Ironman 70.3 Sunshine Coast - Triathlon

Swim seemed a little long according to my Garmin and I swam about 2mins slower than I was expecting. Took me a little while to get into a decent rhythm but got better as the swim went on. Felt fairly comfortable throughout and got out of the water feeling fine.

I'm a good swimmer so I need to use it as a strength. I need to start out harder and get closer to the front so I can find a good draft and get dragged along by the quicker swimmers.

I don't swim in a wetsuit very often due to living in SE QLD. It takes me awhile to get into a rhythm and I often struggle to get it off so I need to practice that more for wetsuit legal races.

Practice getting the wetsuit off.

Good tailwind on the way out to the turnaround which was obviously a tough headwind riding back into town. Tried to push hard with the wind and ride controlled and smart into the wind. Felt comfortable throughout and stayed aero a lot other than the hills near town which I just spun up. I was aiming for a 2:35 bike split and felt like I was on target for that and would still have the ability to run well. However, just near the final turnaround I got a drafting penalty. I've never had one before in my life and I was pissed off because I wasn't intentionally drafting - it just took me too long to drop out of the draft zone after being passed. The penalty deflated me and mentally I knew my bike goal was gone. Technically I was drafting, I was just frustrated because I didn't feel like I was cheating or getting an advantage.

Don't break the drafting rules!!!

No issues, fairly slick and controlled.

Nothing.

Terrible run. I was aiming for a 1:45 run which should have been conservative based on my training and previous performances in recent races. My legs felt heavy early on but started to come good after a couple of km and the first 5km was done comfortably in 4:50min/km. After that though the pace just started to drop off and the last 5km in particular were a death march! I also starting cramping quite badly in the hammies and had a lot of salt build up on my tri suit in the warm conditions so I might have to investigate my salt/electrolyte intake for future long course races.

Really disappointed with my run leg and certainly ruined any slim chance I had of cracking the 5hr barrier for the first time.

Run faster, don't cramp and up my salt intake.

Run leg and drafting penalty


Disappointing race for me personally but it is a well run race in an awesome location and the family and I had a great long weekend away.