Running is Deadly!

Go running for 90 minutes...

No matter who you are, there was a little thought of negativity there when you read that instruction. I had my 90 minute run this morning and after the "crampfest" that was my cycling criterium race yesterday morning, I had some reservations about it.

The moment I opened the car door though, I was immediately boosted. I love the smell of Australian bushland. I'm going to miss it.

I'm going to be leaving Australia to live in London for possibly two years at Christmas this year. I've started taking note of all the "last moments" I'm having. That smell of eucalyptus and even the smell of the back burning that went on a few months ago.

I'm a bit like that groundhog the Americans pull out to see if winter is over. I can smell spring. I know I can smell it because instantly reminds me of the Noosa Triathlon and all that this time of the year means. I'm not going to get that for a while.

Spring also brings on the need to pay attention when I go running in the forest. I got a massive reminder of this today when I noticed a long, reptilian tail shoot into the shrubs at the side of a trail.

I was actually relieved to see it was one of these guys, but I was taking good looks at every stick I ran past for snakes.

It made me think about the dangers that you have to keep an eye out for all around the world.

Normally we have to watch out for the crazy number of snakes we have in Australia and I can't tell you how many spiderwebs I've run through.

My brother has run straight into the middle of the German army doing military exercises once before. He never runs with his Ipod in anymore...I have a sneaking suspicion he's replaced the empty pocket space with toilet paper ;) I do!

In Canada they have these guys (go to 3:00 and stop after 3:30 - the rest is useless)

In Africa they've got this to deal with:

But I've been coming to realise I won't really have this threat in London which is pretty cool. The only real wildlife I have to watch out for jumping out to attack me will be this guy:

I can see it now: "'Ow is it that you swim in tha cold wader and then ged out an run around? Aren't you worried abou' all tha honeez lookin' at ya bits when they're all small an that?"

What's this working business?

The last three weeks have been fairly busy for me. I've raced three times and worked more than I have since April.

I had a 6 day contract teaching grade 4 (roughly nine year olds). The class is a good one and it was a valuable experience for me. It gave me the chance to tell how much further I have come as a teacher to when I was teaching two years ago.

My life will be changing dramatically in 2014 when my girlfriend and I move to London for possibly the next two years. She will be doing supply teaching work and using spare time travelling around Europe. I will be splitting my time between supply teaching too and, being funded by the teaching, racing triathlon in perhaps the U.K, France and Germany. Having more confidence in my teaching makes this gamble far less risky.

Race #1 & #2

Rainbow Beach Triathlon
Rainbow Beach is my favourite triathlon. I did it last year and it's what Noosa used to be. Noosa is great, but so much of it is a hassle. The posers, the prams and the minimum five-night stays are a few of what irritate me most. There is a lot that I love about Noosa to outweigh these though, it's my Mecca.

"Euw! Wetsuits give everyone really flat butts!" Whoever said that before my race must have forgotten to tell my butt :D 

Rainbow Beach is raced by about 200 triathletes in a really tiny, laid back town. Not only is the spot absolutely beautiful, but the vibe is so relaxed that I have a feeling no one actually works. The street of shops is probably staffed on rotation between the community, just to keep the "wheels on the bus" going round. The town is also close enough to civilisation without being swamped by it, that it's the small beach side holiday location your parents describe Noosa as when they were kids.

The other super thing about the race is that it's two races. Saturday afternoon you race a sprint distance (750m swim, 20k cycle, 5k run) and then you do it all again on Sunday morning. Being a race in Queensland too, it's guaranteed to have some quality athletes turn up, to give some real competition.

no blisters!

Race #1

When I put my wetsuit on and warmed up, I felt like I was swimming against a strong current. When the race started and everyone zoomed off ahead was when I realised there was no current. I hadn't swum in a wetsuit for almost 11 months and paid dearly for it. Two solid groups emerged early from the water and I jumped on to the bike a minute down on the first group and 20 seconds down on the second group.

I went after the second group that quickly split into two and at about 8k had closed the gap to with 5-10 seconds. For a second time a draft buster came by and again did nothing to the group. I think it broke me mentally and the gap started to open up again.

I was down by a couple of minutes to the leaders off the bike and a minute from the third group by the end of the 20k, but my legs were just on the side of good. I ran off onto the toughest 5k triathlon run course I've seen. I managed to run under my goal time and burnt back through a large number of the guys who had the luxury of a pack and almost got back through everyone in that third group, so I had to walk away happy with my efforts.

Race #2

I knew that if I could swim anywhere closer to my ability then I would be able to sit in a group on the bike and have a much better result so focused on nailing the start and not letting the guys get away. Safe to say, I got away with it and apart from swimming into an actual rip in the last 100m, was swimming past the last three or four guys.

I was having a ball on the bike. I was jumping out of my skin. Failing to do something on day one, then accomplishing it on day two, mixed in with my favourite race and loving the sport, I was as happy as I've ever been. I pulled a pretty good turn, where I noticed that I had even started to pull away from my group and chose to back it off, knowing that I had hurt my legs yesterday and wanted to save them as much as possible for the run.

The run was still positive, but clearly I had dug too deep the day before to bring out my best. I had a few guys up the road running faster than me to have the good struggle of trying to run faster, but I was also much better ranked. I ended up beating an extra few guys from the day before and came away with a lot of positives from the two races.

Race #3

Wivenhoe Triathlon

This race stepped up to the Olympic distance (1500m swim, 40k cycle, 10k run) and a very tough bike course (all uphill or down).

You'd have thought I would have improved my wetsuit swimming after two digs the weekend before, but apparently not. My swim squad have been focusing on speed for the State Short Course (25m) Champs, so not surprisingly my start was much improved and quick, but the rest was...not reflective of how I had been swimming a few weeks ago. I'm hoping it was just the wetsuit and that more practice over the next couple of months will overcome that.

So down almost two minutes from a short (approx 1200-1300m) I was off onto the bike. A group of four quickly emerged with me slamming the downhills and the two guys on road bikes swamping me on the uphills, with a third being "sketchy" through the corners and just generally getting in the way and dropping drink bottles for two laps.

For the first two laps, I was being targeted by a technical official. I never got penalised, so I wasn't doing anything wrong, but even when I was sitting further back than anyone else in the group he would tell me to drop back. I let the group go twice and then rode them back down. I couldn't get away from them, so was stuck and still copping warnings, while they often sat wheel to wheel. I let them go and tried to re-establish my race with them out of sight. The sad thing about it is that I've known the official for 11 years. I enjoyed his company when we trained and coached together. But for some reason, every time he officiates, he takes it as his personal mission to make life difficult for me. You get dodgy officials all the time, I should use it to learn how to deal with it better...maybe he was teaching me a good lesson (not that he deserves any credit for it!!)

I lost a lot of time in the last lap, I don't know if I was tired or overheating or just not focused on the right thing, but the guys who had race the weekend before were also having days beneath their best, so it was probably a combination of the three and nothing to worry about.

Out onto the run I was wrecked but was still running strongly. It was a really quick time (37minutes mid) given that I was melting in the sun, how hilly the course was and that I walked for 30seconds once  I'd reeled in 5th place and 4th was still 2minutes up the road with less than 3k to go. I'd had problems in my last two 10k runs off the bike getting going (or anything from my legs) so the improvement was delightful.

I feel like the race was almost the "worst" I could have competed. But in a good way: If this is the worst I can do, then anything I do even fractionally better, is going to be a great result for what I'm expecting.

Let me know what kind of things you want to read about, hope you enjoyed this one!