Andrew Tong | Triathlon coaching

Last weekend I ventured down to Huskisson where there were a number of Tri events held over the weekend. The main event being the long course tri on Sunday. Both the weather and the racing were hot.

For me I was actually participating again being well over 2 years since I raced anything close to this distance and also a number of people from my coaching and swim squad were participating and as usual I am always keen for them to do well. What is always pleasing seeing the majority improve on their overall times and also some much improved swim times too, proof that structured swim training is worthwhile.

My own race tactics were somewhat conservative, mainly as I do not get to train as much as what I once did and ensuring that I finished in reasonable shape. I took the swim really easy and found myself overtaking many others in the last half of the swim, getting out of the water almost bang on my target, for the bike I was determined to ride to a HR in the 140’s, whilst initially I had to consciously hold back once in the rhythm all was well and found myself keeping a very consistent pace, much like the swim the longer the ride went on the more I overtook. Towards the end of the bike it was noticeably hotter and the wind had picked up too. Onto the run and I felt good and shamefully would admit that a few years ago I would have just run as fast as I could for as long as I could, which generally resulted in a slow shuffle / stagger at the end and a very disappointing run time. Like the bike I made a conscious effort to hold back and was still running slightly quicker than planned. At the end of the first lap (10k), the heat was starting to play a big impact. Onto the last lap it was a struggle to maintain the same effort and the legs starting to feel tight. I did slow a little but was determined to keep pushing on and was glad to reach the final turn for home, each aid station could not come soon enough. I was extremely glad to see the finish line and was spent and it took some hours of until I started to recover.

Overall I was happy with my time and placing knowing that I need to get a little more running in my legs before the next race at Cairns in June and it was GREAT to be racing again.