Race Report - Rarotonga International Triathlon

Rarotonga International Triathlon 7th May 2011

1.5km swim / 41km bike / 10km run

I took a small group of 10 people with me for this year’s event with 7 competing and it was a wonderful group of awesome people – we were all at various levels of ability but everyone had the same goal – to finish and we all achieved this goal.

the group, 7 competitors and 3 supporters

What an amazing event in a spectacular destination – Rarotonga, set in the idyllic South Pacific, an island set inside a tropical reef abound with sea life.

Boiler swim (boiler in the distance)

This event was a festival of events over the week starting on the Thursday evening with The Boiler Swim, an 800m swim out through a reef passage and around the “old boiler” of a steam ship wreck and back to the beach.

The swim started about 5.30pm out the front of Trader Jacks Bar and Restaurant so there was quite a big crowd in attendance and I’m sure half of them were wondering what the hell was going on when we all turned up to swim from the beach right in front of the bar.

I had an awesome swim finishing in 7th place overall, 5th male out of a field of over 60 and I won a prize (a very nice tee shirt and a bottle of wine) – my time was 12min 03sec

Boiler swim race start

After the race it was back to the Edgewater Resort (where we all stayed and where most of the events were held) for a pre-race Pasta Party – a fun event of carb loading and a couple of beers, pretty relaxed I can assure you!!

Friday was a rest day but we all went out to Muri beach to have a swim on the swim course – it was quite windy but so nice to swim in the lagoon “sans” wetsuit as the water was so warm. Not much happened for the rest of the day.

Saturday dawned and wouldn’t you know it – wind!!! BUT this was to be a good thing. Most of the locals were hoping for hot conditions as this is what favours them as this is how they train – we even got a really good rain shower during the ride.

We had a ride organised for us to get us and the bikes to the race start about 10km away so we arrived at the venue early which was nice, we all just got ourselves organised in transition. I don’t train with food so I didn’t want to try this in a race scenario BUT I did load up on liquids. They were expecting it to get hot but thankfully, it didn’t.


an hour and a half to race start

Once my transition was all sorted it was off to get numbered and start to get my head in the right space. This was to be my first ever Olympic distance event and I had never even run a 10k before so I was a little nervous going in. I had a very realistic expectation of what I wanted to achieve – my first goal was that I wanted to finish, I knew that I could swim 1500m and ride 41km and I had run 5k events so even if I walked, I wanted to finish and my second goal was to finish in under 3 hours.

I had worked out in my head that the swim would take me half an hour, the bike should take me an hour and a half and the run should take me about an hour – I’ll put my results with splits at the end of this report.

Everyone headed out for a warm up swim but this was more about seeing how much current was flowing through the lagoon – the event was timed to go at full tide to reduce the drag BUT they didn’t count on the wind. There was a very strong current but it was the same for everyone and I knew how comfortable and confident I am in the ocean so I didn’t let it concern me at all. I was thinking that this would sort out the pool swimmers as I had a chuckle to myself.

pre race start

Race briefing over and after a short prayer (they are very religious in the Cook Islands) we were off. I stuck close to the locals on the right side of the course on leg one as I thought they would be the ones that knew the conditions – this proved to be a mistake on the first leg, they were thinking that the current would help “push” them but it was the opposite and the first leg of 590m was just a hard out slog into waves and wind and the frontrunners all came together around the first buoy. The second leg was going with the current so it was all good to stretch out and get a good gain and managed to pass a few people and around the third buoy I was in the lead group. The final leg was the longest at 690m and it was just like a drag strip with everyone going for it. I exited the water in 7th place so was very happy with that.

pre race prayer

Time check: 1500m in 26.08 in tough conditions, 7th place after the swim











T1 was a blur – running up from the beach there was so many people forming a chute all the way to transition. It was awesome to hear everyone screaming and saying “well done, going great” – got into transition and it was so nice not to have to take off a wetsuit. Super quick T1, on with the helmet and shoes and away.

fast transition T1

and off on the bike course

The bike section was a full loop of the island (31km) and a small loop of the airport and main town (10km) – the first 15-20km of the bike was going along great, right up until the point that one of my hands slipped off my tri bars and my seat “twisted” so I needed to stop and fix it. Quite a few people passed me while I was doing this but shit happens right?

We also had a really good shower of rain – it cooled me down nicely but made for tricky riding conditions.

The rest of the bike was good but the last 5km I started getting a really sore lower back, I had to sit up plenty of times to stretch – the roads were very, very rough so that’s what I’m putting it down to but it could have been the fact that I had to pull my bike to bits and put back together so it may not have been set up correctly.

All in all, I was very happy with my bike.

Time check: 41km in 1.28.19, 38th place in the bike.

T2 was also pretty much a blur – I left the bike shoes clipped in so as soon as I racked my bike it was off with the helmet, on with my visor and running shoes and away – brilliant transition.

T2 - off on to the run course

The run was always going to be my “issue” but I just took it easy and felt pretty comfortable for the first 5km, in fact, one of our supporters did my km splits for the first 5km and I was running 5 minute k’s for the first 5km – stoked!!! BUT I really struggled for the last 5km – I just had a few words with myself and said, “one foot in front of the other, simple stuff, you can do this” – they had the kilometres painted on the road and I’m pleased to say that I only walked through the aid stations to take on water and electrolytes and a big wet sponge – they were great. When I got to the 8km mark I knew I could do this so I gritted my teeth and kept plodding along. I checked my watch and thought that I’d go close to my goal of around 3 hours so I just kept going and tried to lift the pace BUT I had nothing left in the tank so I just said to myself, just keep going at the pace you are now and we’ll see what the result is.

about 4km to go

I turned off the main road and into the driveway to the park where the finish line was about 500m away and was met but my screaming wife saying “GO, GO, GO – you’re under 3 hours – you can do this” so I gave it one last kick and I could see the finish chute and better yet, I could see the clock above the finish line so I pumped the arms one last time and crossed the line – Rarotonga International Triathlon 2011 – DONE !

Time check: 10km in 1.05.08, 36th place in the run.

Oh yeah - how good is that feeling!!

Official results:

Steve Marshall – 2.59.35
32nd overall out of over 100 competitors
10th in my age group out of 15 ( 40-49years – incidentally, 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th and 11th place overall were all in this age group )
1500m Swim split – 26.08
41km Bike split – 1.28.19
10km Run split – 1.05.08
92 individual competitors (43 female and 49 male )
20 teams

Last comment:
What an amazing place for a race, it was a very well run event and we had plenty of down time to enjoy the hospitality that this South Pacific Island had to offer – we’ll be back next year for sure!!