Just wanting to know if there are any cool runners doing any of the Gatorade Queensland Triathlon Series races this year.

http://www.usmevents.com.au/qts/index.html

I'll be entering as part of a team, and will do the Swim and Run legs. I'll keep an eye out for any cool running gear.

Mike

I'll be doing my first Gatorade QTS triathlon this coming weekend at Robina.

I just entered online and am really looking forward to it - it will be my second triathlon and I think I've got the triathlon 'bug'

Good luck to you and any others that may be competing tomorrow. We will be camped out just north of the swim finish if you want to say hello.

Cheers, Mike

Official results are not up yet:

Unofficial results at following link if you want to sneak a peek

http://res.championchipaustralia.com/default.asp?id=1200

Mike

6.50 swim (me)
34:50 ride
17.29 run (me)
59:10 team total

Gah! I was EIGHT seconds off being under 1 hour!
Oh well - still had a good time...
Thanks for the link for the times.

I came 10th in my category:

8.24 swim
33.46 ride
17.57 run

All very mediocre times really. The run is particularly saddening because I have lost so much form and ability since I've stopped training these last few months. I did 4.13kms in the B2B and yet look how pathetic my time was for a 4km run today.

Nice to meet Mickey too! Good work on picking me out.

Sunset

you still ran 4.30 min kms off the bike...don't be too hard on your self

running off the bike is quite different from running fresh.

good race today.

Well, I just entered in the next Gatorade tri at Raby Bay.

$70 an entry... expensive business this triathlon stuff is!

I've had to limit myself to a max of three sessions per week with the squad as the money situation is getting a bit out of control with this latest pursuit.

Running is so much cheaper.

I was thinking about entering this one because I can't do Bribie this Sunday. But $70 seems a bit steep. Bribie was only $40. Don't know if I'll be able to justify that.

since $70 is only half a night on the grog (for me), not including taxis, i can justify it as a better alternative way to spend the money every now and then. of course, i should not have so many of the former either but thats another story.
it's not cheap for sure, but at a handful of events each year and a life time of good health as a result it's still a good choice IMO.

I'm competing tomorrow at Raby Bay - I'm very excited but somewhat nervous about the mammoth 750m swim!

Great event - definitely my favourite triathlon so far (only three though!).

The swim wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. The cycle wasn't all that fun. But I managed to have a great run!

I'm keen to see the times when they come up. I timed myself doing it in about 1 hr 15 min, 20 sec.

It was great to see Mickey again, and also to meet Peterhorse. Now I have no excuses not to come to Wednesday xmas drinks.

Great work Sunset! See you on Wednesday.

Congratulations Sunset and nice to meet you - results are there now btw - 5th in your category i believe and a great run split Sorry i missed you Mickey - how did u go?

Managed to meet the goals of top half for own and overall category, and time. As for each tri so far, i gain places in the run - which says more about the other disciplines finished with 1:13:53 - the run split says 21:12 (4:14min k's)??. I was whinging that i had bad run but i'll take that.
See y'all Wednesday!
PH

I've had a look through the results and everyone did a great job today, especially considering it was so hot.

I feel a little ripped off, and glad that I did some of my own timing. I passed the timing chip to my rider at 12 minutes by my watch, so that's probably 11:30 at the timing mat, but the result listed on the website is 19 minutes. I guess that it's because they were running late and forgot to make corrections to the teams times. I'm hoping that they are able to correct it.

Now that I've got that out of the way. I had a great day. Felt good at the end of the swim, (probably because it was a bit short I think) which was a relief because I felt completely wrecked after my 400m swim at Raby Bay in Race 1. I didn't swallow any water, managed to keep myself in clean water and had a pretty relaxed swim leg. It kept spirits up to see my rider putting in a good effort, and I we had a small cheer squad to egg us on. My little girl struggled to get out of bed at 4:30, but she likes to come along and watch. We are now plotting her kool kids debut.

Did I mention it was hot on the run! Every time I passed a drink station I got them to throw water at me. I think that they got some enjoyment out of it as well, maybe being hit by 4 cups of water at once is a bit excessive, but very refreshing. I concentrated on keeping my cadence up and not slacking off, especially when it got tough at the end. I was rewarded by a new 5k PB of 21:10. It was a full 5k wasn't it.... please don't tell me the course was short!
We came 10th out of 14 Male Teams, don't know what the final time was because they stuffed up the swim leg timing, but I timed it as 1:14:25.

Looking forward to Wednesday.

Mike

I really enjoyed yesterday and am happy with my times.

The swim was easier than I thought, doing it in 12.43. The ride was a bit woeful for me though and I think I lost a lot of time on my slow transitions. I also didn't like that slight incline against the wind either. My ride time is recorded as 40.54.

The highlight was the run of course. Even though I haven't been doing any proper training (I've been doing a mere 7km jog twice a week for the past few weeks), I somehow managed to get a burst of energy and had a fantastic run, all things considered. The first km was pretty painful but it usually is, having come straight off the bike. After about 2km I settled into a nice rhythm and started over-taking a lot of people. It felt great! My run time was 21.42.

Total 1.15.21

I won't be there tomorrow, but good luck to those going in tomorrows race.

I have a social outing tonight, so won't be in any state to be getting up early in the morning.

Next race after this one is Caloundra. I'll hopefully be taking the family up for that one and staying for the weekend.

Mike

I'm racing tomorrow.

I'm not expecting great things. I have been so tired all week after last weekends training camp.

But this will be my last tri for quite some time so I'd better make it count!

Dismal weather and a dismal performance.

