Townsville Triathlon Festival Results

Yesterday I competed in the Townsville Triathlon Festival, I raced the sprint distance and I had two goals which I hoped to complete. These goals were to improve on my placing from last year (which was 5th) and too hopefully improve my personal best time. I knew that I had improved a lot since last year and I thought that these goals were realistic.

I sent into the swim feeling confident and quickly found the toes of a local triathlete and decided to stick with him. I came out of the water in a good position and knew that I was now able to get comfortable and push the bike and the run. I pushed the bike to my max and got into a small group where we road hard right to transition. I hit the run feeling really good, I took off fast and going onto the second lap my legs started to feel like jelly, but I kept pushing on and I kept the same fast pace for the rest of the run.

Thankfully my results have proven to be worth the effort, coming away with a 3rd in under 19's I was absolutely stoked and picked up $100 prize money. I am hoping to go back next year and improve even more.

The weekend turned out great, along with a great result, the whole race was run really well and I am really happy with how everything turned out.

Tomorrow Morning's Race

Tomorrow morning I am racing in the Townsville Triathlon Festival competing in the sprint distance. I am in a tough age group racing under 20's again except this time I have all the Junior ITU kids to race against. Last year I finished 5th in my age group and I am hoping that I am able to better that this year. I feel I am strong enough to accomplish this goal as I am so much stronger in the swim leg and I have improved in both my ride and run.

I will update again tomorrow night to explain in detail how I think I went.

My Bike set up for tomorrow's race in Townsville.

Swimming Session

Cairns has a relativley warm climate but this morning the pool was rather cold. The air temperature was 20 degrees however the water was cooler. For me I found the water extremly cold and as my second swim session back was really tough.

Today my session consisted of a 600m warm up, the main set was 10 x 200m and a 400m warm down. Thankfully my coach was allowed me to do my warm down the heated pool which was so nice of him.

This weekend I will be travelling to Townsville for the Townsville Triathlon Festival and I will be competing in the sprint distance. I will keep you posted throughout the week on my training and the lead up to the race.

Training Ride

Today was not an easy day. I was awake early to put some energy into my bike training. I have not really done any bike training for a while and with the Regional Triathlon in a few months I thought it was best that I got back onto the bike and start building up the kilometers and the speed.

I felt rather good although it was a little cold. I was riding into town for the Saturday morning group ride which usually goes for about 60km plus about 20 extra kilometers riding in and out of town. So I thought as my first ride back I would just go down the back and take easy. For me that is easier said then done, because before long I was on the front having a go at the pace making.

As I'm not a bad hill climber we hit the hills and I was off again attacking off the front. Little did I know was that all I was doing was burning myself out. In the last part off the ride there is a sprint to the finish in town, usually we ride about 50km/h but I put so much effort into the earlier part of the ride that I just slipped out of the group and had to ride back into town by myself.

I think that there was a great lesson in the ride today, which was that when I start training again, slow down until I get stronger before I start taking on the adults.

Training Session

WOW!!! what a hard session today. Although it was worth it, I'm getting back into full triathlon training now, so my whole training schedule has just increased.

Today's run session consisted of two 800m, then a mile followed by two more 800m. It wasn't to difficult but it really hurt. The session was designed to run at lactic threshold.

My coach Jill Boltz has to be the best coach in the world, she has a silver medal from the Commonwealth Games. She knows exactly what she is doing and has managed to get one of the junior girls to nationals. We work hard weekly and since I have been running with her my times have really increased.

Thanks Jill

Tri Port Triathlon Festival

I know I have not been writing lately, but I have been in a number of races over the past few weeks. But I only want to talk about last weekends Tri Port Triathlon

Last weekend I had the Tri Port Triathlon Festival. My Mum had entered me in the under 20's age group as that was the lowest age group. Being fourteen I did not think that I had much of a chance as I had not done any swim training and only one ride in the week leading into the race. I had a mate who I knew would be tough competition and went into the race thinking that he was going to win.

To my surprise I smashed my 750m swim PB by almost three minutes swimming 11:21. Once the swim was out of the way I knew that I just had to start winding people in on the bike and run. Amazingly I caught my mate on the first lap of the bike and when I came off the bike I in was in 3rd place. I had a fast transition and then went into the run hoping to bring back some more people. Well thankfully I caught one other male competitor who was in second overall. I came across the line in second and had won the under 20's. I'm very happy to come away with that result in my first race back.