2020 Motatapu Triathlon

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.

Me feeling nervous AF before the start of the swim!

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!

So happy to be out of the water!

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)

 

 

Challenge Wanaka Half 2019

The Build Up

I signed up for the 2019 edition of Challenge Wanaka only a few days after I completed my very first one in 2018. I was pretty keen to give it another go, and to take the lessons I’d learnt last year to try and improve the next time around.

I was very happy with Gerrard Smith’s guidance (Mr Smith’s Coaching) in 2018 so it was a no-brainer to sign up again for the 2019 season. He set me up with a 16 week plan, that was both a step up from last season’s plan and kept things interesting along the way! I felt like the variety and intensity really helped me become a better triathlete, and having a season already under my belt meant that my body recovered quickly from the training sessions.

On a long training ride to Taieri Mouth! Photo credit: Jen Hodgson

I hit a couple of hurdles along the way this season. I had two attempts at triathlons (a super-sprint tri in December and an off-road triathlon in January), both of which left me panicking and hyperventilating in the water due to the choppy conditions, resulting in one DNF and one mid-race abandon of the Olympic-distance event to the Sprint-distance after swimming 750m of backstroke. It took a lot of reflection, open water swim practice in choppy conditions (including a swim session at a surf beach with 1.6m high waves!), and some positive self-talk to get me back on track. I also had a bike crash in December, where I slid out on the road while cornering in the wet and bruised my ribs as a result. It was a month before I could really swim and run without pain on my left side.

Aside from all that, I felt fairly relaxed going into this year’s Challenge. Perhaps it was because I had done it before so it wasn’t new anymore. Perhaps it was because I had resigned myself to an “anything goes! Let’s see what race day brings” mentality. I couldn’t predict what the conditions would be like – would the swim be choppy? Would the bike be wet? Would it be super-hot on the run? Who knew what the day would bring?

At the end of my last big training weekend – reflecting on 15 weeks of solid training!

The Swim

I had arrived a couple of days earlier to Wanaka to do the practice swim on Thursday morning. It was a bit rolly for the practice swim but I concentrated on keeping calm and just rolling with it (hah), and made it through the whole swim without panicking. A great start for me.

Before Thursday’s practice swim in the lake!

On race morning, we woke up to calm conditions. There was no wind and the lake was flat – I couldn’t believe my luck! I hopped in the water about 15 minutes beforehand to get acclimatised and warmed up, so by the time the start horn when off, I was ready to go. It was a nice swim – I felt calm but kept my arms turning over at a steady rate. My swim has always been my weakest discipline (even before I had mental issues with it this season), so it was just a matter of chugging through and getting it done. The swim course was fairly uneventful and surprisingly I managed to stay out of most people’s way and was only swum into a handful of times. I exited the water in 49 minutes, which was 3 minutes faster than last year’s swim. Slower than pretty much everyone out there on course, but at least I made it through this time! [Position: 365/389 competitors, 121/130 females, 17/18 in my F35-39 age-group].

At the swim exit! Photo credit: Amanda Church

The Bike

Out of T1 and onto the bike. This is by far my favourite discipline and I was ready to give it my best shot. I felt strong on the bike, and passed a lot of people along the way. I actually really enjoy this bike course. There’s enough elevation to keep it interesting, the scenery is amazing, and there are plenty of long, flat sections to really hammer it. I made sure I drank and ate enough along the way. I think the training programme really paid off here – I had a mixture of hill repeats, windtrainer interval sessions, and long endurance rides. I was so stoked at the end to see that my bike time was 3 hours and 8 minutes, which was 15 minutes faster than last year! I was aiming for a 3:15, so this was awesome! I also managed to pass over 110 individual athletes along the way, and exited T2 in 253rd place (out of 389 competitors, 63/130 women, 11/18 in age-group).

