Okay, so I was never a good boy scout, and this was reinforced today by the fact that I didn’t take the extra effort to ‘be prepared’ for the Tre-X Off Road Triathlon at Riverside Oaks on the shores of the Hawkesbury River near Cattai. Cattai is a very appropriate name, as there was an awesome infestation of catseye thorns all over the transition area which made for big fun later.
After a nice 5am wakeup, I drove down to the Hills district of Sydney to Riverside Oaks where I had competed in the ARA adventure race a few months back. At this event there were no punctures to be seen in all of the cycling around we did, so foolishly I left my spare tube and CO2 canisters at home in their saddle bag – something I would come to regret halfway through the bike leg.
We headed down to the water’s edge for the swim start, which was about 150m downstream from the swim exit. The swim was from there, back to the boat ramp acting as the swim exit, then running back along the shore to the start and doing the swim again. With the tidal current running upstream when we hit the water, I felt like I was flying past the buoys. Obviously an optical illusion, although I did find myself keeping pace with and even overtaking other swimmers who were decked out in nice, fast wetsuits whilst I was happy going all hardcore and just doing the event in a two piece tri suit.
Out of the water with some difficulty due to the slipperiness of the boat ramp, I took a few seconds to put my bike shoes on right there at the water’s edge before running up to transition. After seeing all the catseyes in transition I was not going to run up even just the 30m to my bike without some protection on my footsies! Like many people, I had my shoes waiting at the swim exit rather than in transition proper. Still, it was necessary to carry one’s bike out of transition before mounting up and hitting the bike course.
The track was a tad technical in some parts, rocky and hilly where it was goshdarn near impossible to ride up without being a superbiker – or at least more superer than me! This is where I came off for the first time, as I stalled whilst trying to get up and over a rocky patch, stalled, and didn’t unclip in time. Just one of those embarrasing falls to the side like a giant redwood being lumberjacked on its way to become some timber furniture, I hit the ground but not too hard.
Much of the tracks and trails we zoomed around I had seen in bits and pieces in the ARA earlier in the year, so I felt pretty good out there. I was on my 29′er which I had got from Central Coast Cycles, so although I probably wasn’t able to throw it around under me and score point in maneouvrability like my 26″ dual suspension from Breakaway Cycles, I was able to open up the throttle and get a faster speed along the straights.
Around the track which we were assured was 10km, I found myself back at transition at the 7.3km mark according to my watch, and zoomed out again for my second lap. It must have been here that I picked up a catseye or 100, as I noticed that my tyres were slowly going flat at the bottom about halfway around my second lap. This made handling somewhat difficult, but I was able to gently ease myself along so long as I was ginger every time I had to turn. Fortunately there were oodles of people out there changing tubes and pumping up tyres, so I borrowed a handpump off a nice lass who had just finished changing up (along with her two friends), which enabled to get me a couple of extra clicks around the track. Admittedly, I did come off whilst going down a hillside, and this time a lot harder than previously, so even though nothing broke my seat was skewed around and I do expect to see some kickass bruising come along over the next day or two.
The tyres kept getting flatter and flatter, so by the time I had 2km to go they were unrideable again. Whatever else, I was not pulling out of this event so I ran and walked around the course wheeling my bike along. Fortunately, some of this was up a hill that I probably would have had to wheel regardless, and with oodles of people on unflat bikes also walking up, I didn’t feel too much of a goose.
Whilst walking, I almost had a YouTube moment. A video had been doing the rounds with a mountain biker getting taken out by an antelope. As a rider passed me in one of the flat bits, a nice big roo who lives on and around the golf course came charging toward the track from the right. I swear, if that buck had not gotten tangled up in some bushes beside the track, we would have had one rider with a roo wrapped around his neck.
At the top of the last downhill I was cursing all catseyes as I figured if I had at least a little bit of air in my front tyre I could at least cruise somewhat coolly down to the bike finish. As I trudged along, I noticed that someone had dropped a pump in the middle of the track for me to use. Obviously the Flying Spaghetti Monster was smiling upon me. I flipped my bike and spent a minute pumping some air into my front tyre, and when I figured it was enough to at least give me some semblance of control I jumped back in the saddle and screamed back town to transition, dismounted and racked my bike.
As I was ripping my bike shoes off and putting my Vibram Five Fingers on, I heard the announcer comment that the first long-course guy was crossing the line. I do wish they would stop doing things like that! Very demoralising to hear some mongrel has finished the run leg before you’ve even started.
Regardless, I plodded off and ran along the riverbank until I got to the escarpment where we had to climb. This was about 30m high, and had a grade of around 45 degrees in places. Needless to say, I was happy to walk up as just doing this still got my heartrate well and truly over my average run leg BPM. During the first lap of the run, I got chatting to another racer who I found out was from Terrigal, but we could only talk for a bit as he kept on pulling away rather than converse with me. What nerve!
Back down the hill and across a paddock got me back to the run start, then it was off for another lap of the 3.1km loop. Most of this was done with no-one passing me, so I figured I was creeping closer and closer to the back of the pack but I didn’t mind. I figured that by the end of the race I would have burnt off enough kilojoules equal to 21 Freddo Frogs, so any race that gives me a worthy excuse to gorge myself on chocolate is a good race.
I ran over the finish line and continued on into the river again, and dived in shoes and all to cool off. Twas most refreshing! Then it was time to catch up with the Terrigal lad and tell him to check out the website for CCTRIHARDS as we were thinking of bringing back the Warnervale off road duathlons, which he mentioned both he and his girlfriend would be very interested in.
So by the end of it all, my times were:
Swims: 12:10 (including run from swim exit back to start)
Mountain Bike: 1:18:55 (including the flat tyre walking debacle)
Run: 46:10 (with a fair bit of walking up a virtual mountainside)
TOTAL: 2:18:55
This was my second offroad triathlon after having done the Sunshine Coast double-header earlier in the year, and apart from the catseyes and flat tyres I enjoyed it much more immenselier due to the hills and technical bits – whereas the Sunshine Coast was all flat and twisty-turny. Awesome day and a nice cool post-race Gatorade from one of my Cheeki water bottles was just the icing on a very sweaty cake!
Garmin data online at Garmin Connect.
