Nowra, on the banks of the Shoalhaven River,
originally inhabited by the Wodi-Wodi tribe, is possibly best known for
producing the racehorse, Archer. For those that don’t know, Archer won the
first two Melbourne Cups and historians will tell you that he was robbed of a
third by the bureaucrats down south who said his entry didn’t arrive in time. They
named a pub after him, so he’s clearly left his mark on the place.
Saturday was my third trip to the Nowra
triathlon. Unlike Archer I had been far from tasting success on my first two
sojourns to the town that also produced dual international (league and union),
Michael O’Connor (aka Snoz).
After a underwhelming 2018, where I
continually convinced myself that an Achilles tendon niggle would simply “come
good”, I felt I had turned a small corner health-wise with fitness slowly
returning via consistent training. This would be my first sprint race in over a
year and a distance I have hardly raced at all for the better part of three
years.
The instructions were simple; Send it.
Anytime you’re not in severe discomfort, you’re being soft.
I like it.
Far removed from the world I am used to of monitoring
power and heart rates and managing nutrition over a five-hour span, this would
be over before I knew it.
The swim takes place in the Shoalhaven
River, under the shadows of the dual bridges. The smooth waters once hosted the
National Wakeboarding Championship. However, unlike those competitors, this
race throws up a more unsavoury variable for triathletes; jellyfish. There was
quite a smack (yes, that’s the collective noun for jellyfish) of these creatures
lurking beneath the surface capable of producing a sting that rivals the one
pulled off by Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the 1973 film of the same name.
The course was changed from its usual tide-assisted,
point-to-point affair to a one-loop circuit. I spent most of the 14-minutes
with feet to swim on, coming out of the water in sixth, almost three-minutes
behind the leader and 40-seconds away from fifth. I only copped one small sting
on the face, but the pain quickly dissipated. If Daniela Ryf can win Kona with
one, there’s not really any cause to complain.
It was time to get busy.
A lot of gut-wrenching trainer sets over
the past two months made the idea of a balls-to-the-wall 20km pedal seem well
within the realm of possibility. So off I went.
The flat ride heads out towards the rich
farmland of Terara. The road has more bumps than a maternity class and is lined
with green paddocks filled with healthy looking bovine of various breeds.
Sadly I was unable to marvel the
agricultural delights, keeping my head down and eyes on the road, looking for
the small white circles that were kindly painted around potholes and also
navigating the different surfaces created by a myriad of patch up jobs over the
years.
The first and last thirds of the ride were
a battle against a crosswind with the middle portion being a headwind then a
tailwind. I managed to carve out the fastest bike split in my age-group (11th
overall), hopefully making my way a little bit closer to the pointy end of
proceedings.
The run features some small undulations and
crosses the aforementioned bridge in both directions.
The five kilometres went by reasonably
fast, with plenty of teammates and friends out on course as well.
The last kilometre is a straight run to the
finish and I could see a couple of guys who looked like they could be around my
age a couple of hundred metres up the road. It gave me something to chase and I
managed to overhaul them both with about 400m to go. Unfortunately that also
meant I had to keep going so they didn’t pass me again.
That last kilometres ended up being my
fastest by some stretch. Strava hawks will quickly point out that the run was
200m short so, while my official time is probably the third fastest 5km I have
ran, realistically it was probably heading for my second fastest 5km off a
bike; not something I was predicting at the start of the day. It was the second
fastest split and moved me to second place, my first podium of any sort since April
2016 (no it’s not a misprint). My overall time was also my second-fastest
sprint time. I’m happy with the day as I now prepare to go and play with the
big boys again at Ironman 70.3 Geelong in a month.
Another feature of the day was seeing many
other teammates enjoy success, spearheaded my Matt Lewis, with his domination
of the Standard distance event.
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