State Olympic Distance Champs
Bunbury: Sunday 30th January, 2005

After racing and enjoying the country based events throughout my early years of triathlon participation, I was looking forward to reaquainting myself with the experience at the Bunbury State Olympic Distance Championships. I have always been made to feel welcome by the Bunbury triathlon community and this occasion was no exception. I must thank Paul Kelly and the Bunbury triathlon club for the complimentary race entry.

We were greeted race morning with warm and relatively calm conditions, a direct contrast to the mild and windy conditions I have come to expect from my previous racing experiences in Bunbury.

I noticed the usual suspects on the start line - Sean O’Neill, Jeremy Drake and Steven Bishop and was eager to show these "youngsters" what it was all about.

The out and back swim headed east and, due to the rising sun, made sighting and navigation a little difficult. At the 650m mark first turn around buoy, Jemani Francis had established a commanding lead over a group of four which included Sean O’Neill, Steven Bishop, Nic Bowen, and myself. As Jeremy had been swimming very well in the lead up races, I was surprised that he was not swimming in this group as well. Sean informed me after the race that Jeremy did not wear a wetsuit. A big disadvantage to say the least.

The composition of the first five stayed the same for the remainder of the swim, with Jemani exiting first ahead of my group of four with a handy 45 or so second lead.

I am unsure how the race evolved in the early stages of the cycle leg, but I believe that Sean and myself broke away from the other two almost immediately. I went very hard in the first half lap or so and when I realised Sean was still with me when he rode past on the downwind section of the lap, I shut it down a bit.

Due to the 6 lap nature of the cycle course and the fact that the short course athletes started before the main event, there was a constant stream of competitors to negotiate throughout the duration of the cycle leg. This made a change of my usual race tactics a necessity. Generally I go flat out from go to whoa but a constant stream of moving "windbreaks" on the course made it impossible to get value for effort during the pancake flat cycle leg.

After Sean took the lead on the first lap, I stayed my legal distance behind for the next two laps. In this time we had caught Jemani and he had joined us, making it a train of three. I was a little unhappy with myself at this stage for being so "soft" so I went very hard again for the first half of the fourth lap and dropped Jemani in the process, however, Sean was still there. I shut it down again and Sean took the lead. I dropped back to the legal distance behind and stayed there for the remainder of the cycle leg.

I took solace in the fact that I had relatively fresh legs after the cycle and have been running well in training.

When Sean got away by about 50 meters after the cycle to run transition, I didn’t panic, I set myself on the task of chasing him down. By the 1.5 kilometre mark I had caught him and an immediate surge had him breathing uncomfortably. Not long after, he dropped back and I was confident he would not be able to come back. I continued to run the first 5k loop very hard and by the end of it was feeling a bit fatigued. It was at this point that I thought about the hard running sessions I had done in training and realised that I had a lot more hurt left in me. I soldiered on and finished the race a tired but happy winner.

Thanks must again go to the Bunbury triathlon club and all those involved, for putting on a great race.

I have enjoyed my experiences over the last few weeks participating in the local races again. I feel that racing, either triathlons, ATTA time trials, or open water swims is one of the best ways to assess how my training is progressing. Further, I am of the opinion that if you are not racing well over the shorter distances then you cannot realistically hope to race your best in the longer races.

I also enjoy racing the local athletes and hope that they are learning what is required to race competively at the international level. I had to travel east to find that out for myself, but I am prepared to pass on what I have learnt to the local lads if they are prepared to ask questions.

Take care, see you at the next one.