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Mooloolaba World Cup Triathlon Race Report

April 9th, 2010 - Posted by Euski

Firstly, I must apologise for the delay in this post…Mooloolaba WC was nearly two weeks ago now and I still haven’t said a peep about it on here! I don’t really have an excuse (dammit….I did try to think of one!) - all I can say is that I was a bit disillusioned with the result and didn’t really know what to say. Having had a couple of weeks to ponder it, I’ve decided to get my butt in gear and write a blog!

So, the Mooloolaba World Cup was on the 28th March up on the Sunshine Coach of Australia. It marked my first major competition of the year and also the first since the setback of my cold back in early March.

After a couple of solid weeks training and some good progress back to full fitness I was looking forward to getting out and racing again. I knew Mooloolaba would be a tough race with expected high temperatures, humidity and a hilly course, but I was looking forward to the challenge and to once again test my fitness.

On race morning I couldn’t help but notice I felt a little flat during my run but put it out of my mind and prepared for the race as normal and stood on the start line ready to go with the other 47 international girls ready to give it everything.

The run-in to the sea was interesting to say the least! There were lots of waves, but more tricky than this there were ‘shelves’ of sand that kept altering the depth of the water we were running through. There were more than a few people falling over and in practice I stumbled over heaps of times! Luckily, on the time it mattered I had a good run-in and by the time we had cleared the first few waves and were into the real swimming I was in a good position, firmly within the top 10. After this the swim was fairly uneventful and I held my position pretty well coming out of the water still in the top ten.

Then things started to go downhill . Mooloolaba has a long beach run into transition and as soon as I exited the sea I felt like I was sinking and barely moving over the sand! Having looked at the results I discovered that I lost about 20seconds to some athletes who I came out of the water next to as the swim split is taken from the entrance to transition after the long sand run! Ouch! So, onto the bike and I had some work to do after my appalling T1 to make it back to the front pack. I worked with another athlete and caught the leaders in just over half a lap to form a lead pack of about 10-12 athletes. I settled into the group to recover and within another lap we were caught by the chase group to form one big lead pack. The rest of the bike was pretty uneventful, I only took a couple of turns on the front as I knew my legs weren’t feeling special and on such a tough course it was important to try and reserve as much energy as possible. It seemed like lots of other girls were thinking the same as no one was willing to work and one of the other GB athletes, Vanessa Raw, ended up doing a hell of a lot of the work to keep the pack moving. In the end we let the gap close to the chase pack too much and they came into transition just 30seconds behind us when at one point they had been nearly 2minutes down!

I had a much better T2 (no sand to contend with this time!!) and went out onto the run in about 5th place but sadly never found my legs. I felt flat and I knew my technique was reverting back to my style ‘pre-Darren’ but I just couldn’t seem to correct it. The hills were tough but I think in some ways I found the down-hills harder as I just couldn’t find a nice flow and let my legs take me down them.  It was a battle all the way round but my consolation was that I didn’t slide further and further down the field as the run went on. As the day continued to get hotter the last 2 laps felt scorching and it was a huge relief to cross the finish line in one piece….a lot of people had to be put back to together in the medical tent after that one! Great respect and congrats to my training partners Vendula, Kate and Sarah who were 1st, 4th and 5th respectively….awesome showing from the girls there!

So my finishing position was 12th, not a disgrace, but certainly not what I’d hoped for going on early season form. I guess I just didn’t have it on the day but I know I am still progressing back to full fitness after sickness. I really can’t believe how much it knocked out of me – we thought it was just a simple cold but I’ve never felt so rubbish for such an extended period of time from a little sniffle before! I guess I’ll never know if there was something more to it than merely a cold, but the good news is I am finally beginning to feel a little bit more like the Vicky that was around in February. I’ve had a good two weeks since Mooloolaba, preparing for Sydney and even though I go into the race with no expectations other than to give it my best, I am genuinely excited to contest my first World Championships Series race with all the big girls!

So, now that ‘Miserable March’ is finished, here’s hoping to better fortune in Awesome April! I’ll keep you posted!

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