We are in Singapore!

Geelong 70.3 wrap up and looking ahead to the first T100 race of the year.

This week’s Newsletter is coming to you from Singapore, ahead of the first T100 race of the year!

The weekend before last I raced Geelong 70.3. I was happy with my 2^nd place – I raced as well as I could on the day and showed some good progress in each discipline. Perhaps I could have made some better decisions tactically but it was great learning for the rest of the season. I had a great swim, finding myself leading the swim for the first few hundred metres, and eventually coming out of the water in 4^th only around 15 seconds down on Teresa who lead out of the water. My bike was solid, possibly was expecting slightly better numbers than what I saw on the day, but it was still a good step up from bike power I pushed on this course last year. I tried to break away early but was unsuccessful and there was a group of 5 of us riding together at the front of the race. Regan was riding really well after winning IMNZ only 3 weeks earlier (impressive!) and it was fun to share turns with her on the front. I tried to get away on the second lap as well but didn’t have enough in the legs to make a good go of it and still the group remained together in T2.

On to the run I started at what felt like a good pace to target, but unfortunately began to slow after about 9-10kms when I hit the main climb on the course for the first time. I would have liked to hold the pace for longer and run a little better overall. But it is early season and while the first block of training this year went well, I can’t expect big leaps from 6-7 weeks of training. It was still the best I have run in a while with a 1hr23 run on a rolling course. So overall I’m happy to see progress.

Now the question is, will it be enough to be somewhat in the mix in Singapore T100 this weekend?!

I guess time will tell.

I’m feeling really excited to test myself in this race. There are so many new and unknown factors which I think is pretty exciting. The heat and humidity in Singapore is above what I have raced in before. And while I usually like racing in the heat, I think these conditions will be very testing, especially given we start the race at 2pm here in the heat of the day. Yesterday I completed a run in afternoon that was 7.5 kms, all easy apart of 4 x 2mins around target race pace - so only a few short intervals. The temp actually felt fine when I was running easy and my heart rate was pretty normal for the pace, but as soon as I started running harder I could really feel the heat and my heart rate sat higher than usual during the short intervals. So, managing heat well on Saturday is going to be one of the biggest factors.

The 2pm start time is actually also an unknown. This will be my first time starting a triathlon in the afternoon - no early morning on race day!?

Aside from those factors, there are many athletes on the start list who I haven’t raced before, in particular the short course athletes moving up to this distance. I expect they will bring a lot of speed, so it is going to be tricky to balance staying in a good position while avoiding cooking myself by going out too hard in these hot and humid conditions (including 31deg water temp!).

View from the top of the Marina Barrage - the only hill on the run course (which actually feels quite steep!)

I see this race as a good opportunity to see where I’m at against such a competitive field, gain experience at a T100 race and in testing conditions. If I finish within the top 10 I think that would be a good result for me.

The travel over here went smooth and my recovery from Geelong has gone well, so hopefully I can put together my current best performance and use whatever the result is to learn and build from for the year.

If you are wanting to tune in and watch the race, it will be live streamed from 7pm NZT on Saturday evening (race start 2:15pm local time, 7:15pm NZT) on the T100 YouTube page, the PTO+ app and some broadcasters (see here for full list).

Thanks for reading!

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