Moo'ba race report
Warning, this is overly detailed and probably a painful read for anyone who isn’t passionately interested in every single thought I had during the race.
I felt good on race morning. Slightly stiff in the neck and as a result slightly tense in the head, but I stretched it out and felt ok. Breakfast was a banana, vegemite on grain bread and half a glass of gatorade and a lot of water.
I missed my warm-up because I was setting a cruisy pace wandering down to the start line and got there just as my race briefing was beginning. In hindsight this was probably blessing in disguise because it meant I didn’t spend fifteen minutes standing on the start line with butterflies on acid flying round my stomach.
The swim felt great. I had a clean break out to the first buoy, it was comparatively smooth (compared to the caged death match that is Noosa) and then got into a really good rhythm where I was passing a lot more people than passed me. I did three big efforts of twenty seconds hard to shake people who were sidling next to me. I felt really hungry about half way into the swim and decided to have my spare gu as soon as I got onto the bike. I didn’t get a wave on the way in but caught some white water in the last bit of the shallows.
T1 was smooth. I stuffed the spare optional GU into the top of my knicks and took off. I got out of the green zone and pulled my shoes on fine. Actually, the best I’ve been able to. The ride felt good. The hilly start really suited me and once we got onto the freeway the aerobars were great. I had the first GU at about the 6km and it went down ok. The passing packs were pretty awful and it was particularly frustrating to watch the tech officials fly by and appear to do nothing. I kept doing efforts to drop people who were sitting on my tail which was good because it kept my speed up and got me out of the saddle. The turn around came and there was slightly more wind on the way back. At about 25km I had pins and needles in my left foot that didn’t disappear until the run. At about 30km I had to decide whether or not to have another GU or just stick to water. I left it because there wasn’t much water in my bottle and I didn’t want it if I didn’t have anything left to wash it down with. 34-39km was my fastest and I dropped another three that had been sitting on my tail for a while. The hills back into transition were good, and the ride through the main street at the end with all the people around was an awesome feeling.
T2 was fine and the first two kilometres of the run leg felt good. From there it all went downhill (both literally and figuratively!). I took on a lot of water at each station and poured a cup over myself as well. But at about 4km I got a stitch that I just couldn’t shake. I was also feeling really overheated and craving drink stations. I kept plodding on but I could feel how slowly I was going and it was really frustrating. The PCRG tent were in the best spot (3/4 of the way up the hill where you do the turn around) which was great and I finally started to get some momentum at about the 6km mark. The last time over the hill was great and the last 900m passed very quickly.
Overall time was 2:27:03. 22:40 for the swim; 1:16:04 for the ride; 48:17 for the run. I was 25th for my age-group.
By comparison, my Noosa times were: 29:28, 1:16:08 and 47:14 so the clear pick up was my swim. However, the two things I will take from the race are 1. to work on nutrition and 2. to do more bike-run brick sets at race speeds (I do them at long run/long ride pace most of the time). The reason I say this is because when you factor in how much harder the Mooloolaba run course is, one minute slower at Mooloolaba is probably a greater effort than Noosa (IMHO). The other reason is that I felt a lot better getting off the bike at Mooloolaba, but couldn’t capitalize on that in the run. The nutrition comment will probably result in a second water bottle on the bike (I currently keep a toolbox in the spare bottle holder but I plan to put a dual cage behind my saddle), some gatorade or another electrolyte replacement and a better regimented gel plan.
Having said that, and knowing I’m my own harshest critic, I am extremely happy with my performance. It was a bloody hard course, I knocked five full minutes off my time (in less than five full months) and my swim has obviously really improved. I also know I can make some serious progress on my bike now based on the difference in feeling at the end of this ride and the end of Noosa’s. I’m also not stressed about the run, I know I’ve got a much faster run time in me, I just have to work out how to unlock it properly.
Another massive thank you to all the supporters: Cirque, Karla, Sally, Belinda, Clairie, Tesso, Pat, Jordan who took up the challenge and had a great race too and everyone else who had a shot, or encouraged me in the leadup: Miners, Jen, Don, Ewen, PeterHorse. (and anyone else I've inadvertently missed!)
Roll on GC mara.
I felt good on race morning. Slightly stiff in the neck and as a result slightly tense in the head, but I stretched it out and felt ok. Breakfast was a banana, vegemite on grain bread and half a glass of gatorade and a lot of water.
I missed my warm-up because I was setting a cruisy pace wandering down to the start line and got there just as my race briefing was beginning. In hindsight this was probably blessing in disguise because it meant I didn’t spend fifteen minutes standing on the start line with butterflies on acid flying round my stomach.
The swim felt great. I had a clean break out to the first buoy, it was comparatively smooth (compared to the caged death match that is Noosa) and then got into a really good rhythm where I was passing a lot more people than passed me. I did three big efforts of twenty seconds hard to shake people who were sidling next to me. I felt really hungry about half way into the swim and decided to have my spare gu as soon as I got onto the bike. I didn’t get a wave on the way in but caught some white water in the last bit of the shallows.