The Run

If swimming is my worst, and the bike is my best, then the run, by default, is my “average”. I don’t know about you, but running a half-marathon is tough enough by itself, let alone after 1.9km swim and 90km bike! It didn’t take long for a steady stream of people to pass me on the run course, but I was fairly happy just plodding along; 21.1km is a long way, after all! I was happy that I didn’t have the nutrition issues I had last year (too many gels + not enough water = sore tummy), but that didn’t make the terrain any easier. The course is 75% off-road (mixture of gravel and dirt tracks) and I’d forgotten how much energy the dirt sucks out of you. I was hoping for a faster half-marathon time (2:15) but it wasn’t to be. I ended up finishing the run in 2:21, which was still 7 minutes faster than last year, so that was good I suppose! 

Near the end of the run! Photo credit: Cadence Lane

The Finish and Final Reflections

As I saw the finish line crowds in the distance, I upped my pace on the run slightly for a strong finish. I had re-adjusted my run expectations a few kms beforehand, and had my final race time in mind instead. I was really hoping for a total time of under 6 hours 30 minutes, and I knew by the final couple of kilometres of the run that it was within my reach. Crossing the finish line in 6 hours and 28 minutes, knowing that I made that goal was absolutely amazing! (overall: 278/389 competitors, 77/130 women, 12/18 in age group).

Overall, I am very happy with my race. Taking 3 minutes off the swim, 15 minutes off the bike, 7 minutes off the run, and 25 minutes overall (from last season) was no small feat, and I’m so glad that the training really paid off this year. I am also stoked that my friends, Zoe and Manya, who did Challenge Wanaka for the first time absolutely smashed their goals as well!

With my shiny finisher’s medal in the recovery tent afterwards!

At this stage, I don’t think I’ll be back for a third go at Challenge Wanaka next year. Half-ironman training really takes its toll on my regular life (family, work, friends, etc), so it will be good to try and get things back in balance again. That’s not to say I don’t have any other goals. I am signed up for a team for the 6-hour event at the Spring Challenge women’s adventure race in September (rafting, mountain-biking, hiking/running, and navigation), so I’m really looking forward to doing something different! I’m also enjoying riding my MTB again, so will be looking to see what MTB events are out there to throw in the calendar. Watch this space!

Once again, a huge thanks to my husband Scotty for everything he’s done to help me get through another season of half-ironman training! And thanks also to my daughters for putting up with my long disappearances in the weekends (sometimes up to 5 hours on Sat and 2 hours on Sun). Thanks to Gerrard Smith of Mr Smith’s Coaching for another great season and an excellent programme to follow. Finally, thanks to my friends who have helped me in various ways with my training and preparation this season – Zoe, Manya, Jen, Wendy, Sarah B .. to name a few! Training can be lonely, but it’s nice to have company when circumstances allow it! Cheers everyone!

Jumping for joy at the end of a very long day out!

 

 

2018 Otago Tri Champs!

Woohoo! Final triathlon of the season completed! 😀 – second Olympic distance event (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) at the Otago Tri Champs. The swim went fairly well, the bike was OK (legs felt like concrete for the first 20km), and the run ticked along nicely, although legs were beginning to feel it after around 5km in. Total time 2 hours 59 mins! Phew! 😂 26 minutes faster (and flatter) than my first Olympic-distance tri in January at the Corsair Classic.

Overall, I’ve learnt so much in my first season of triathlon . Looking forward to spending some time over winter working on my running with some speed work (am chasing a sub 2-hr half-marathon), and heading back to the pool for some more lessons to work on my technique. Oh, and plenty of time riding my mountainbike of course! ❤

First Road Race in a Decade!

It’s been a long while since I’ve done a stand-alone road race! My last foray into road racing was when I was training in Wellington in 2007-2008 and included a few Port Nicholson Poneke (PNP) Cycling Club races into my programme.

On, Sunday, I entered Race 2 of the Cycle World Time Trial Series. This was a 20km TT on an out-and-back course. I had heaps of fun (despite the headwind on the way back), and am looking forward to doing more road races in the future!

Here’s a few photos from Sunday’s race (photo credit: Mama Lazarou Photography).

Challenge Wanaka – Official Photos!

