Disneyland Race Report

When you're a kid, you are at a creative peak. You are constantly wondering what things could be like and what you could become. 

Disneyland is something kids regularly dream about visiting. Becoming an athlete is something I dreamed about. For me, the two came together in a 24 hour period that I enjoyed as much as I could.

Arriving at Hong Kong Disneyland's Hollywood Hotel the afternoon before the race involved a 20-30min cab ride and ended with two grown adults degenerating back into a child like state of giddiness with the unbridled excitement.

The excitement quickly deteriorated into frustration and anxiety upon dealing with the entire lack of transparent organisation from the race. I say transparent because it's just the Chinese thing that someone knows what is going on, but from the end-user perspective, you just have to have faith that it will all work out.

We travelled into the city via shuttle bus for the Elite race briefing and pre race dinner. I found it cool to be a part of the scene, while the Hong Kong boys flipped out and gushed like Beliebers at being in the same vicinity as World Cup winner Tony Moulai.

The briefing and dinner were held at the Panda Hotel. It was Panda-monium.

Before we returned to our own hotel for an early start the next morning. But not before we marvelled at how Mickey is on every detail of the hotel.

I got to the swim start with diabetes in check, everything managed well, a good plan of how to race to my best and a psychological set up to minimise anxiety on the start line, everything was ok. Then I realised I had forgotten my timing chip. The odd thing about this race was the 1.3k swim to bike transition run…where my timing chip was. I couldn't afford to race down and back in the 10mins before the race started.

Here is where having a former national cross country representative runner for a girlfriend helps! Bless her soul, she sprinted the almost 2 miles and made it back with about 10-20 secs before my name was called.

Discovering a lack of timing chip

Having my name called, despite the anxiety I had just put myself through, was really cool. I hadn't had it called in China, so to have it called "Chris George, Australia" filled me with pride briefly before I returned to focussing on the task at hand.

After going out too hard in China and the subsequent mental torture of needing to have a better swim, I had to race separating my sub-concious from the conscious mind. The little guy wasn't allowed to talk to the big guy. Your sub conscious knows how to do it all, everything you've experienced, it's experienced and can recall. 

Far right

My sub-concious was too aware of what it did wrong in China and how it felt. I actually went through the following process in my mind: The little guy wasn't allowed to talk to the big guy apart from positive encouragement. I imagined him as a ball, dressed up in a cheerleader's outfit, while I imagined the big guy as a shadow of me, but slightly larger (more capable). The swim went much better than China, but it was still below my best. It's pretty easy to work out what was lacking in my training so that will become a focus for the next race.

I emerged from the slightly long swim with a 3min deficit to the leaders. Given that over less than half the distance two weeks prior, I'd lost 1min40, it was an improvement. Most importantly, I emerged at the front of a group. The run to transition was a matter of staying in front of these guys and nothing more. I didn't see the point in sprinting after the group 90secs ahead of me solo and fortunately the guys behind me didn't try to pass me. 

The bike leg was controversial. Normally in ITU racing, if you get lapped, you are to drop out. In this race, you were allowed to continue if dropped, but I assume you weren't to jump into other packs. I formed a duo that quickly ate up a third and then fourth rider. The "pack" in front of us had 2 and the main, lead pack had everyone else in front of us. 2 laps in to the roughly 9 lap course around the entrance to Disneyland and "Inspiration Lake" our group had brought that 90secs down to 20.

Two of the Hong Kong boys had started to drop out of the front group, making a new 2nd group on the road, putting my group into 4th. The 3rd group that we were closing on all of a sudden had picked up 2 extra riders, then a 3rd and a 4th before also picking up the HK boys. I didn't realise until after the race that these extra 4 riders had in fact been lapped, because of their deficit swimming, not cycling. This group of 8 out rode our group of 4 and reopened the gap to 90secs. Tsk, tsk, tsk and what could have been.

