Jellyfish, tubular tyres and the Lurve Lounge!!
The Busselton Half Ironman 2009 was huge. There was a total of 1100 individuals and 300 teams. We set off from Perth on the Friday. I was going to leave at 6am to get to Busselton in time for the practice swim at 10am but ended up leaving Perth at 10.30am instead. We saw the ‘Centre of the Universe’ roadhouse at Lake Preston which is owned by Bob who won the recent Biggest Loser competition in Australia.
We saw a girls whose Barina had broken down at the Settlers Roadhouse and she had a bike in the boot so hopefully, thanks to the arrival of an RAC towtruck, she made it to Busselton. We arrived at Beachlands Resort in Busselton after seeing a veritable procession of cars on the way down with bikes on racks or roofs. Our cabin was almost brand new and the resort was very nice and close to the beach. We set off to Barnard Park to buy some Busselton Half Ironman merchandise. We had a pizza and coffee at the Vasse cafe in town and met up with our friends Brendan and Liz to check bikes in. I had my bike Sparkles. Liz had her brand new $7500 Cervelo P3 and the event was to be her first use of the bike.
I fidgeted a bit that evening and we all ate some spaghetti bolognaise that Dee brought down. We stayed up till around 10.30pm and all slept pretty well till around 5am. We got some porridge, muffins and milo in us and got to Barnard Park around 6am. I laid everything out at my bike, stocked up my drink bottles and gave my tyres one last nervous check. I had new aquasphere goggles, an Orca Sonar long sleeve wetsuit and some lanolin cream smeared on my face, hands and feet. The jellyfish were said to be everywhere. As the elite/open group departed, it was noted that they copped a fair few jellyfish welts. Thankfully, they had cleared most of these jellyfish away from groups that followed. I managed a swim that was 4mins quicker than I thought. I spent around 6mins in transition so to say I pfaffed around a bit is a massive understatement. I was hoping to trial on my bike in around 36kph for the 90kms and was just a few minutes away from this at 2hr33mins. My run was around 10mins slower than its been in previous years but my bike was markedly quicker. I’m not sure what the incidence of drafting was but I know the chief tech official did all he could to weed this out. Anyone drafting does so completely against the spirit of individual challenge that characterises this event.
I still managed to be 6mins quicker than I’ve done this event before. Dee’s team finished in around 5hrs 30mins. A guy called Michael Frieberg did a team bike leg in just over 2hrs. Quite astonishing! Congrats to Luke Mackenzie and Charlotte Paul, the winners. Congrats also to Brynt McSwain and Lajos Varga who finished in the top 5 and who also do the Front Runner training with Raf Baugh and Ray Boyd.
We had a great night after the event and all 9 of us vowed to put 3 teams into Ironman WA. Can’t leave well enough alone!! We later went with Brendan and Liz to a great restaurant called Relish on Caves Road just south of Dunsborough. I am still chasing the elusive sub 5hr result. It will come one day.
I had a tough cycling training session tonight with Richard Kelly and Brendan MsSweeney. I will do the final time trial of the season at Champion Lakes on Sunday for a 20km effort.
Arsenal lost to Man Utd. D’oh.
I will run a Spin Session on Fridays at 7.30pm at a gym called Pure Fitness. My thanks to Astrid for helping me out with this. I can take a maximum of 20 people and I was involved previously for 18mths doing this. It works well and I’ll only charge $5 per person per session payable as an amount of $50 up front to ensure I’m not out of pocket. So it starts on 5 June so email me on christo64@live.com if you want a spot saved for you for this 10 week block. You’ll work hard, its a non threatening, safe environment and loads of fun (but clearly some hard work is involved)
I am still on board for cyclosportif (www.cyclosportif.com.au) which is on at Lancelin for a plus 100km effort on 17 May. An undulating course.
We also plan some treks on the Bibbulmun Track shortly and the next running event will be the Perth Half Marathon on 21 June in around 7 weeks time.
Reservoir amoebas.
CHRISTO