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Triathlon World Championship Series, Seoul

May 10th, 2010 - Posted by Euski

After a fantastic weekend in Sydney I was really hoping for a repeat performance here in Seoul, having felt my training had been going well and that I was ready to go out there and give my all once again. Unfortunately it didn’t quite play out that way! I have only been to Asia once before – Gamagori in 2005 – and that was a pretty terrible race for me. So now with this weekends’ performance added onto that one, I haven’t exactly got the best track record in this continent! Oh well, I guess I will be back to try to improve on this in the future!

I arrived here late on Wednesday, feeling pretty good after the long travel – as the time difference to Canberra was only 1hour I wasn’t feeling any effects from jet-lag and I had a couple of hours sleep on the plane so I was actually quite fresh. In the days leading up to the race I had been feeling a bit ‘hit and miss’ on my runs – some felt great, some felt really average, but my swimming and cycling had been fine.

Race day itself came and I was nervous but excited to wear my single digit race number for the first time. As we lined up for the race start I stood next to Daniela Ryf, one of my training partners last year and the eventual winner…must be true that number 8 is a lucky number here in Asia!

I had a good swim and I have to say I didn’t notice the water temperature (which was a rumoured 14°C) exiting in 8th place. T1 was pretty smooth – apart from the loss of my chip as I whipped off my wetsuit! The officials must have noticed this during the bike section as my chip was placed on top of my run shoe so I had to lose a bit of time in T2 putting it back on. Onto the bike and there were three athletes clear away but they were closed down in about 2 laps on the bike. That made for a really solid first two laps for me!! Man, some of those girls can really ride and on the day I just didn’t have enough in the tank to contribute…I was giving my all just to hang in there!

It was vital to be near to the front of the group with so many tight corners and U-turns (32 U-turns, 4 each lap to be precise!) and I think I could have done a better job of this. Still I made it off the bike thankful that there hadn’t been any incidents and ready to test the run legs. Unfortunately the run legs never really appeared! I tried to go with the early pace…for all of 800m before I realised that this wasn’t really going to happen! I settled into a more comfortable pace and tried to focus on my technique but was somewhat stuck in the wrong gear. I guess the powerful surging bike course really took its toll on me as I just felt pretty flat on the run. I finally started to come good in the last half a lap and picked up a couple of places – maybe with another lap I would have ended up with a good result! Anyway I came in 19th – so it wasn’t exactly a disaster but just not the result I know I’m capable of. As I mentioned, Daniela stormed home to victory in what was apparently a fantastic finish, coming from 15m behind in the closing 500m to take the sprint from Barbara – another great result from our ‘Crazy Chicka’!

So this is where the race report would normally end…except for me the weekend was about to get much more ‘interesting’..! Around 12a.m on Saturday night I started to feel a bit rough, overly bloated and a bit nauseous. It was coming in fits and starts and mostly I was ok. By 2a.m I was really starting to feel sick and by 3a.m I was a very poorly girl! I spent all night in and out of the toilet with a nasty mix of vomiting and diarrhoea (sorry, probably too much information there!) and felt pretty horrendous much of yesterday too. Thankfully I’m feeling much more alive now and hoping to feel right as rain for my return to the UK tomorrow. Several of the other athletes (including my roomie Hollie Avil and training partners Lisa Norden and Barbara) have also been struck down so the likelihood is that the dirty water of the River Hahn got to us! Either that or a bug has been passed between the athletes.

Anyway, not a fun couple of days and Seoul certainly hasn’t been all I’d hoped for but looking at the positives – I’m coming home tomorrow!! I can’t wait to have a little time back in the UK after 4+months away. Come on little volcano, stay quiet for a couple of days so I can get home…please!

Next up will be the first round of the French Grand Prix in Dunkerque so I will ask the racing Gods for a better time in France.

Take it easy

Vix x

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