Noosa 2004

It's about 3 weeks after Noosa now and I'm finally getting around to a race report!

There was about 12 Bilbys who were all staying together plus a few others who were racing but staying elsewhere.

We got to Noosa on the Thursday before the race, and spent Thursday flying and driving to Noosa, checking into the apartments, putting our bikes together, shopping and just generally getting ourselves organised. I couldn't put my gear cable back onto the place it was supposed to go so had to fiddle with the gears and ended up doing a quick trip to the local bike shop for a gear service to get it fixed.

They said to leave it overnight which meant I couldn't ride with everyone else Friday morning, so went for a 30 min run instead and quite enjoyed it! It was really muggy as it had been raining, but nice to be in the warmth as canberra had been so cold!

Finally got my bike back, then we all headed down to transition to look at the tri expo. Mmmmmm so much cheap stuff!!! Bought myself some gels, a t-shirt, swimmers and a few other bits and pieces, then we grabbed some lunch from one of the many nearby cafes and headed down for a swim on the course.

As like last year the water was very salty so felt fantastic to swim in, and we did a 1k easy loop and spent the rest of the arvo pottering around Noosa. We went back to the apartments and went for a test ride on my bike and everything was feeling great!

Saturday we checked our bikes into transition nice and early then spent the rest of the day hanging in the coffee shops, shopping, eating, shopping and eating some more!! The gelati at noosa is fantastic!

Had a great day and just ensured I kept the fluids up as much as I could.

Race day woke up feeling excited and ready to race! Got myself organised and we headed to the race start and yep it was raining. It hadn't really stopped raining since we got there, it was just on and off the entire time. It finally let up and we got ourselves numbered, got transition ready and went down to the swim start. It's just an awesome sight going for a warm up swim and turning aroud to see a swarm of 3000 or so bright coloured caps on the waters edge!

In the swim the first thing that happened was a nice whack to the head from the person beside me, but I just took it easy and kept a nice pace going. I thought the swim seemed heaps longer than last year- anyone else find that??? Came out in 28 minutes (1 minute slower than last year), but wasn't too fussed. I'd started getting a sore throat and the beginnings of a head cold/sinus infection that morning so was having trouble breathing on the swim and was happy just to finish it!!

I'd left my bike shoes in transition which I was quite glad about- heaps of people were struggling to get their feet into their shoes and I didn't want to have to deal with that in the wet! I felt great on the bike- just got down on the aero bars and started passing people! Got to the hill and my lack of hill work became evident as people passed me with ease, but I kept going and got to the top of the hill with no dramas, jumped back down on the aero bars and the right aero bar dropped! Mustn't have tightened it enough I even rode on Saturday morning and pushed down on the bars hard to make sure they were tight and they didn't slip then! From then on the ride was a bit more tough as that really threw me and I lost concentration. Everytime I got down on the bars I felt unstable. I also then noticed that my handlebars were no longer straight either!!! No idea how they got off centre.... I had to stop to straighten those which was annoying. Eventually finished the ride in 1:23 after dodging about 3 people (all Clydesdales which was interesting...) who didn't know how to successfully overtake without almost clipping my wheel!!

Got onto the run which is my really weak leg and plodded for a few k's until my legs got into it, and then plodded a bit faster once I hit the turnaround. I was hoping to do under 3 hours, and with 3 k's to go my watch said 2:39. Had to do 7 minute k's for the last 3 k's when I was stuffed. I was pretty confident I could do that, so sped up a bit, and it took me 7:30 for the 8th k. Do'h! Run a bit faster..... 7:30 for 9th k. Do'h!!!!! Oh well, just finish it and enjoy the last k! So I waved at people, clapped kids hands as I ran past them (which got huge cheers!), and just had a ball! Unfortunately I ran past the guy who died as he was getting CPR and the ambulance was arriving. It was quite sobering, but I realised how lucky I was not only to be able to do the race, but to finish it as well, and had a huge grin on my face as soon as I saw the finish line and ran across with my arms in the air, extremely happy in 3:02 with a 1:10 run which is a PB for me in any 10k run (I've only done a few!) and about 4 minutes faster than last year.

Now that I've finally gotten myself into a regular running regime I can't wait to improve more over the next year and beat my time again in Noosa next year!

After the race we swam, ate, shopped, ate, shopped, ate.... and also went walking around Kondalilla Falls, Mt Ngungun and shopping at the Eumundi Markets. Absolutely love Noosa and the race which is so well organised. Can't wait for next year!