I love it when there’s official course photographers out and about! 🙂 They always seem to capture the best parts about racing! Here’s a few of my favourite photos from Challenge Wanaka – Enjoy! 🙂

Photo credits: http://www.marathon-photos.com

 

Challenge Wanaka Half 2018!

(Grab a cuppa! It was going to be a short report, but it turns out I have a bit to say! 😂)

Dark clouds are a-looming! Photo credit: Sarah Baird

The 1.9km swim:
I survived! When I first started swim lessons in May 2017, I had decided that my aim for the swim at Challenge was to just make it out of the water by the swim cut-off (75 minutes). After a couple of months of lessons, I evaluated my progress, and decided that 60 minutes was a fairly good target to aim for. After my last two 2km open water harbour swims where I finished in 55 minutes and 47 minutes respectively, I was fairly confident I’d be able to finish within my 60 minute target. We were very lucky on the day that there was a reprieve from the strong norwester that had been gusting in Wanaka the two days prior. The swim was in fairly calm conditions, although there were enough small rolly waves on the first straight to make me work harder that I thought. I was also surprised at how much less buoyant swimming in a lake was compared to swimming in Dunedin harbour with salt water, and found I had to kick more to bring my hips up. Total swim time: 52 minutes. Yuss! 😃

Sun came out on the bike! Photo credit: Sarah Baird

The 90km bike:
The rain started coming down during the swim, so it was rainy on the bike for the first third or so – I didn’t mind the rain to be honest! I’ve done enough riding on the MTB in the rain that the skills to riding on the road bike in the rain transferred fairly well over. As I didn’t have time before the race to pre-ride or pre-drive the course beforehand, I went into it with very little expectations of what I would find. I was pleasantly surprised at how short all the hills were (when compared to the hills I was training on in Dunedin), and I was very grateful for my aero bars for quite a bit of the course. I had set myself a target of 4 hours on the bike, but was really hoping to make it in around 3:30. I wasn’t sure if I had the legs to do it though – 10 years ago when I was training solely for MTBing, I trained 5-6 days a week on the bike alone. My programme for Challenge only had 3 bike days per week so I was a bit worried about it going into the event. I needn’t have worried though – I felt strong on the bike, and ended up overtaking quite a few people out there. Total bike time: 3 hours 23 minutes. Stoked! 👍

High fives for the kids! Photo credit: Sarah Baird

The 21.1km run:
Off the bike, and onto the run! I felt pretty good for the first few kms, and was ticking along at a good 6 min/km pace. I had set a 2 hour 30 minute target for the half-marathon run (approx. 25% longer than my fastest standalone half-marathon time). I wasn’t too sure if this was too big an ask, and I knew beforehand that this was the target I was the least certain about. The first 8km went well, but things fell apart a bit when I decided to take on board an extra gel at the 7.5km aid station – far too soon after the gel I had also taken at the 4km aid station! My tummy protested and cramped up for quite a lot of the remainder of the run after that. This hampered my run pace, and it wasn’t until around the 15km mark (when the run course headed slightly downhill) that I felt a bit better. I was disappointed – I have trained using these gels, but in hindsight, I hadn’t trained by using as many gels in total as I did yesterday. The last 5km of the run went better – I could see Lake Wanaka, and I was telling myself “it’s just a parkrun to go!”. Getting closer, I could see the giant marquee at the finish line, and could hear the crowds and the PA system. It was a great feeling crossing the finish line, and I was pleasantly surprised to make it in just under my run target. Total run time: 2 hours 28 minutes. Phew! 😅

Woohoo! The finish chute! Photo credit: Sarah Baird

🏅Total time:
As part of the entry form, I had to fill in my predicted total race time. I had put down 7 hours 30 minutes (1 hour swim, 4 hour bike, 2:30 run), but I was quietly hopeful for a sub-7 hour total time. I am SO stoked that my final time for the event was 6 hours 53 minutes! I also have a few ideas for where I can make up more time (e.g., work on appropriate nutrition, improve my swim so I’m not one of the last solo athletes out of the water!), so I’ll be eager to sign up again when entries open for 2019! 😁

