Faith, trust and pixie dust ... (ITU Lantau Asian Cup)

There’s something special about a Disney movie. It makes you feel happy, safe, and strangely carefree; essentially, just like a child again. On some level, every single Disney movie reduces us all to a simple life motto of “hakuna matata.”  That’s what I love about Disney even now and why, when I was younger, I would absolutely lose myself in Disney movies and books. Disneyland really is, possibly, the “happiest place on Earth”…..and why I was not going to miss the opportunity to race at Hong Kong’s Disneyland in the ITU Lantau Asian Cup.

So maybe it was all the “Disney” in the air, but something led me to be completely void of any nerves at all prior to the race. More realistically, it was because there were no expectations on me at all. You see, I’m an athlete that likes to go quietly, to simply do my thing, and with no bravado (no matter what place I finish). The fantastic by-product of this is that no one has any real expectations for you. In Hong Kong, I felt free, liberated, and like I had absolutely nothing to lose. It was great.  

The strength of the field at the top end was a step up on the two prior Conti Cups I’d raced. This field had a 2-time Olympian headlining it, followed by a breakaway swimmer in two World Cups this year, three other girls in the top 125 on the ITU points list and another who’d just raced U23 in London. Then there was the rest of the field, pretty much all of which were far stronger swimmers than I (but what’s new?!). It was an intimidating line up for me, but still, I simply felt like I just had nothing to lose. With a 4.3km bike loop, I was half expecting to be lapped out before even having the chance to put my running shoes on. I guess that assisted in my kamikaze game plan of swimming like there was no bike leg, and riding like there was no run leg. After all, that wasn’t far from being a very real possibility.  

Thus the journey began. A pontoon start next to the Disneyland ferry terminal and strangely enough, I found I had some friends for the first 800m. Predictably though, I was then on my own; Just me and the voice of Dory from Finding Nemo, begging me to “just keep swimming.” To be honest, every kayaker I swam past, I watched for an extra second, just waiting to see if they were following me in. Of course, that would mean I was the last swimmer. I hadn’t seen them coming in so I had a glimmer of hope. I was relieved then, when upon running toward T1, I got confirmation that indeed I wasn’t actually last out of the water or even close to.

The strangest thing then happened. I grabbed my bike, and could see girls that I most certainly did NOT expect to see, just leaving transition. To be in a pack on the bike where there were a few of us working hard, was exciting. You see, not only does being a weak swimmer mean you miss the front packs, but you also tend to miss the strong riders, thus you find yourself towing everyone else in your pack along. Here though, I had my first taste of riding with decent riders. Whilst our chase pack had two lazy (or smart, depending on which way you look at it) riders, there were three of us committed to holding off those behind and driving the pack closer to the leaders. Each lap however, we watched hopelessly as the two front pairs of two merged into a hard-working, organized group of four. The distinction going into T2 was clear: A front pack of four, our chase pack of five and others well behind. Conclusion: our pack was racing for the one remaining position that would earn a pay cheque (no matter how small) - fifth.

I usually find that within one or two footsteps on the run, I know if I’ll run well or not. It’s that quick, that instantaneous. I just know. Either I feel light and bouncy and find a rhythm instantly, or it’s a slog from the very first step. And so it is the greatest relief when you feel that “tap tap tap” of your feet straight out of T2. On Saturday, I found that “tap tap tap”.…. But at the same time, niggling away at my mind was the fact that I’d been on antibiotics all week for a brilliantly timed sore throat/sinus infection/head cold combo. Would it creep up on me later in the run? Paralyze me? Stop me dead in my tracks? The answer was; it might. But luckily, it didn’t….at all. I did have a fun encounter with my close friends, the ever recurring blister brigade across my feet (but I’m sadly getting used to that now). I managed to get fifth, my second top five in as many races, but arguably, given the field, my best result to date.

And what I am most thankful for is that very oddly, very strangely - on waking with a nasty chest infection the following morning - I realized that in the last couple of weeks, the closest I have been to 100% healthy was actually in just those two hours on Saturday. It was this mystic window, almost magical, almost “Disney-like”. When I look back, had the race been on any day earlier in the week or even the next day, I’d have quite literally not been well enough to race. But I make NO excuse because on Saturday, (blisters aside), there was no sense of being unwell AT ALL.
Of course, in line with the notion of cause and effect, I am now very sadly, out of the Noosa Triathlon. I clearly used all my lucky chips of dodging illness for those two hours last weekend. To look back though at this recent little race season, my first in Conti Cups, and to see how I ended it… well, it’s good enough for me.

