I have to admit that I was pretty nervous going into this race as it was the first of 2 qualifying races for the 2012 ITU World Age Group Championships to be held in Auckland next October. This race doubled as a warm up event and a qualifying event so huge amounts of triathletes came out of the wood work to race this race.
As far as organisation went, I was very impressed with it BUT That said, this is the first MAJOR event that I have been to so I really have nothing to compare it to.
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| Canterbury Tri club about to ride the bike course |
We flew up on the Friday morning, I put my bike together and relaxed the rest of the day. The Canterbury Tri Club members (about 15 of us) met early on the Saturday morning to ride the course and this was a really good thing to do. Took it easy for the rest of the day and the race was on Sunday morning.
Great idea to stay in a hotel with a lap pool and a hot tub!!!!
Race report.
750m swim / 20km bike / 5km run – Sprint distance around the Auckland waterfront – Stunning course and the course they will be using for the 2012 World Champs. Check out www.triauckland.co.nz for the course details and pictures.
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| My bike, the red Avanti |
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| heading off towards the swim start |
There was 30 in my age group and 106 in my wave start – my goal was to come out of the water top 10. I lined up on the far end of the pontoon to make sure that I had clear water so I could set into my stroke and then put the power on as I got more comfortable. This proved to be a great decision as I had clear water all the way to the first buoy and at that stage was in the front third of the field. I passed a few more on the second leg and rounded the next buoy to head for home in the top 10.
Put on a bit of power and exited the water 4th in my Age Group and in the top 10 in the wave of over 100.
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| That's me - the one on the far left of the pontoon |
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| Swim course |
750m swim – 11.49
Had a really good transition from Swim to bike as my bike was in a very good position in the racks.
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| Bike transition |
Started out into the bike leg feeling good right up until I hit the first hill about 2 km in. I was still puffing after my swim effort and the legs weren’t quite there yet so I struggled with that first hill. I came right after a few more km’s and was reasonably happy with my bike leg – one thing that I really took away from this is that I need to do more hill work. The bike was an “out and back” type and we had a nice tail wind out but a head wind all the way home.
20km bike – 42.40
Been doing a bit of work on my transitions and this showed with my bike to run T2 – I was in and out super fast. Very happy.
The run was always going to be difficult as I had not put in the training needed to be able to run fast. I have been seeing a physio and an osteopath for the last few months to try and get my knee right – I refuse to lay blame on the fact that I have a bad knee, the reality is that I didn’t do enough strength work on this and I have this to work on now. Considering that I haven’t been doing much running of late, I thought that I had a good run.
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| Finishing chute - Done !! |
Total time – 1.24.48
21st out of 30 in my age group – the top 10 qualified and there is another 10 spots up for grabs in February.
One point to note is that our age group (45-49) was a very strong group. The winner was an ex New Zealand swimmer and all around sports person. His time was 1.03.45, not too far off the elites finish times.
The winner of the 45-49 Age Group World Championship in Beijing a few months ago was 1.07.47, won by Australian Mick Maroney.
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