Canberra Race Report
 
Race – Australian Junior Youth Triathlon Series
Race # 1 – 1st Overall Youth A + B
Race # 2 – 12th Overall Youth A + B
Result – Winner Youth B
 
It was the 2nd round of the AJTS series in Black Mountain, Canberra and it was awesome. It was a challenging two days of racing with a total of 3 races all up. On Saturday I had my 2 individual races at 8:00am and 10:30am so it was an extremely small time of recovery in between the two races. The distances of each race were a 200m swim, 6.4km ride and a 1.2km run, this meant it was a short and fast style of racing which was extremely tough.
 
As well as the mixed team relay on the Sunday. There was some extreme heat on the Saturday with temperatures getting up to 38 degrees, this meant changes had to be made, these changes were; I had limited the amount of time spent on my run warm-up so I didn’t become dehydrated before race start, along with drinking a lot of water and electrolytes the day before.
 
We had arrived in Canberra on the Friday and did a course familiarisation with Toby along with other SCTA squad members who were racing, this helped become more familiar with the bike course as well as highlighting and practising certain corners or hazards on the course. The bike course was a tough one, quite a hilly and technical course along with some loose gravel and bumps throughout it, I had made the decision to drop my tyre pressure slightly with the bumps in the course as well as the heat that was expected.
 
Race 1-
I had developed a lot of nerves before the first race but that was to be expected, this meant that I was ready to go. With it being draft legal racing I knew the importance of being out with the front pack. Toby and I had discussed a few tactics pre-race but they all revolved around getting out of the water with the front group, so I knew what I had to do.
 
The Vorgee mk11 were used in the water as it was earlier in the morning and they only have a small amount of tint in the goggles, they were perfect. I hadn’t had my greatest swim getting caught up around the cans slightly, this was due to having so many people on the small start line since I was racing with the older category (Youth A) this meant the ages on the start line varied between 12-15 years old.
 
I was able to do enough on my swim as I had worked the long run to transition hard and got onto the bike with the front pack. It was now a matter of hanging onto the pack throughout the ride and setting my race up for the run, I had successfully done this, with heading in to T2 at the back of the front pack which consisted of about 12 of us, now it was a foot race.
 
After not having the greatest transition I was about 20 seconds down on the leader, and knew I was going to have to run well to catch them in the short 1200m, the Mizuno Wave Sonics were perfect in this situation. I was just thinking about picking each person off at a time, and eventually heading to the lead. 600m was down at the turn around with another 600m to go and I had made my way up into about 5th with the leaders in sight, I had gone past 4th and was closing in on the top 3 who were running together, I had made my move with about 100m metres to go causing it to end up in a sprint finish. I was absolutely stoked to win the race, especially against boys up to 2 years older than me.
 
Race 2-
I always knew race 2 was going to be tough and it sure as hell didn’t disappoint. Backing up after the first race with a small amount of recovery time and with the temperature rising, it was hard! Once again, I didn’t have a very good swim and this led to unfortunately missing the front pack and I then found myself riding solo chasing the leaders, this wasn’t an ideal position to be in.
I rode the whole 1st lap of the 2-lap ride by myself until eventually being picked up by a pack to the end of the 2nd lap. I was off the bike and had found myself much further away from the leaders then I did in my first race, I gave it my all in the run but just didn’t have enough time to impact the leaders finishing the 2nd race 12th overall but still winning my category (Youth B).
 
Although I didn’t have the greatest 2nd race there was still many positives to take away from it as well as many lessons learnt from the race.
 
A massive thanks to everyone who helped me reach this point, I couldn’t have done it without you all.
 
Next Race QTS # 6 on home soil at Caloundra this weekend

Robina Race Report
Date – 13/01/19
Distance – 300/8/2.5
Result – 1st U/14 Years Male – 2nd Overall
 
It was the 5th race of the QTS series and it was a great one. There was a bit of panic the night before my race as I was getting everything ready the night before until I realised I had forgotten my tri suit. Yep that’s right, one of the most important things and I had forgotten it. Luckily, I was staying with the Marsh’s and they were able to lend me one… thankfully.

Me and Toby had decided that we were going to use this race as a training race in the lead up of preparation for Canberra the following week, so this meant no taper. With no taper off a hard week of training the body was always going to be a little bit sore, surprisingly for me I felt great and was ready to go.

The Vorgee MK11 were the goggles of choice for the swim, as there a lighter tint compared to my other goggles which was beneficial for the time my wave started (early in the morning). I had done quite a bit of slow aerobic swimming for a warm-up with a little bit of pick-ups towards the end of it, me and coach have figured out this is what works best for me before the race. A short run warm-up with a few run drills and some run throughs was done before I hoped into the water.

In my race I had an extremely strong swimmer in Tom Feldmann, the plan was to get onto his feet and let him pull me around the swim, which I did execute quite well I had gotten out to the turn buoy with him however after a long week of hard training the arms were quite heavy and he had pulled away.

I headed into T1 with two other guys with Tom being further ahead and overall I was quite happy with the swim I had as I had a bit of time onto my bigger competition in that race in Sebastian and Ethan. I had a great T1 and was onto the bike in 2nd.

I was feeling good on the bike however I knew Ethan and Seb were closing in on me and they had eventually caught me with about 2.5km to go on the 8km bike leg. However when the boys came past me I had worked to try and stay with, which I did successfully and the 3 of us headed into T2 together. I was extremely happy with where I was off the bike and felt I had put myself into a good spot to do well.

Onto the run and I wasn’t feeling that great, I had battled a stitch throughout the 1st km m or so but was able to breath it out and get going. I had put time into the two boys behind me and was finally starting to get into a rhythm. It was a 2.5km run and I did seem to struggle a little bit during the run, but I guess that was expected after a tough week of training. I was stoked to hold on and take the win in my category and 2nd overall with Tom taking the win.

Once again a massive thanks to all the sponsors who had played a key role in supplying the equipment for the race along with everybody else who has helped in supporting and preparing  me for this race.

Next Race will be Round # 2 of the Triathlon Australia National Junior / Youth Series this weekend at Canberra.
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