THANKS!:
For those who have been following my progress, my husband Scotty, is my biggest supporter. He was fantastic at making sure that I had time in the evenings and weekends for all my training (up to 12 hours each week), and I am truly grateful for everything he has done during my past 20 weeks of training for Challenge. Unfortunately, he was quite sick in the past two weeks, and was hospitalised from Sunday – Wednesday with complications due to glandular fever. It was a bit hit-and-miss as to whether I was going to make it to Wanaka at all. Luckily, we had some fantastic support from friends who made it happen! – thanks everyone for your support during this time.

The biggest thanks has to go to my wonderful friend, Sarah – she picked up the girls from daycare and school on Friday afternoon, and drove all the way to Wanaka with them (+ her son). She then not only looked after the girls while I was racing on Saturday, she also managed the amazing feat of getting the kids to the sidelines at various points of the race to cheer me on! I think I counted seeing them a total of eight times out there! Sarah – you are an amazing person, and I am so so so appreciative for everything you did to allow the girls to come along to Wanaka and support me this weekend! ❤️We owe you big time!

Thanks also to Aleisha Clarke from JC Swim School for the swimming lessons, and to Gerrard Smith from Mr Smith’s Coaching for the half-ironman training programme and advice. I couldn’t have done this without all the skills learnt and the training completed in a time-efficient manner! 🙂

Finally, I’d like to say thanks to all my friends who I have met the past few years during my parkrun -> half-marathon -> duathlon -> triathlon journey. Thanks especially to those who I’ve swum, biked, and ran with the past few months – your support and advice has been invaluable, and I’m so lucky to have all of you in my life 🙂 A final shout-out to Alistair and Annette, who have been especially helpful with imparting their vast Challenge Wanaka knowledge to this newbie to the sport! Cheers guys! 🍻

Corsair Classic Triathlon 2018

I did it!!  My very first Olympic distance (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) triathlon complete at the Corsair Classic in Christchurch (aka NZ Tri Champs)!

A still and calm swim course, followed by a hot and hilly bike and run. Exited the water 6th to last (made it easy to find my bike in transition!  – despite this, I was very happy with my 35 minute swim time for the 1500m swim). Loved the bike leg – managed to make up a bit of ground passing people throughout. Lost a few places on the run, but that was OK. Really enjoyed the support by the volunteers on course and the residents on the run course with their sprinklers going to cool everyone down! I also learnt heaps about longer distance triathlons, which was my main aim as a tri newbie. 20 days to go until Challenge Wanaka! 

My Journey in “The Star”

I was surprised when a reporter for our local paper contacted me for an interview about my journey to Challenge Wanaka! Article is out now on pg 31 in today’s “The Star”! 

Brighton Super-sprint Triathlon!

Jumping for joy after finishing my second ever triathlon!  A terrible 300m ocean swim in the waves that made me feel like I was going backwards most of the time; a fun 10km bike where I passed quite a few people; and a 2.5km run along the picturesque beach. My motto seems to be “survive the swim, smash the bike!, run the run”. Fun times!

5 Weeks to go! Challenge Wanaka Training Update

5 weeks to go until Challenge Wanaka! Eeeep!! 

I’ve been following a 20 week programme with Mr Smith’s Coaching. It’s been great having the structure and also the support to ask questions along the way. With 15 weeks completed, it’s been really good to see some measurable improvements.

Today, I managed a parkrun PB on the hilly Dunedin course (beating my previous PB from November 2016 by over 30 seconds!) Yesterday, I completed 400m and 200m freestyle swimming time trials, repeating what I’d done 8 weeks ago. I was stoked to see over a 1 minute improvement in my 400m time and a 35s improvement in my 200m time! 

For those wondering, these aren’t fast times (for the run or the swim) but they are the fastest I’ve been able to do them in, and that’s what really counts  Looking forward to the final weeks of training (including my first Olympic distance triathlon in two weeks’ time), and then the big day on 17th February!