Todays tri absolutely sucked for me

Hi all

I did my first tri at race 5 of the QTS at Caloundra yesterday and was just wondering if anyone else who did it could comment on the relative difficulty of the swim leg. Is it always that hard swimming in open water? The current seemed to be particularly strong (at least from my inexperienced perspective). I'm a litttle embarassed to admit it took me 25 min to swim 400 metres and a good chunk of that was swimming breaststroke after getting sick of slogging away in freestyle and not seeming to get anywhere.

I had dellusions of doing the Mooloolaba Tri this year and thought I was on track, having been able to pretty much stick to the beginner's olympic distance training program I've been following. I've even been regularly swimming up to 3000 metres in the pool (albeit not very fast - 32 mins for 1500, just over an hour for 3 k), so I thought I was reasonable prepared for this 400, 15, 4 race.

I think I was just overwhelmed with how much more difficult it was swimming in the open water compared to what I was used to in the pool. I'm not a very good swimmer (terrible technique, can't get the hang of bilateral breathing etc) and am looking into some adult stroke-correction class at the gym I go to. Can anyone else give me some tips on successfully transitioning from the pool to open water?

Thanks

The tide or current was particularly nasty yesterday. Last year I did Caloundra (different swim course, started on the beach and not in the canal) in 8min for the swim. I'm a stronger swimmer now and I came out at 13min. Other people have commented similarly and my Mum, who was spectating, overheard the race organisers commenting on the current as well.

So I wouldn't worry too much about the inflated swim times.

Your swim times for 1500m aren't too far off what I was doing about this time of year last year as I was building for my first olympic at Mooloolaba, so I wouldn't stress too much about that - you've still get nearly 50 days till the race!

--Toby

[quote name='tismith' date='Feb 11 2008, 12:17 AM' post='295071']
The tide or current was particularly nasty yesterday. Last year I did Caloundra (different swim course, started on the beach and not in the canal) in 8min for the swim. I'm a stronger swimmer now and I came out at 13min. Other people have commented similarly and my Mum, who was spectating, overheard the race organisers commenting on the current as well.

Thanks Toby

I just needed someone to confrm for me that it was especially hard going out there on Sunday and that I wasn't just being a big sook and totally out of my depth. Being my first go at triathlon and also my first ever "open water swim" I didn't have anything else to gauge the difficulty on. All I could think of after was "If I am having so much difficulty swimming 400 m in the sheltered, supposedly easier waters of the Pumistone Passage, how am ever going to swim 1500 m in the open surf at Mooloolaba in less than 2 months time?" Your feedback and reassurance has restored a little bit of most lost confidence here.

On the subject of Mooloolaba, how tough a swim is it? I would have assumed with the surf and everthing else to contend with it would have been a much "harder" swim than the sort of swim I did yesterday.

Thanks again for your reply.

Matt

My first tri swim was a bit of a shock as I'd only been training in the pool. My first tri swim (the 400m at raby bay) was much harder than the 1500m at Mooloolaba a handful of tris later.

Based on my swim times last year Mooloolaba was either short or there was a helpful current, but that could well change for this year. Navigationally it's pretty easy, swim out to the first buoy, turn left, swim parallel to the beach till you're next to the exit buoy and then turn left to shore again. It is an ocean swim though, so be prepared for the possibility of waves and chop. One year I seem to remember they relocated the swim to the marina due to overly rough sea conditions?

Mooloolaba is a great race. It's got an awesome atmosphere and having transition right in the middle of town makes it easy on the supporters.

--Toby

Mattland

don't be too worried as tismith said...swim was pretty ordinary...I have done plenty of sprint tris and that is by far the slowest / longest yet !! was hoping to swim about 7 min and did 11 ...the current seemed to be against us the whole way...heard a few of the team swimmers struggled to even get out of the canal !!

have another go up at Bribie next weekend...usually a very swim friendly race short course race is 300/12/3 I think...longer race is 1000/26/8.

Moolba is a great race...I had never even swum 1500m when I did it in 2004

I've got to agree with you guys, that swim was pretty tough. I was expecting about 8 minutes and managed 12 minutes. Due to the current (most noticable when pinned against the anchor cable of the final buoy), that swim felt more like a 750 than a 400.

Matt, the times and distances that you swim in training are comparable to those that I do. I'd say that you might need a bit of practice swimming in open water. You may not have been as relaxed as swimming in a pool, and may have changed your stroke. Although the water is sometimes a bit disgusting and a bit choppy, I make an effort to keep my head low in the water. Lifting my head makes my feet drop down causing a lot of drag.

Kandingo, I was a team swimmer (&Runner), and ran into a guy in the canal who seemed to be swimming on the spot.

Mike

Thanks guys for your feedback and encouragement. As I said earlier its helped restore some of my rather dented confidence and I'm now thinking that I will try and continue on for Mooloolaba. It sounds as though I just lucked out and ended up with a really tough swim for my first outing.

Mickey - There's every chance that that guy you bumped into in the canal was me . My wave start was just before the team competitors and most of them swam over the top of me as I struggled with making some forward motion and dealt with a mini-panic attack about whether I should just swim over to the side and get out or not. I ended up being one of the last swimmers out of the water.

Kandingo - I'd give Bribie a go this weekend (God knows I need the practice) but its my daughter's birthday on Sunday. I'm definitely planning on doing the final one at Bribie though - even though its only 2 weeks out from Moolba.

Thanks again guys for the encouragement.

Good on you Matt for sticking it out. The timing sounds about right for it to have been you, if it was you, I would have bumped into you on the right hand side (trying to keep out of the way) of the canal just going under the bridge. I'm normally pretty good at spotting people and keeping out of the way, normally I find a way of swiming around without contact. So appologies if I contributed to your stressful swim.

Mike

No worries Mike. No appology necessary (even if it was you, you were one of many and I'm sure none of it was intentional). I actually felt bad about holding-up or impeding so mant people.

Cheers

Matt