Tri Alliance – Yeppoon Mid Winter Retreat aka 70.3 in Tropical North Queensland
Tri Alliance had 3 athletes head up to sunny far north Queensland to land themselves in Yeppoon for the Half Ironman on Sunday 19 August. For these three athletes each had mixed preparations leading into the race but with each of them using it as a training run (and a good excuse to get out of Melbournes winter) the experience and ‘training’ was more important than the result. Follow the journey with Tri Alliance athletes Nick Sissons, Marina Jurjevic and Paul O’Dowd.
Race Report by Nick Sissons
The midwinter retreat adventure started before dawn on Friday morning, all meeting up at Melbourne Airport. A brief stop for breakfast (McD’s, always good pre-race nutrition at 5am), we headed through security undertook last minute pre-boarding stops and then we were at the gate, boarding was just starting and we bumbed into some other triathletes at the gate. Introductions over, the next question was “where are you staying?” (us, um about 30k south of the race venue in Zilzie), with the guys then asking ‘have you got a rental car?’….. the following exchange then took place:
“… Marina looks at Nick and asks what car did we get in the end, Nick looks back at Marina and asks what did you book… and Paul just says nothing…”
The penny drops, no one had booked the rental car, we had all assumed the other person had booked the car. Our fellow Triathlete friends burst into spontaneous laughter. Smart-phones are then whipped out faster than Usain Bolt down the 100m Olympic final and Google returns the search “rental cars Rockhampton”… boarding and still on the phones, we all take our seats and hear the instructions to ensure that mobile phones are switched off whilst we are still txt’ing, emailing and web browsing to secure any rental car options.
Two hours later, we are in Brisbane, boarding the second flight, Paul nowhere to be seen, he thought we had more time so had wondered off to get food, but at least we are confident that we have two options for a rental car option.
One hour later and we are in Rockhampton, stripping back the clothing layers to our shorts, T-shirts and flip flops whilst standing in the cue for the first rental car option and multitasking to collect the bags. Bags and car in hand we set about playing bag tetris to pack the car with 3 bikes, 6 bags and 3 people. (note: the Toyota Kluger is bigger than you think!)
In little under one hour we unloaded the car and set off for food, checked out the local pizza & pasta taurant and walked to the beach to let lunch settle.
Back to the accommodation and it was time to focus for the race, after all, we all have previous 70.3 race experience and know the importance of a good pre-race preparation…
R&R by the pool deck, no pull bouys, fins or paddles in sight! Just a pool lounge chair and a towel. Nick set about having his first swim training session since St George – a massive 200m set! Paul with his Irish white skin started looking for some golden brown colour, if only proceeded by red and Marina reminded us all that this is a lead in race that she is training through, so deserved to sit back for 5 minutes with a good book “You are an Ironman”.
By 3:30pm we had enough, and knew that a light run session was needed, we jumped in the car and went up the coast to the Mecure Resort and set about a 7km easy tempo run. Although we had Nick making new friends with a 70.3 rookie Canadian in the transition area Paul and Marina set off in the wrong direction around the run course, we passed each other out at 3.5 km heading in opposite directions but regathered by the car.
Back to Zilzie (yes this is the name of the town!) and before we knew it, the day was over, dinner was cooking on the BBQ, Foxtel was on and bike assembly had commenced with Paul spending 30 minutes looking for his seat post connector bolt. Marina was still upset with the damage to her bike bag, but thankful her bike was unharmed. Resident bike mechanic with no skills Nick was making minor adjustments and tuning the gears and then it was nap time on the couch…
Alarms went off at 6am Saturday morning, program for the day… 70km Bike, 1km swim and registration. Within 100metres on the bike, we had to stop for Paul to adjust his cleats, 100m later we stopped again… 15 minutes later – you guessed it.
We were finally off at a gentle speed of 30kph and 1 hour later (with a small photo stop, because we heard how good weather was in Melbourne we thought we best share how bad we had it!) we are at the infamous Iwasaki Resort Road, think four lane boulevard in the middle of nowhere that was built in the early 1980 from heavy chip metal and has never been resealed ever since… 10km of bone shaking later we had completed part of the bike loop and we headed back to Zilzie.
But heading through Yeppoon (township) the call was breakfast and coffees. We stopped and enjoyed a cycling tradition of big breakfast and coffees. Upon finishing, a group of lovely girls came over the road, Paul like the look of this and one of the Girls approached us and asked if we were from Tri Alliance Victoria, (dead giveaway when Marina had her Tri Alliance cycle top on), but turns we officially caught up with the Tri Alliance Queensland crew up from Brisbane. We gave them our table and set off at a casual 35-40 kph average with a good tail wind home.
Was time for another swim set… aka sit in the sun by the pool before heading up to Yeppoon again for registration and open water swim. The water was terrible, 21.7 degrees, clear… just plain awful to be honest. 😉 Back to Zilzie for lunch and wetsuit rinse as well as more “swim set’s by the pool”, before heading back for the race briefing at 5:30pm. Keep in mind there is no bike racking the day before in Yeppoon, this meant more time to tinker and clean the bikes on Saturday night.
Race morning and alarms go at 4:30am, pre-race food, drinks, Bike tetris to get bikes into car and we are on the road again. “Helmets on and done up”, is the only thing that TA officials need to say pre-race, why don’t people learn this already, its standard practice at a race…
Anyway we rack our bikes set up transition and await race briefing, doing the usual run to the nearest… for last minute … anyway whilst on the … you know… an announcement comes over the PA system, competitor number 259, you have racked in the wrong space, please note that your bike has been moved!
