Thanks, 70.3 with 8 weeks to go to Cairns so a good chance for a hit out. Reply here for the sake of prosperity.
Plan was to swim-bike and maybe start the run and stop/go easy, especially if I wasn’t in the overall race to protect my hip and make sure I start doing some actual run training soon. Seeing the start list on Saturday night made this decision a bit easier knowing at absolute best I was racing for third, and that didn’t include the 2 people who’d flown to Adelaide trusting they’d collect the prize money to pay for their trip.
Good swim, 1:16/km pace, out the water 2nd with good gaps behind but exactly 2 minutes down on first.
4 lap bike course up and down the lakefront, beautiful, pan-flat (VI 1.01) with little wind, although chip-seal road surface not the quickest and glad I deflated my tires in transition. Pretty consistent at 282W for 37.8kph which is definitely a lot more than I could have done a few months ago, and just a small gradual fade over the 4 laps.
I never got close to the uber-swimmer, despite catching him on the bike every race so far - he’s making huge progress and one for potential ITU racing in future. Another favorite stormed past me after 20km with 3 on his wheel, I lasted about 3-5 minutes riding with them before letting them go. Off the bike in 5th, thinking I’ll do a short brick to see how well the bike was paced.
But pride is a deadly sin and despite having no hope for the podium, I’ve realised in 22 years of swimming/triathlon/fun events I’ve not yet DNF’d. So, constantly telling myself I’ll be glad for the planned DNF in 8 weeks, I switch mindsets and decide I’m on a training session, and will run at planned ironman pace to at least try reduce the intensity and test fuelling, and promise myself I’ll let myself get overtaken if needed (had a teammate in 7th who ran 1:21 in a half recently), and that I will definitely stop if I start feeling any pain.
Finished the run with 4:17 average, feeling good but the second half of an Ironman is far longer than the first and I think I’d have dropped off pace from 25–>40km. But it’s a good boost to think 4:17-4:30/kms is still a good target, especially given it was 32C heat today.
TLDR: Happy test race, I’m seeing bike improvements, and recent big swim-bike volumes are transferring to run fitness. And I still have an iron stomach to take on gels in the heat.