Anaconda Forster Race Report (Day 1)
After winning New Zealand last weekend and the Forster race being only 6 days later i had some serious recovering to do. Winning NZ was an absolute highlight for me as it meant i had wrapped up the series and could now relax going into the last race. What i really wanted though was to finish the series on a high in Forster as it would be my last race for at least 6 months.
I stayed on in New Zealand for a few extra days to do a bit of sight seeing and it proved to be a good idea as both Karl and i were in no state to travel. The hills in the race really took their toll and we both spent the week hobbling around like a pair of geriatric cripples. We did however venture north along the Coromandal Peninsula to check out some of New Zealands spectacular scenery and some friendly local from Waihi took me out for a “recovery” mountain bike ride on the Tuesday.
What they didn’t tell me was that we were going to ride up one of the biggest mountains in the area at 500m which took us a little over 2hrs to do. Before descending back down in 20mins. It was by far the most amazing mountain bike ride i have ever done but i don’t know how much it helped my recovery.
Anyway, we flew into Sydney on Wednesday night where i met my lovely wife at the airport and stayed overnight in Sydney before the long drive up to Forster on Thursday. We organised a Tarago van for our bikes, little baby Jade and the four of us and we didn’t have 1cm of space left after packing it to the roof. The trip took us 4hrs and we arrived at our house right on the edge of Smiths Lake. The girls quickly went about booking facials, manicures and pedicures while us boys put the bikes together and tried to ride some of the course. With 2 days of racing it was near impossible to know the whole course so we relied heavily on the maps and tried to see as much of the day 1 course as we could.
By Friday the legs were finally feeling good after New Zealand and i was starting to think the NZ race was beneficial after all. While it did trash our bodies, they were now use to the pain and anything we threw at them over the Forster weekend would be insignificant compared to what they dealt with last weekend. After all, the Forster course was relatively flat so how hard could it be!
The race started on Saturday morning with the team run up first which consisted of a 3km sprint in our wetsuits from the Forster main beach around the headlands to 1 Mile Beach. I lead the run for the first 2km’s before Brad Bevan took the lead and went sprinting up the final few hills. I came in 3rd but hit the water in 2nd place while the teams sorted out their race bibs. The swim was absolutely spectacular as we rounded the headlands and made our way back to Forsters main beach approx. 2.4kms in total. This was broken into 2 parts as we had to run out of the water and up some steps before re-entering and finishing off the last 500m. I had a great swim and exited the water in 2nd place behind Guy Leach.
Onto the paddle and the leg i dread most. Straight away i was passed by 3 teams but my goal was to remain in front of Grant Suckling who usually puts about 6mins into me during the paddle leg. The conditions were quite tricky with some big rolling swell and a lot of back-wash bouncing of the rocks as we made our way south along the coast. The teams continued to paddle past but i was surprised that by the halfway point no individuals had caught me yet,surely they weren’t far away. Then it happened, 2 older guys racing in the vets category went flying past and all i could hope was that they couldn’t ride or run. Thankfully still no sign of Grant at this point so i was pretty safe but i still had some work to do.
The paddle finished on a local surf beach and today the surf was up which made for some pretty good spectating. I caught 1 wave most of the way in but peeled off just before it dumped me. The second time i wasn’t so lucky as i was just 10m from the beach when a shore dumper picked me up and flipped me over before i knew what was going on. I managed to re-surface thanks to my life jacket but was missing my helmet and boat.
I entered T3 in approximately 10th position overall and 3rd solo but it didn’t take long before i wound in the first solo. At this point the rain was absolutely belting down and the mud flicking up from the track made seeing where we were going almost impossible. The ride started out flat around a lake before heading into the hills. Some of the descents were a bit hairy due to the washouts caused by the rain but thankfully i managed my way through it unscathed and hit the final run in 4th place overall and 1st individual.
It was the run that i really started to feel good as i managed to get into a nice tempo on some of the flatter sections. We had a nice treat early on as we passed by our house where Lisa and Kelly where cheering out the front then we paddled across the lake on surfboards before resuming the run on the other side.
I crossed the line feeling pretty good on day 1 with plenty in reserve to do it all again on day 2. The final margin was a little over 10mins before 2nd place Grant Suckling came across the line which gave me some good breathing space going into day 2.
Filed under: Sean's Diary