Hot, smokey and more hot hot hot!
You know you're in for a tough day when there is smoke in the air and the sun is glowing red through the haze. Along with about 750 like-minded idiots, I took part in the Shepparton half-IM today. Swimming doesn't come naturally to me, so the less said about that the better... suffice to say that the water was murky and I was run over by the next three waves of starters.
The bike leg was a test: three 30km laps over very flat terrain in a sort-of rectangular shape heading east out of town, then south, west and north to get back to the transition area. A moderate easterly breeze carrying tonnes of smoke was ... not nice. I had some swanky new aero wheels which made me look a million dollars, but the motor was the same bog-standard model that I always use. There was a fast bunch drafting each other in the first half of a lap and I toyed with the idea of sitting on and taking the risk with the draft busters, but thought better of it and settled down into a rhythm around 36k average. (Good thing too, 'cos the penalty box at the transition area had a half a dozen disgruntled competitors, they might have been the fast bunch or not, I don't know).
The temps climbed and the pace slowed to around 35 for me. I changed tactics when I saw the weather forecast and decided to go super conservative on the bike and to eat and drink as much as possible to save for the run (I couldn't be bothered writing "r_n"😉.
The run itself was brutally hot, temps climbing to almost 40C and people were dropping like flies. I stuck to my plan of 160hr regardless of pace and hope for the best. The plan was looking better and better as one-by-one, competitors in my age group were walking, totally spent. I staggered into the finish just inside five hours and picked up my first qualification spot for Port Macquarie. Yay for me!
Post race recovery consisted of wandering back to my bro-in-law's parent's place, located walking distance from the race and getting cleaned up and sorted out there - you couldn't ask for a more convenient location. I didn't have a heat stroke and didn't get sunburned (unlike the incredibly stubborn and amazingly tough competitors that finished around 2:30pm when the temp hit 41C and spent 7.5hrs out in the heat - that's tough).
I hope P'Macquarie doesn't get so hot. Woo hoo!
Ritch
As it turned out, my bro-in-law and his father had a go in the hex-man race (1/3 distance of the feature race) and he finished fourth in his category whilst his old man finished second in group and got a prize - a good day out for all of us.