This entry is a review of my preparation for the 2010 Coolangatta Gold, specifically covering the mistakes I made in my overall preparation, my lead up in the week before and during the race. The idea with highlighting these mistakes obviously is to learn from them and not make them again.
Before The Race
Not Enough Board Work. This is an obvious one. I knew I had not done enough work on the board, leaving my skills and board fitness lacking. On top of that, this lack of preparation was one of my major causes of anxiety coming into the race. I knew if the conditions blew up (as they did) I would really battle to get out on this leg. It was constantly on my mind, causing distress in the final week. One of the causes of this was the fact that I left my board preparation really late, due to my neck issues. When the time came to get stuck into it, the weather blew up on the Gold Coast and I lost 3 weeks of time there, being constrained to flat water training. I should have planned it better, managed my neck better and gotten my skills up to scratch earlier. Now though, I see the good effect the Chiro work I am having done is having on my neck, so there should be no reason not to get cracking on my board skills immediately.
Running Fitness Maintenance – Having developed my running fitness for the half marathon in July, I lost it, then had shin splints and a couple of injuries which stopped me from really taking advantage of the fitness base I had developed. All I really needed to do after July was two runs a week, but the holiday in Africa and also the half marathon “hang-over” I experienced kept me off the road. Running I believe is the best discipline out of the four to develop and maintain cardio fitness. I need to keep it as part of my weekly training schedule throughout the year.
Too Intense For Too Long – Without a doubt I burned out with a month to go. Specifically with my pool work, I lost all desire to get in the pool. This then pushed into the other disciplines and I started losing the desire to drag myself out of bed to get to training. This needs to be managed better. Scheduling “training holidays” and making sessions more fun needs to be integrated into my long term training plan this year.
Visualisations – I used to use these as an effective training tool as a kid all the time. I only started using them again with days to go. I’m not sure if they would have changed my result at all, but they certainly would have helped my manage my nerves a bit better. I think I need to bring visualisation and affirmation techniques into my daily life again.
Final Week – I know I am a nervous starter – my final week was a nightmare though, with illness, my issue with the anti-biotics and nerves etc. Once on course, I was fine – just dealing with the job at hand. I need to learn to manage all this much better. Hopefully the point above will help me with this.
Nutrition - My illness, issues with anti-biotics and subsequent meltdown in the week leading up to the Gold left me with the desire to learn more about nutrition when training for a race like the Coolangatta Gold. My coaches gave me a lot of fantastic information which really helped me with maintaining my energy levels and health, but it really fell apart for me in that final week. (my fault – not my coaches) I’d like to learn about nutrition as you get closer to an event like this, find out about supplements and food you can use to help avoid illness in those dying days and as importantly, what you can do if you get sick so anti-biotics and other medicines are not considered. For example, after my fainting episode, the lady at the local health food shop recommended Maca root. I basically striped away all the other things I was having and just had these maca root suplements and the “good bacteria” capsules from inner health plus. I strongly believe this combination, along with stacks of vitamin C and fluids, is what got me healthy in time for the starters gun. I’d like to learn more about this kind of stuff.
Day Before Race Preparations – The day before the race brings all kinds of race preparation requirements. The race brief is given, craft need to be scrutineered and you need to pick up your race kit. In my case, the craft needed to be left at Kurrawa for checking over between midday and 3pm. The race brief was scheduled for midday also, but about 500m away at a local school. Then we could pick up our race kits after the brief, back at the life saving club. I made three errors over this time.
- Hydration – it was a warm day, with lots of walking around. In my case, I didn’t bring fluids with me. I had hydrated well through the week to this point, but all the walking in the heat also required fluids. Looking around, everyone else was carrying water bottles. It wasn’t too much of an issue as I used the water fountains at the school, but I could have been better prepared.
- It all happened over the lunch hours, which really interrupted meal preparation and carb loading on the last day. I knew what time everything was happening, I just didn’t think to prepare a good carb meal, bring it with me and eat while preparing everything
- We had a bloke hanging around us the whole day, who was not part of my team of handlers, who really interrupted my mental preparation. I didn’t know how to deal with him, he is one of the guys at the club who despite my many hints, refused to go on his way. It really unsettled me though. Next time I’ll need to be clear that we are having a “race meeting” for me and my handlers only. “No offence – but we need to organise this on our own”.
During The Race
Fuel - I knew I’d lose time in conditions like those we had on race day. I ended up losing half an hour on the ski leg and half an hour on the swim. My race plan was not flexible enough – and I didn’t have the presence of mind to bring additional gels on the ski leg. We planned to have a 2 hour energy bar before the race started, a gel at 90 minutes, another 30 minutes later than a third 10 minutes before arriving at Coolangatta. This was based on my “perfect day” times, not worse case scenario times. A silly mistake. Next year I must remember to review my fuel the day before and make any adjustments required to match the conditions.
Line Taken On Ski – I noticed in the masters categories, we all went quite wide out the back. I am not sure if the large conditions contributed to this. Clearly there was a desire of all competitors to avoid being washed into the impact zone. I noticed during the race that the competitors in my category were going wide so I stayed on the inside of our group for most of the way, just lining up the points. All the elite categories took a much more direct line though. This obviously would save distance and time. I know the route – I should have done this also instead of following everyone else. Sometimes you need to back your own judgment.
Camelbak Issues – I can’t use that camelbak on the ski leg again unless I rig it up so the nozzle is the right angle for getting water out. The constant battle to twist the nozzle sideways so I could get water out cost me time and caused me to fall off the ski. I knew this was going to be an issue before the race but did nothing about it.
Transitions after distance - With all my distance training efforts, I never went straight into transition and then the next leg, having completed the previous. There was always a rest before the next leg. This left me unprepared for the first transition – which is something I need to plan for and work through before next year.
Energy Bar After Ski Leg – I just could not swallow the solid form of the energy bar after the ski leg while I was running through the transition. I’m not sure whether this was because of the additional effort exerted, fatigue, the running motion or why, it is something I need to sort out before the next one though. I really needed to get the food down fast so I could also down some staminade fluids. Maybe bananas or more gels are the answer? Maybe staminade first to get the swallowing mechanism working. Maybe I need to stop running for 30 seconds, put the food down, then start. This is something I need to work out in a training session though.
Vest Rash With Swim Leg – The competition single wore through the skin under my arms in the swim leg. This is obviously why you are allowed to take them off during the swim. This is something I should do next year, I have large scabs there now having had the flesh worn off. This caused some discomfort during the swim and could have been a problem during the board leg.
Shaving Rash From Swimming – Also, I need to shave on race day – my stubble rubbed through the skin on both shoulders when swimming. Slight discomfort – it doesn’t impact the rest of the race though.
Hips – I found my hips really started to seize up on me after the prolonged time on the ski and swimming. There is an obvious impact to my running capabilities from this. I’ll have to investigate whether there are exercises I can do to loosen them up, get more flexibility so this doesn’t happen so much.
Thats about it at this stage. I am sure more will come up as I reflect on the race in the days to come. I’ll be sure to update this post as I remember them.
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