Embracing the Journey ... (Singapore and China Conti Cups)

“Someone in the world is training when you are not. When you race them, they will win.” This quote feeds the obsessive athlete, it torments the slightly less obsessive and niggles at the mind of the dedicated. Either way, as an Elite athlete, being told to take time off is cue for some form of unease. Being told to have a week off running and swimming, when you only have two weeks until your next international race, is not exactly a comfortable prospect for any type of athlete. Over my years of running, I have had instances of being sick before major competitions, or just generally, a plethora of instances where things have simply not been ideal. I can usually garner some memory of some event sometime in my history that can settle me, whatever predicament is thrown at me. The last two weeks however, was a new one for my record books but one I will cherish and remember, to be used again sometime in the future.

To cut a long, boring,(and after a decent result in China, largely irrelevant) story short, I ended my first of five A-races in six weeks, with foot blisters that rendered me completely unable to wear shoes for four days, forbidden to train for an entire week and not allowed to defend my overall female Victorian Duathlon Title. It wasn’t a stress fracture, it wasn’t a stress response, but the timing of it sucked. I left my race in Singapore motivated but unable to act on that motivation. I arrived in China two weeks later unsure whether I’d even be able to get around the run course. The ball of my foot takes the full brunt of my stride and to have a hole in it was not what I wanted playing on my mind. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was far from an ideal situation.

The ITU Singapore Asian Cup was a predictably hot and humid affair. It was a challenging weekend in many ways. Certainly one lovely thing to come out of the weekend though was that I got to meet some of the other Australian girls who showed me once again that you don’t have to be ruthless to achieve in this sport. It is possible, whilst also being a support to those around you. I thank them for that because those are the values I was always brought up with in athletics. Being a support to team mates is something I place great importance on, so it was not easy to see a team mate fall victim to an unfortunate flat tyre.
My own race was largely predictable. I’m getting quite used to my races becoming games of catch up… well hopefully only until I build some upper body strength and perfect my swim stroke. A lead pack of 8 formed, making it very tricky for our little chase pack of 4 to gain any ground. Instead, expectedly, we lost time over the 40km. My first 5km of the run was solid for me. Time splits called me as having made up one minute on the first girl…. But then the blisters came. Honestly, it wouldn’t have changed my placing, certainly no more than one or two places at the very best, so I’m most definitely not making excuses. It’s more that what ensued from km six was probably the biggest mental battle I have ever fought in a race. The problem with blisters is that slowing down doesn’t actually help. You do slow down because the pain instinctively makes you slow down and you naturally change your gait, but then in reality, that just makes the pain last longer. I wanted to stop more than I ever have. But I knew I was still hanging on for 8^th, I’d left the rest of my little pack behind me as well as the girls behind that, and I did not want them sneaking up and stealing valuable ranking points from me. I had to continue, albeit in a rather deplorable fashion. Thus my day naturally ended in the medical tent with a rather unnecessarily large contingent of medics working busily, selecting where to take skin off and where it was best to keep the blisters intact. The storyline of the following 2 weeks, in pictures, looked something like this…

 

Eight days later, another few plane rides beckoned and the ITU Meizhou Asian Cup was upon us. More fantastic people to meet, and another race to learn from. Whilst many curse the lack of social media in that part of the world, to me it was somewhat of a blessing. Meizhou presented a perfect location for an ITU race, even if the “flat” ride course included a steep incline that had some of the age groupers actually dismounting their bikes and walking! Again, my game of catch up eventuated. But I’m happy to say that I survived my first Elite pontoon start and actually did not get a) dived on or b) entangled in the arms of the girl next door mid-air.

I rode the entire bike solo, in the awkward position of missing the front pack but not wanting to slow down to join the group behind. With only 5kms to run, and me not being sure how my feet would hold up, continuing on solo was really the best option for the bike. Running the fastest run split by 40seconds, whilst pleasing given the blisters, was something of a frustration and very much a “false trophy”. As a wise man (my coach) once said, “there’s no point running the fastest run split from the fourth bike pack.” I wasn’t in the fourth bike pack but his words were still completely accurate (and are a constant reminder of what I need to work on). But thrilled I was to earn my first top 5, my first pay cheque and my first drug test….Even if the heat during our race meant a few hours of sculling a mountain of water bottles before being tested.

 

So here I sit, aboard another airplane, my seventh flight in two weeks, with the words from Up in the Air on repeat in my head: “All the things you probably hate about travelling -the recycled air, the artificial lighting, the digital juice dispensers, the cheap sushi- are warm reminders that I'm home.” In 8 days, I’ll be aboard again, returning for another Asian Cup in Lantau, HK.