Occasionally you'll do a race where it benefits you immensely. The bike leg had a few big moments for me. 

Firstly, it was basically up and down a small hill the entire time, a weakness of mine that gives me massive neural problems. Despite this, I was riding very well and cohesively in a group that should have been riding faster than half the field. I take away the belief and knowledge that I can ride well enough for this level of ITU racing.

Secondly, there is a word in cycling "creeping". When I was first introduced to it, it was described as the situation every cyclist goes through, where they are at max effort, heart rate red lining, and you start to drop away off the group. You notice that there's a metre or so, then another metre and before you know it, you're out of the draft and there's no return. It's pretty horrible on the mind.

It happened to me. Yes, I said I was riding well, but it was two of us carrying the other two, I had just taken a turn and the other guy was on the front. Problem was, he would surge each time and put whoever he rolled past into difficulty. I started to slip out, metre by metre. I had that moment where I said to myself "Oh crap, it's over! I got dropped. How did that happen! How embarrassing. But I'm stronger than two of them! Those useless pricks sapped my energy! They are so much smarter at this style of racing than me!".

Nek Minut…

"Just keep going! Just keep going! Just keep going! Any moment they might ease up! Ride against all those moments you've dropped off the back and wished you'd kept trying for that little bit longer. What have you got to lose?"

And suddenly the road started to flatten. The years of practice I've put into maintaining power over a crest came in and I was taking distance back and surely enough I had got back on. Defeating one of cycling's inevitabilities will encourage me to push for that little bit longer for some time to come.

Back into transition, past Inspiration Lake. Around the turn described "If you overcook that corner, you'll end up in the Lake." Bumping with the guy from Macau through it and subsequently getting attacked and dropped by the leader. And out onto the run, hoping that the cramping that got so bad that as I pulled my feet out of their shoes, my hammys both seized completely, would go away.

I was relieved to be on the run. I could turn my legs over and get to the finish. I left third from my group and basically ran straight past the second. 

On the third lap of four, one of the guys that had been lapped but drafted incorrectly passed me on his way to a great run leg (I'm sure my run would have been better if I'd been able to sit in a bigger pack too!). Towards the end of the third lap I noticed I was within range of one of the HK boys. 

In February or March, I had been inspired that I could survive ITU racing after riding through and running with the same Hong Kong triathletes at a race at Bribie Island. So to be finishing the season by possibly proving that theory correct was poetic and re-inspiring.

I tempted my pace right to threshold and was stunned to have caught him with 1-1.5k's to go. I tried a little surge, figuring that with the way I had caught him, he shouldn't be too difficult to dispatch. I was wrong, he survived it. Then I figured I would sustain my effort, he had been in a hole, he'd go back in soon enough. I was wrong again. Then the cramping came back. I knew I had a stinging final kick still around if the cramps could hold off, but I had to be careful. I kept the pressure on right up until the final turn.

At the final turn we actually caught the leader from my pack and passed him. But it's also where I lost the battle. We raced in a giant field with grass higher than your ankles and witches hats sparsely laid out and no signage. I picked the wrong witches hat to run around and as I did it, the other guy sprinted and put 20m on me in no time.

Still I was very happy with my result, my effort and super relieved for it to be over for now. All I had left to do was enjoy Disneyland and Halloween out on the town in Hong Kong City!

Just when you thought the story was over, I had to share one more really awesome thing.  When I was a kid, I used to ride my bmx a lot. I was attached to that thing. I also watched the bmx focused movie "Rad" a tonne.

I was obsessed with it. The town we lived in was about 2000 in population and the video store must have laughed every time mum came in and hired it out for me. That movie and I must have kept them in business.

One thing I was desperate to have was the number plate that the racers had. It would mean that I was a racer and that I had made it. It dawned upon me that I had indeed made it, standing in the baggage drop off line at the Hotel, when the little Chinese girl who would have been the same age as me when I watched the movie stared at and told her mum all about the number on my bike!