Coral Coast Triathlon 2014

Over the weekend I raced in the Coral Coast Triathlon up in Port Douglas. After winning the open male sprint last year I had high expectations of myself for 2014, but I knew that I could only do my best. I was registered to race in the open male age group again for the sprint distance which meant that there was a fair chance that the majority of the athletes would be grown men.

The atmosphere in transition that morning was rather chilled out, until I realised that I had left my goggles in the car which was parked a few kilometres away. Once I had retrieved those I walked the 750m down to the swim start line. The water was rather choppy and that didn't suit me especially since I have had a lack of swim training. I struggled throughout the swim leg but knew once I was out of the water I would be able to make up some ground. I think that I exited the water in sixth position in my category and I was 22nd of about 157 competitors overall. I thought that this was pretty good considering I haven't done a lot of swimming.

Once I was onto my bike I felt a lot more comfortable because I had been working at this leg in particular. I had a very good average speed at 40.49km/h for the 20km bike ride and I managed to claw my way back through the field to get off the bike in what I think was 2nd place. There was only one person ahead of me from and he was from Townsville and I knew that from past races I wasn't going to be able to catch him on the run, so the next best thing was to not let anyone pass me when I hit Four Mile beach to start the run.

The only person to pass me on the cycle leg was a local triathlete and he never got too far from me because I jumped off my bike next to him. I flew through 2nd transition (T2) and hit the beach to start my 5km run. As I ran south along the beach there was a a rather large head wind which made running difficult, but when I reached the turn around at 1.25km it turned into a tailwind which was very much awaited. This allowed me to increase my running pace which made me feel like I was running really strong. My run wasn't as fast as it usually is but I think the wind was a factor because I still felt like I was running really strong and fast.

I felt really good throughout the whole race and I ran myself into 2nd place overall, although this is such a good position I am a little disappointed because last year I won the open age group. Hopefully next year I can come back even stronger and win the race.