15 May 2021
The Video
1km Swim, 26km MTB, 10km Run
Build up
This triathlon was a long time arriving, after being postponed from earlier in the year. In the meantime, Barnaby had contrived to avoid the event (with ankle damage from the Goat), but Me, Will and first-time triathlete Neville were pumped and ready to rock!
I had been suffering a little from a hamstring issue, so I had (pre-)determined to go full noise on the swim and bike, and then just see how the run progressed.
The Race
The forecast had been fairly miserable, but on the day, it turned out GREAT. A lovely morning with an offshore wind.
Will picked me up at 5:30am and we met Nev for the 6:00am ferry.
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| The Sunrise |
We got all our gear sorted, and nervously awaited the start.
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| The Transition Area |
The swim turned out to be beautiful. The water was flat and not too cold. I swam hard and felt really comfortable throughout. I came out of the water about 90 seconds ahead of Will and Nev, who were tied. They both were really pleased with their swims. Will even managed to beat the old breaststroking woman who whupped him last time :)
I started off on the bike leg with one minute's advantage. Will's transition was hindered by some errant gel that he got stuck on his back and couldn't be dislodged (and that Nev sensibly didn't help him with...)
I powered up the first Motutapu biking hill on my new bike (the old one having been stolen 2 weeks before), and kept a good speed going back down, across the causeway to Rangitoto. The summit of Rangitoto then led to the rather scary high speed downhill trail on loose scoria and rocks.
Apparently Will had caught up to and overtaken Nev on the first downhill, as Nev was wisely taking it conservatively due to a lack of rock-bouncing MTB experience.
Nev did manage to fall off on the downhill section (fortunately at lowish speed), going flying over his handlebars and surprisingly only sustaining some bruising and small cuts. (his helmet took the brunt of the fall!)
Neville fell off his bike a second time while descending the last hill into Home Bay, and his back wheel fell off! Nev dragged his disassembled bike the last few hundred metres to transition.
I came into transition with tired legs but still enjoying life. I racked my bike and stumbled off onto the run leg. I went strong on the uphills, and cruised the downhills (so as not to stretch out my hammy). I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see Will or Nev catching me, but nope!
I could feel that my legs were close to cramping a few times... but they kept going long enough.
I got overtaken by some dude with 200 meters to go - it turned out that he took 1st in 50+ away from me by 11 seconds. Oh well!
It turned out that Will was flying along on the run (including just edging out the first woman in the triathlon) and ended up just 40 seconds behind me at the end. Will's run was actually the 3rd fastest of all the competitors!
Neville was a further 12 minutes back (due almost entirely to his slower cycle leg).
Ed (10km) and Helen (6km) ran strongly, both coming in 2nd in their 50+ age groups :)
Wrap
A super fun event.
The bike leg is pretty hairy on the fast downhill bits. You get shaken and vibrated and pulverised over the scoria. Generally as long as you don't touch the front brake, you are reasonably unlikely to fall off. The uphills on the grass on Motutapu are steep and I only just managed to maintain headway a couple of times where it was a bit muddy. Today the grass trails were soft (after rain), which made the biking more of an effort. I didn't take my feet out of my pedal clips even once during the entire cycle leg. I managed to eat one gel on the bike (on one of the very few flat/smooth sections of trail).
The run leg is hilly but not technical. I used trail shoes, which were ideal.
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| No Blood, No Bike |
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