Tour de Asia
My trip to Asia was something that I had been really looking forward to a number of weeks before I left. The plan was to race Tongyeong World Cup (South Korea) at the end of October then race Miyazaki World Cup (Japan) 2 weeks later. Between these two races I would be on a training camp in Japan organised by Triathlon Australia.
Throughout the final week of training in Melbourne, every session felt like a checkpoint as I progressed closer to the last hard session at home and it sure did put a smile on my face. Before I knew it, I had my bags packed and was boarding my 12:40am flight to South Korea. Arriving into Tongyeong at night gave me no indication of what the town had to offer but I was pleasantly welcomed to the scenic views upon waking in the morning. The days before the race followed the same usual procedure as any other race, short training sessions during the day accompanied by ample time watching movies in the hotel room. I was feeling relaxed and focussed for my race.
Unfortunately my good swim didn’t result in the ideal race situation of a small group to work with on the bike. Within a couple of kilometres the field had bunched together and my focus for the ride switched to maintaining a good position within the group which I did as I came into transition 2 towards the front. I had a slight fumble putting my shoes on through T2 and exited onto the run mid-pack. I used the first half of the lap to try and bridge towards the front of the race but once I got to the steep hill, my legs were stinging a little more than I had hoped. For the rest of lap I tried to get myself back into a good running rhythm. My legs never quite got going but I pushed on and finished in 16th for the race. I had hoped to race a little better but I didn’t quite have the legs to put the race together. I still walked away having had a great swim, something that could at least put a smile on my face.
Later that afternoon I caught the shuttle bus from Tongyeong to Busan where I spent the night before flying to Japan the following morning. The bright lights of Busan city made it feel like I was in the middle of a computer game! It is certainly a city that I would love to go back to visit properly; staying the night wasn’t enough.
Japan was a great place to base myself for the days before the next race; the people are really friendly, the weather was warm and best of all the food is amazing! Here I stayed with 2 other athletes and Queensland coach Dan Atkins. The time between the two races was well balanced by sufficient recovery from Tongyeong, some harder sessions to fine tune the body and also easier taper sessions. Getting this balance right was key to having a solid performance for the Olympic Distance in Miyazaki.
I arrived into Miyazaki with full intentions to outperform my Tongyeong result. I raced in Miyazaki 2 years ago and finished in 15th, so I was familiar with the location. Since the last race, they had slightly changed the course to make it a little more difficult on the bike with a few more technical sections and I saw this as a change that played in my favour.
My swim didn’t start off too well with a poor start off the line. However I did my best to move up as I approached the first turn buoy. But once there, I had numerous athletes pull, push and grab me slowing me right down. It was very frustrating, especially when you can see the front swimmers not having such issues. I spent a fair chunk of the swim feeling like I was being attacked and by the end I just wanted the swim to end. I exited the water at the front of the chase group with about 10 athletes ahead but I knew I had other strong riders in my group. Our group worked well together and after 5km we had joined the front of the race making it about 25 in the peloton. For the remainder of the ride I concentrated on staying towards the front of the group to avoid any causalities and avoid the ‘rubber band effect’ as gaps opened up out of the u-turns. I came into T2 feeling like I had conserved my legs well for the final 10km run. Out of transition I settled into a good rhythm and soon found myself running with 2 other athletes sitting in 4-6 position. Behind, about 10 seconds, was a larger group of 6/7 runners. I knew that I needed to hang tough and stick in the group I was with as we tried to chase the athletes ahead. Slowly we extended our lead to the others behind and into the final 2.5km lap our pace had picked up. Gaps started to open up and I kept on pushing through to finish in 5th, a result that I was really happy with.
Finishing off a triathlon season with strong performances can really give a confidence booster for the following season. Miyazaki is my second best World Cup performance behind my 2ndplace in Astana earlier this year. I finish my 2018 season with strong results ending up with a World Ranking on the ITU points list of 33. But now, it is offseason featuring 2 weeks of no training to recover the body!
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