A 4am wake up greeted me for Australia's oldest triathlon, the Nepean Triathlon, a fast and furious 1km lake swim, 30km out and back bike and 10km flat run. An awesome week of training leading up to Nepean had me raring to go and keen to put the pedal to the metal, coming out the other side with a smooth and strong race.
Donning the wetsuit for what was still a pretty warm swim, I got off to a great start and found myself sitting on a hip, just off the lead 3. A pretty un-eventful swim until the last 200m I had my goggles knocked off and ended up finishing the swim blind. 4th out of the water, I rushed transition and was on my bike hammering it in no time.
Outside onto the road, I found myself just off the pace of a few guys I would've liked to go with, smashing it out to the turn around. On the way back the earlier hit out was slowly starting to take its toll on me and I found myself lonely and hurting on the last 15km of the bike. Flying down the bridge into T2 I changed smoothly into my runners and was off for a 2 lap 10km run.
Passing one competitor in the first few km's I kept it calm and collected holding a steady 3:39 pace, just tapping away. On the 2nd lap it started to get super crowded and the mission changed to finding some clear road to run on. This lead to putting in a few surges when I had the chance and hitting it whenever the opportunity arose. Finishing up I was hot and hurt but overall stoked with how my race panned out, all the extra sessions and hard work is chipping away at making me that little bit faster and fitter each race.
Thanks to everyone who continues to support me and puts in the work behind the scenes to let me do what I love, I can't thank you enough. Two weeks on I'll be in Forster for my first draft legal sprint distance race, another awesome opportunity to smash myself and experience draft legal racing.
Cheers,
Ryan
