Greetings friends, and welcome to the final race report of the year, as my season reached it’s denouement up at triathlon down under’s spiritual home of Noosa. First and foremost, disregarding race outcomes or methodology, perhaps the most remarkable achievement from the weekend, and indeed the season, was to have my final race at a time and place of my choosing. Lower leg ailments over the preceding years have led to many a season being abbreviated more significantly than the syntax of a teenagers text-message, so to finish the year when it was myself, rather than a doctor, calling the season done, was quite lamentably neoteric thrill.
Secondly, three things of subsidiary note from the period leading up to Noosa, obviously excluding such things as Working Hard and Doing a Good Job At Training, which I won’t mention save for the aforementioned mention of their exclusion in this narrative. Number 1, I bagged a win at the Gatorade Tri Series race at Raby Bay. Great event put on by the crew, always a pleasure to get a good hit out there. Number 2, I was honored to receive Male Athlete of the Year at the QUT sports awards. Some of my unkinder friends have suggested that it was the Universities way of telling me that as an academic, I make a great triathlete. Lastly, yet most significantly, I was groomsman and MC at my sisters wedding, and had a whale of a time, with enthusiasm and incompetence shown in equal amounts by yours truly on the dance floor, to the horrified delight of the crowd. Fizz and Linc, all the best for the future.
So, to Noosa. Non-drafting racing remains somewhat of an esoteric concept to me given my ITU heritage, and the different format provided a benevolent level of intrigue for the last few weeks of training for the year. Jumping on the TT bike rustled up by Crank House and Trek (thanks guys!), admittedly a little later than I would have liked (My first ride was less than 24 before the start of the race...), is a bit of an galvanizing experience for most of us ITU dogs, and something we relish at the end of the year in the ‘Noosa Prep’.
The race. The swim went pretty well, my experience was bereft of the now infamous Noosa Snake, and with the arms feeling pretty good, I sat in 3rd spot for most of the swim, as the superlative pace set Josh Amberger shelled a lot of the field. Out on to the bike, and cycling heavyweights Burger and Tom Davidson shelled yet more of the field, dishing out power like Energex servicemen. The 7 metre rule somewhat limited the havoc they could have wreaked under a 12 metre or stagger rule, and thus 8 of us entered T2 together. Aaron Royle was not feeling sociable, and had broken the rest of us inside the first kilometre, and that was the last we saw of him all day, as he took the win to cap off a year of setting the bar for the rest of us Aussies to follow. Myself and the remnants of the ITU elite mens world team, Ryan Bailie and Cam Good, set about having a Good-Old-Fashioned-Running-Duel, and my legs suffered early, before resurrecting themselves late on to take the sprint for 2nd.
From here, the body is having a break for a few weeks, whilst unfortunately my mind must stay active for a few more days to finish off my exams at uni, after which the brain can ejects itself as well. Lastly, in peroration to my last post, I have bought another coffee machine, this time of practical dimensions, power supply and plumbability. So, whilst on my break, Cafe de Wilson is officially open 24 hrs a day, feel free to stop by, currently serving a single origin Ethiopian. I think I’ll stick to these, and maybe some Kenyans as well, can’t hurt my chances of getting a bit quicker on the run next year, can it?
Take care friends,
Willy.
A few words with the great Stef Hanson from Australian Triathlete
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