Um, Paul, think you best check your bike position… opps! Paul tried to find excuses. “It was dark, it was early, I didn’t see it”
A quick random catch up again with the Tri Alliance Queensland crew pre-race bag drop (you would think that only Tri Alliance was racing as we kept bumping into each other all weekend – they are a great bunch of people up at TA Qld – Noosa will go off this year!) and everyone heads off for the gentle 1.7km walk to swim start, yes they are good and give you a warm up walk at Yeppoon!
However, the wind is up and the current is running… but which way… Nick tries to inform everyone and anyone who will listen that it runs the opposite way to the way we swim, he also found a 70.3 race virgin on the walk down and proceeded to freak him out with tales of bad weather races (Gold Coast 70.3 2010, Yeppoon 2010, NZ IM 2011, 2012, St George 2012)… meanwhile Paul and Marina had their minds on the job (well just no longer listening to Nick’s current and wind chop theory – more fool them, who had the quicker swim time with no swim training?).
Race starts with wave starts and all the girls go in a couple of waves immediately behind the pros and then we have a 10 minute break before releasing the men’s waves. Girls they give you time before you get the men swimming over you…
All in all everyone had a good race. The tailwind made for good swim times, but made the men’s pro field seem like rookies all missing the first bouy and need to swim back 5 metres to go around it. Each other wave knew to head 15 metres south of the first bouy in order to actually make it without needing to double back.
The head wind did make for a tough bike leg and the road surface killed any hope of speed from a tail wind, but 5 laps later, we all passed each other within 100 metres of the same location each lap, so we knew that we all had consistent times / pace on the bike. Apparently in Ireland 12 metres is measured differently to what the TA officials think, but they wouldn’t have a bar of it so Paul had a little rest before his big run.
With a 7km loop run, there was no opportunity to see how anyone else was going, we all had our own race from this point. Paul’s injury, forced him to pull out about 2km into the run, Marina held a steady tempo, only being beaten into 3rd spot in her age group in the last couple of km, Nick ran a steady tempo run, working on the theory of talking to everyone as you pass them to remove the thoughts of how much longer was left to run on the sand paths, some people talked back, others were obviously upset by the fact that they are getting passed by someone with enough energy to run and talk.
Post race we all enjoyed the free hamburgers, soft drinks, ice cream and just laid back on the lawn with the TA Queensland crew before Marina took her Vegas slot, Nick missed out on roll down by two and Paul just enjoyed recovery on the lawn. We stayed for Marina’s 3rd place presentation and then went home for some well earned rest, movies and drinks.
The rest of the weekend retreat was backed up with a recovery swim Monday morning followed by Marina’s famous Ironman food crepes for breakfast and generally doing nothing besides giving each other stick about times from the day before… Both Paul and Marina remain convinced that Nick has been doing swim training despite his admissions that he has not been to more than 1 session since Ironman St George … so, is less swimming better or is it residual swim training still from the Ironman build… or perhaps it was just a matter of good navigation in the rough choppy open water (and Nick has had plenty of rough water race experience lately).
This sport is all about people, and just stopping to chat with people is half the fun of doing this sport. Anyone doing a 70.3 for the first time, relax and enjoy, chat with people find out about the course from others who have raced before, and if you have raced before and you see people looking lost, say hello, make a new friend and enjoy the experience that is 70.3 racing.
Moral of this story, if you want to do a 70.3 distance, Yeppoon is a great place to go for a holiday and enjoy your race without taking it too serious! See you all up there next year…
PS – The resort road is really bad, so just accept it and move on, everyone has the same issue.
PPS – Thank you everyone that sent us messages of support over the weekend, it is a good boost to get these messages when you are racing away from home.
Overall splits:
Nick Swim 32.08, Bike 2:32:31 Run 1:43:28 Overall 4:52:18
Marina Swim 33:49, Bike 2:33:20, Run 1:43:25 Overall 4:54:05
Paul Swim 35:37, Bike 2:36:32, Run… DNF
Words from 3rd Place getter Marina
“First time racing Ironman 70.3 Yeppoon and the pre race advice from the Coach was to use it as a training run…so that’s exactly what I did…with the hope to break the 5 hour mark and get some sun at the same time. J Having ridden the bike course with Nick and Paul the day before, we knew what to expect with regards to the rough road surface so made sure that everything was tightened and checked and then tightened again…clearly others weren’t so informed with all the bottles and cages strewn across the road on race day.
Definitely very happy with my swim (33:49) despite the choppy conditions and my poor sighting. Ecstatic with my bike split (2:33:20), which was the 2nd fastest overall female age group time. The run on the other hand was not my finest moment…was hoping to sneak in under 1:40 but missed the mark by 3 minutes (1:43:25) and as it was just a training run I didn’t try and push it.
Overall time of 4:54:05 with 3rd place in my age group and a spot to Las Vegas in 2013 so I’m pretty happy with that. The BIG race is in less than 8 weeks time…I know what I need to work on so I best get on with it”
Form Guide for the 2012/13 Season:
Marina certainly had a good hit out and is looking the goods for a solid performance in Kona and then on track to go around again in Busso in December.
Watch out Nick is back from post St George Ironman rest and recovery; steady sessions 
will see the splits continuing to come down in prep for IM Melb.
Paul is looking on track, once his injury allows him to be back running, he is going to fly home in Busso with a PB performance, and then build again for solid NZ Ironman (the weather will be perfect because Nick is not racing in NZ Ironman this season).
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