time. Felt a little sluggish on the run but still managed to post 3rd fastest time overall in the sprint. Coming into the last 100m 1st was the best feeling and going through the finish banner was awesome in a time of 59:29.

Overall really happy with my race placing 1st in the U20 male by over 3min and 1st outright in the Sprint by over a minute. Would like to thank Murray Mackne from Alltrack Bicycles at Heathcote for getting the Stevens bike tuned to perfection and Troy Fisher at Stevens Bikes-Australia. The Stevens Stratos definitely helped me to post a ride time 2 minutes faster than anyone else in my age group and 2nd fastest time for the day.

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