My first WTS
Congratulations on making the start list for WTS Abu Dhabi to represent Australia.
And this is how it all started! After finding out that I had been selected to race Abu Dhabi WTS I knew that a month of hard work was waiting for me, but it was easy to find the motivation as I wanted to prove myself in the first WTS race of my triathlon career.
As I expected, my training continued to be intense. It wasn’t until about 10 days out from the race when some remorse was finally given with the training and I could begin tapering off in preparation for the big day.
I was feeling quite confident with what I had done in terms of training. I had completed some run sessions that were better than I had ever done. Racing the bike crits gave me confidence in riding with some strong riders as well as improving my bike handling skills (such as cornering and positioning within the bike group). I also felt great in the water. Doing the open water swim races helped a lot with this. So overall, I felt ready to race and was certainly looking forward to it.
I have never had the opportunity to go to Abu Dhabi or even the United Arab Emirates before. It certainly was quite the experience to visit such a fascinating country, just like it is with any new place.
I arrived to Abu Dhabi on Wednesday night, 3 days out from race day which was Saturday the 8th of March. The days leading into a race are always very relaxed, I tend to get a swim, bike and run done each day before the race. But the distances of each session are significantly reduced to make sure the body isn’t too exhausted before making it to the start line!
Sheikh Zayad Mosue (left), Spinning around the F1 track (right)
There was certainly a different vibe that I noticed in Abu Dhabi in comparison to other races. I felt very relaxed and a lot of it was to do with the friendliness of other athletes. Everyone seemed very sociable and welcoming which helped ease the nervousness that I was expecting. This is something that makes triathlon so enjoyable, you can still be friends with the other athletes even though there is that competitive spark when you are all racing each other.
The race course in Abu Dhabi was amazing. The organisers had put a lot of thought into designing it and that sure proved to be something special. It was located around the iconic Yas Marina F1 circuit with the swim being in the Yas Marina while the ride and run were around sections of the F1 track. Despite some short unexpectedly tough hills on bike and run, the technical aspect of the course made for a challenging yet exciting race.
Abu Dhabi course map
I was number 43 for the race which meant I was towards the backend of the line up on the pontoon (number 1 gets first pick of position on the starting pontoon). However, this didn’t faze me too much since the distance to the first turning buoy was 370m and there was no clear advantage of starting on one side of the pontoon compared to the other.
Checking out the race venue with Matt and Danielle
As far as I can remember, that was one of the roughest buoy-turns I’ve ever done. I could feel other competitors pulling from my suit, trying to swim on top of me and I had to find strength and concentration to stay afloat. Despite all my efforts, I lost some positions but those are real race situations that you can’t really prepare for during conventional training sessions so each race offers a chance to learn from them.
For the rest of the swim, it pretty much felt like I was swimming in a washing machine. I just had my head down and was following the people in front of me and managed to finish the first lap in 19th position, even though I thought I was a lot further back. The second lap had a similar dynamic. As I was exiting the water and heading into T1, I could hear my coach Danielle yelling at me from the sideline: “Hurry up Marcel, you need to get on that group!!” It turned out that ‘the group’ was the front group. Unfortunately, I was about 10 seconds behind coming out of T1 and found myself stuck with no one around.
I worked hard in hope to maybe catch the front group. I had two other companions with me however their efforts were very minimal to help me make up any ground to the leaders. I could see Matt riding solo and had in the back of my mind that he would soon be with me, which he was. We both worked hard for about 2 laps before realising that we weren’t going to catch the front group. So we made the decision to sit-up, rest a little and wait for the second main group which included some big names such as Mola, Murray and Alarza. At this point in time, I realised things weren’t too bad. There were about 10-15 in the front group. Then there was our chase group of about 10-15 and we were 45 seconds from the leaders. Behind us there was a very large group with pretty much the rest of the field and they weren’t gaining time on us.
On the bike mid race
I did my best to hang on in the group amongst the technical sections of the course. By the end of the bike, we were around 60-70 seconds from the leaders. Going out onto the run, I could see a front group with the top runners quickly forming. My legs actually felt really good, so I thought ‘why not’ and made a push to get myself in that front group of 4 runners. Once I got onto it, I felt comfortable. It was a little overwhelming to be running next to some of the fastest people in triathlon, something that I didn’t expect. I did my best to hang on, but after 2km they started to turn up the pace and I thought my best move was to drop off and continue at a pace which I knew I could hold. At this point, I realised that I was sitting in a really good position, 14th. I continued on for the remaining 8km of the run and managed to catch one person from the front group. So this put me into 13th position.
Finishing off the run leg
Crossing the line, I was absolutely relieved and really satisfied with how I raced. Going into the race, I said to myself that I would be contempt with a top 30 result, so I certainly bettered my expectations by a long way!
This has been a great way to officially start my season of racing. Next up for me will be the Devonport Triathlon in another week. Then I will prepare myself to compete in the second WTS race of the season in Gold Coast. I was pleased to get a start at this one as it also doubles as a Commonwealth Games selection race. So it certainly is an honour to compete and I look forward to giving it my all!
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