Shooting Lucas Roe (thanks for the pic) with champagne. My bad. 3rd 2:01:42
Swim 13th 23:33
Bike 1st 1:02:03
Run 3rd 36:04
Swim exit Nobody needs an excuse to go to Noosa. It's a beautiful little holiday spot on the beach and once a year it hosts the largest triathlon festival in the Southern Hemisphere. The multisport festival has all sorts of different events over the entire week leading into the weekend. My long weekend at Noosa began with a 1km ocean swim on Friday. Jared and I went in the 'mates' wave so we could race each other. Jared started off super strong getting down to the water first and putting a good distance into me with his awesome dolphin diving skills. My hours in the pool kicked in however and I took the lead and didn't look back. But Jared did lose his goggles, got stung by a jelly fish and lost a leg when the shark bit it off, or so he tells me.
photo by www.pedaltorque.com Saturday, between watching the criterium and the 5km bolt I participated in the Legends Triathlon - a fun teams Tri with athletes from all different sports. My team included a Surf Ironman, a Moto GP rider and myself. For some reason I was put on the run, again I think Ky Hurst and the Grimsey boys requested they not challenge me in the swim! It all started off well until Emma Carney (the original Emma as she likes to be known as) cut the bike a lap short. With Crowie first out on the run the other teams knew they had to do something special to win. And that they did. A runner up ahead jumped the little barriers on the road to get a short cut (much to the crowds amusement). This passed down the line and before I knew it everyone was jumping across. I was now in last place and HAD to come up with plan. I revisited my steeplechasing days and threw myself over the foam barriers, rejoined the group finishing mid pack. Great fun and a big crowd-pleaser.
photo by Rachel Paxton Now for the main event, The Noosa Tri. The womens' race start was almost delayed because of a sea snake terrorising poor Emma Moffat in the water. Somehow I was the only one on the start line that didn't see it (fine by me, I would've had a heart attack if I saw a snake in the water), but I'm told Emma has quite an impressive scream that could ward off anything/anyone. Even Delly Carr got a pic of it. I must've been too focused getting a good start. My swim ended up going pretty well, 13th place I exited the water - yep, lucky 13. I knew I was going to do something special today, like maybe... stay on my feet! This is my fourth year racing the Noosa Tri and I haven't stayed on my feet for the whole race yet! Amazing record hey. 2010 - I'd been doing tri's for a few weeks at this point - I came out of the water over 5minutes down. Falling over coming out of the water was the least of my worries. 2011 - I took a dive UNDER the winners banner at the end of the race. Thought I was scoring a try for the Broncos or something. And 2012 - Shivy and I took a slip and slide on the wet cambered round about during the bike leg. Not the best record here.
Finishing chute So I was only 2:40 behind the main contenders out of the water this year, pretty happy with that! But that soon went out the window when the other girls ran through T1 as if the sea snake was still chasing them! Why didn't I see this damn snake??? Once I got going on Ronny It felt like I was flying past a lot of the competitors like they were standing still. The feeling you get when you have too much caffeine and everything is flying past at a million mile an hour. As I approached the turn around I saw Emma and Ashleigh motoring along. They were flying as well. Must've had their caffeine too. They looked like they were on a mission just like me. But theirs might've been stay ahead of Mel. I dropped off Ronny in T2 and somehow the girls STILL thought the snake was in transition. ITU girls don't spend much time in transition! Out on foot next and back on the chase.
Awards I was 4th starting the run leg. But I felt like I'd just ridden 200km not 40! I could feel my hammy's seizing up from blasting an all out 40k. My calfs were tight. I felt like I had no knee lift. I was stiff and tight and wasn't sure how I'd get through the 10km run. I passed Liz about a km in, still feeling rather ordinary. At about 4km I was starting to loosen up but I still didn't feel great. My legs felt heavy and sluggish. It wasn't until about 5km when I actually started to feel good. I picked up the pace but the lead two had put time into me in the first few km's while they were duking it out for the win. I pulled back a whole minute in the last 3km and finished ON MY FEET in 3rd place! This was the first time in my triathlon career I'd finished in 3rd place (Emma ended up 1st and Ashleigh finished a close 2nd). Something different. And this was the first time I stayed on my feet for the whole Noosa tri. So all-in-all a pretty good weekend.
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