T1 was smooth. I stuffed the spare optional GU into the top of my knicks and took off. I got out of the green zone and pulled my shoes on fine. Actually, the best I’ve been able to. The ride felt good. The hilly start really suited me and once we got onto the freeway the aerobars were great. I had the first GU at about the 6km and it went down ok. The passing packs were pretty awful and it was particularly frustrating to watch the tech officials fly by and appear to do nothing. I kept doing efforts to drop people who were sitting on my tail which was good because it kept my speed up and got me out of the saddle. The turn around came and there was slightly more wind on the way back. At about 25km I had pins and needles in my left foot that didn’t disappear until the run. At about 30km I had to decide whether or not to have another GU or just stick to water. I left it because there wasn’t much water in my bottle and I didn’t want it if I didn’t have anything left to wash it down with. 34-39km was my fastest and I dropped another three that had been sitting on my tail for a while. The hills back into transition were good, and the ride through the main street at the end with all the people around was an awesome feeling.
T2 was fine and the first two kilometres of the run leg felt good. From there it all went downhill (both literally and figuratively!). I took on a lot of water at each station and poured a cup over myself as well. But at about 4km I got a stitch that I just couldn’t shake. I was also feeling really overheated and craving drink stations. I kept plodding on but I could feel how slowly I was going and it was really frustrating. The PCRG tent were in the best spot (3/4 of the way up the hill where you do the turn around) which was great and I finally started to get some momentum at about the 6km mark. The last time over the hill was great and the last 900m passed very quickly.
Overall time was 2:27:03. 22:40 for the swim; 1:16:04 for the ride; 48:17 for the run. I was 25th for my age-group.
By comparison, my Noosa times were: 29:28, 1:16:08 and 47:14 so the clear pick up was my swim. However, the two things I will take from the race are 1. to work on nutrition and 2. to do more bike-run brick sets at race speeds (I do them at long run/long ride pace most of the time). The reason I say this is because when you factor in how much harder the Mooloolaba run course is, one minute slower at Mooloolaba is probably a greater effort than Noosa (IMHO). The other reason is that I felt a lot better getting off the bike at Mooloolaba, but couldn’t capitalize on that in the run. The nutrition comment will probably result in a second water bottle on the bike (I currently keep a toolbox in the spare bottle holder but I plan to put a dual cage behind my saddle), some gatorade or another electrolyte replacement and a better regimented gel plan.
Having said that, and knowing I’m my own harshest critic, I am extremely happy with my performance. It was a bloody hard course, I knocked five full minutes off my time (in less than five full months) and my swim has obviously really improved. I also know I can make some serious progress on my bike now based on the difference in feeling at the end of this ride and the end of Noosa’s. I’m also not stressed about the run, I know I’ve got a much faster run time in me, I just have to work out how to unlock it properly.
Another massive thank you to all the supporters: Cirque, Karla, Sally, Belinda, Clairie, Tesso, Pat, Jordan who took up the challenge and had a great race too and everyone else who had a shot, or encouraged me in the leadup: Miners, Jen, Don, Ewen, PeterHorse. (and anyone else I've inadvertently missed!)
Roll on GC mara.
posted by owen at 6:14 pm
6 Comments:
Great race report & took on you for taking note of the lessons. You will have a great GCM - looking forward to seeing you at Warwick first!
Congrats again Owen. You looked great out there.
That run is the worst. I did it (in a team) a few years ago and vowed 'never again'. Not only is it a really tough course but gees it was hot and humid, much moreso than Noosa was in November.
It was such a pleasure for all of us to be out there cheering for you and everyone else.
Enjoy your recovery. Can't wait to see what you can do at GC!
fantastic report mate, and lots of detail for us tri-geeks to get our teeth into - Thanks!
You probably did the right things with the gels/nutrition, so I think the tougher run course was probably the thing which kept your time below what you expected. Still a great run though at the end of an Oly, let alone on a tough course :)
Great to hear you've had a good end to the tri-season. Roll on GC mara indeed!
great report Owen. as a sometime tri person (not yet athlete) I found it very interesting to see all that detail. whatever you did for swimming i'll have some thanks - that's huge.
GCM here we come.
Thanks Owen - I enjoyed reading that. It's good to have the details. Great race and PB!
The long runs you do for GC will also help your 10k split off the bike. I'm sure you can get that down around your PB - at least sub-44 anyway.
Hi Owen, I'm in Boston for the Boston marathon and only just catching up with a lot of my blog reading (I had fallen badly behind).
That was a great race report and I liked the detail too. I was particularly interested in what you said about nutrition and that was a real reminder to me to get things right for my marathon on Monday.
Well done on your great effort and for your balanced account of the day.
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