It’s hard to believe it’s only been four weeks since the Motatapu Triathlon; so so SOO many things have happened in the world since! Racing (and race reports) don’t seem so important in the grand scheme of things these days, but in the interests of giving people something to read that’s not COVID-19 related, I thought it would be worth the time and effort to pop some of my thoughts of this event down before I forget it all. So, here goes!
The Build Up
I began training for this event at the beginning of January with a 10 week programme. I decided not to use a coach this year, and simply followed the free online programme on the Motatapu website. For the most part, it had two swims, two bikes, and two runs per week (with optional extras that I never found time to do, to be honest). Weekends built up to longer and longer work-outs, with the longest being a 1km swim, 60km mountain-bike, and a 10km run one after the other. I enjoyed my training this time around, and especially the opportunity to do most of biking on my mountainbike (still my number one favourite sport!). I even managed to sneak in a couple of races during my training – the Otago Triathlon Champs, National MTB XC Champs, and a local super-sprint triathlon.
Going into the event, I was a bit nervous. I had no idea what to expect in terms of the conditions. I looked at the elevation chart of the bike about a week beforehand and laughed and laughed because the first 30-odd kms were uphill and I realised I hadn’t done enough hills in my training. The run was going to have to just take care of itself. But it was the swim I was the most nervous about. I had screwed up a swim at the same location a year ago (panic -> hyperventilation -> did the whole swim backstroke), and was hoping to not have a repeat of that again this year.
The Swim
Much to my relief, as we drove into Glendhu Bay early that morning, the water was as flat as a pancake. “I can do this!” I told myself. I set myself up in the transition area, and it was a nervous wait until my swim start at 9:05am.
We weren’t allowed in the water until after the men’s swim start at 9am. After they took off, I wandered down to the lake and managed a few strokes back and forth of warm-up before settling in right on the edge of the start line. I learnt from last time to not get caught up with the race start. I’m a slow swimmer, and trying to go fast from the start gun is a surefire way for me to get out of breath very quickly! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.. and we were off!
A nice steady swim for me. Much to my huge relief, I didn’t panic or hyperventilate. Sighting to the first buoy was incredibly tricky with the rising sun, but I could see the pack of swimmers ahead of me so just kept following the kicking feet around. Once we turned around at the buoy, the rest of the swim was much easier to navigate. I knew I was near the back of the pack (and getting passed by swimmers in the wave behind me) but that didn’t bother me. As long as I was making forward progress, I was happy. Nice and calm. Relax. Breathe. Let’s just get through this and onto the bike in one piece!
Out of the water with a swim time of 26 minutes, which sounded about right for me for a freshwater 1km swim. Into transition, and it was time to head out onto the section I love the most – the bike!
The Bike
I’ve said it so many times before on my blog, but the bike really is my happy place – and even more so when it’s my MTB instead of my road bike! The bike course was 47km long along 4wd roads with many, many creek and river crossings! It climbs gradually at the start, and then gets steeper and steeper near the top. Because Motatapu also involves a standalone MTB event (with so many more competitors than the triathlon), there were a lot of other MTBers around, so it was nice to have company. Usually when exiting a swim near the back, I spend most of the rest of a triathlon trying to catch up and pass people. But with people who had self-seeded according to the their predicted MTB times, I found I was mostly surrounded by people of similar abilities. Still, it was nice to challenge myself to ride all the uphill pinches while many others around me were walking (I made it up most of them!), and to blast past people on the downhills and through the river crossings (also managed to ride most of them as well!). The only part I didn’t enjoy as much was the grassy part at the top which seemed to go on and on before we finally started descending. The grass was energy-sapping and being able to see people so far away in the distance was really a mental game to keep focused. If I do this race again, I will need to work on this part, for sure!
I was looking at my watch towards the end of the bike section thinking that T2 wasn’t too far away, and sure enough, it appeared not too long after the final river crossing. I had given my all out there on the bike, and I was beginning to fade a bit. I finished the 47km bike course in a time of 3 hours 35 minutes, which I was pretty happy about! (I was hoping for under 4 hours so I was well-clear of that!). Next step.. the run!
The Run
Hmmm. So this is where things fell apart a bit. I had accidentally dropped a couple of my caffeine gels out of my pocket on the bike so I didn’t take them when I had intended to. The run started with a fairly flat/gentle start, then pinched up suddenly around the 1.3km point – right at the time I started seeing stars and feeling a bit light-headed. At that point, I remembered I had a spare gel stashed away in another side pocket in my backpack. I took that and waited for it to kick in, all while walking pretty much all of the uphill. I was happy to see the summit sign at 3km, but the descent was also fairly technically tricky so I didn’t manage to make up much time or speed until it got more gradual around the 6km mark. With only an 8.5 km run, this didn’t give me much room to make up time, so I settled into a rhythm just to get the rest of the run done. The last km or so was my strongest – energy levels were back up and being so close to the finish line was a good psychological booster! A total run time of 1 hour 17 minutes – a very slow 8.5km, but glad to have got it done!
The Finish
As I was approaching the finish chute, I thought back to how far I’d come. We started the race in Wanaka, rode all the way over to Arrowtown, then an 8.5km trail run looping back to Arrowtown. I had set myself an arbitrary goal time of 6 hours, based on a 30 minute swim, 4 hour bike, and a 1 hour 30 minute run. As I had met both my swim and bike targets, I was pretty sure when I headed out on the run that I’d be able to make it in under the 6 hour mark. A strong push to the finish line and I crossed it in a finish time of 5 hours 29 minutes (and 40 seconds).
Final Thoughts
Wow. What an event! My first thought when I finished was that I was going to have to go back and do it again next year! I was disappointed in how the run went, and I knew I could do a bit better on the bike in places. But obviously the world is a very different place now, and who knows what events are going to be running in the future?! So for now, I’m going to sit back and be content with what I achieved this year at this event. I would love to go back and do it all again now that I know what to expect of the course. But for now, I’m going to look for challenges closer to home – a neighbourhood sprint duathlon (consisting of 21 laps around the block plus a 20km bike on my front yard) last weekend, and a half-marathon (consisting of 65.5 laps around my street!) this weekend just gone. Plus I’m getting into some shorter and intense HIIT work-outs to mix it all up a bit too. There may be so many uncertainties in the future at the moment, but I think we should always look at ways to move forward and make the most of the time we’ve got.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
(In Queenstown after the race for dinner and some touristy stuff)