Race report: Tweed Coast Enduro 2017

Alright, for those that are interested in these things, here’s my Tweed Coast Enduro race report. I was trying to be able to snippet it behind a link so it wasn’t so massive (I tend to write heaps) — apologies for the length!!!

When I signed up for the Tweed Coast Enduro back in October 2016, I had assumed I’d have plenty of time to get fit for it. I assumed wrong — for a variety of reasons, many within my control, some outside of it. Here’s my race report.

Undertrained.

I did Kingscliff sprint triathlon back in November, and after developed a nasty ear infection — my second in a year. I paid a trip to the GP after some advice from a medico friend. The initial diagnoses was a hole in the eardrum. That resulted in a referral to an ENT that I needed to wait a month and a half to see (which meant no swimming). The ENT referral confirmed a permanent hole in the eardrum that would need surgery (the second time in my life this would need to be done), but I could swim if I took adequate precautions.

But this little episode meant I missed out on swim training for two months. Running training I avoided — I realise that I’m simply not tough enough to train in the heat particularly when carrying extra body weight. I’m now convinced that unless my body weight and body fat are at a certain number that trying to perform well in summertime long distance triathlon is a bit of a lost cause (why did they make beer so delicious?). Tweed Coast Enduro would end up proving that you really cannot out-tri bad preparation — but you can finish it.

I was at least fortunate that I’ve put a lot of kilometres in on a bike and even ride a road bike with aero bars I’d still post a decent enough time.
Weight wise I wasn’t even near where I wanted to be. Though I’d dropped about 5–6kg before the race, I really need to lose another 10–15kg to be near the standards I want to be at.

The Swim.

Enduro had marketed itself as a ‘downhill’ swim (i.e. easy). It ended up being the toughest triathlon swim I’ve done. I realise people cannot control or predict tides, but events such as Tweed and Kingscliff have got to stop marketing like this because it creates false expectations. Out of the 4 kingscliff races and now one tweed race, each apparently ‘easy’ because of a current-assisted swim, three of them have been us swimming against the current.

Now I realise I wasn’t going to set the world on fire with my swimming because a) I’m generally rubbish at swimming and I hadn’t even really trained, I did do 2Ks in the Enoggera Reservoir about a fortnight ago, at a straightforward pace with the odd stop to get my bearings and I swam about 47 minutes. My Tweed swim time was around 58 minutes, which gives you an idea of the impact of the current. Essentially, we swam into the current for the entire 2K. Saying that, I was the slowest in my wave — but a good margin as well. I think I was the last person out of my wave to finish the swim!

This was a bit frustrating as I think a good swim really sets you up for the rest of the race, and I was tired getting out of the water. Basically, that’s when I realised that all my goals I had set (sub 6 hours this time) were basically gone and so I just didn’t panic in transition, taking my time and not trying to stress.

The Bike.
I’ve done 90ks on this course essentially twice now so I was familiar with what to expect. The road is rough, so I deflated my tyres slightly to aid comfort. I noted quite a few people out there today flatted, and I wonder if its due to over inflation of their tyres on such a rough bit of tarmac.

Anyway, I rode steadily. I was on the road bike with aero bars attached and even though I hadn’t really been training with aero bars, they came in handy in places as basically the entire course heading out was into the wind. Trying to stay aero limited time losses due to wind resistance.

Fortunately, for the first two laps at least, there was a massive tailwind, so I was doing 29kph on the way out, and 38 on the way back without really smashing myself.

In the end, I did a tad over 31 kph and I could have gone a lot harder, but I knew I was coming up to a tough run with minimal training and I didn’t want to absolutely smash myself. My bike time was 2:50 for the bike course, which I’m happy enough with considering. Also despite being last place in my category out of the swim (by like 10 minutes!) I managed to jump up five places meaning I did something right on the bike.

The Run.
Well, my run was rubbish. I’m a big guy and I just can’t run well in the heat well at all. I’d hope to do about 6-minute plod at a 140–150 heart rate through the entire thing but the mercury must have been over 30 and there was literally no shade. I watched my k splits immediately begin to shoot out further than anticipated and the truth was I just was not trained enough to do this event. Within two kilometres I had pretty much thrown in the towel and thought to myself ‘that’s it, I’ll do one lap and retire — I don’t need to smash myself this much for what’s going to be a crappy time anyway’, but then a fellow club member ran by me and said ‘just keep at it Daz’ and I started up again.

The heat was brutal and I said to myself “look, just run between the aid stations, throw water and ice on yourself and you’ll be OK”. I’d still had convinced myself I’d retire after the first 7k lap, but the cheers from the South Bank Tri Club tent made me think ‘hell, I’ll do another one!”. I did have a 5 minute toilet stop break after the first lap (getting those sleeved tri suits off is tough), but I’m proud that I ran the entire of the second lap, I just felt far better using the ice/water strategy even if I was going at a slowish shuffle.

By the end of the second lap, I knew I could finish even though it’d be tough. My body was basically shattered then, and I was forced to walk about two of the final seven kilometres, but I did manage to finish. Thus, that was my slowest ever half marathon at 2:23:50 (including the toilet break so probably actually about 2:18 or 2:19) but I was basically on the limit and conditions meant doing good times were difficult. In hindsight, I was happy though to gain 3 places in my category in the run.

In the end I finished the entire thing in 6:25:20, an hour and eight minutes slower than my previous 70.3! But I couldn’t do any better on the day and realise that if you don’t do the necessary time in the pool and kilometres in the shoes, you really don’t get the rewards.

Massive kudos to my fellow South Bank Tri Club members for the very helpful shout outs and words of encouragement! And also saw some of my old Intraining Tri Club buddies who I saw out on course and they also gave me a lot of words of encouragement and even got to run with a few times (well, they were running past me generally).

I’m signed up for Sunny Coast 70.3 in September and I had set an ambitious goal of sub five hours but I think I need a lot of stuff between now and then to go well in order to be even close. But hell, let’s give it a go anyway!