Spectrum Sport Standard Triathlon

One may argue that my season got underway at Ironman Western Australia but in my mind that was the end of my second year as a triathlete and following a month long break, I was looking forward to getting 2008 underway with a mad dash at the Spectrum Sport Standard Triathlon.

Yes, I do consider a standard triathlon to be a mad dash because none of my training or serious racing is geared toward this distance but rather to Ironman and the occasional, half ironman (70.3) events. As such I have no speed to follow the youngsters during the swim and run legs, although I am able to call upon my cycling experience to limit the losses on the bike.

The guys at Spectrum Sport put on a good event and while it doesn’t have the glitz and glamour of an Ironman event, it is unique in its home grown feel and choice of venue. If you consider that the race was held on the same day as the 70.3 Buffalo City, it was rather surprising to see 165 athletes take to the starting line in what was essentially a small regional race.

My reason for racing was to see where I was at and to wake (shock) the system into the reality of what lay ahead in order to get to the start line at Ironman South Africa. With only 2 weeks of light training under the belt I made the decision to limit my effort to no more than 80% and was successful in achieving this. I was however disappointed with my swim because after my great result in Australia, I was expecting much more. Unfortunately I am not a swimmer and when you take that much time off you lose a feel for the water and your breathing pattern which resulted in me freezing up about 100m in and having to do a mixture of doggy paddle and breast stroke to the turn. Fortunately I recovered on the return leg and was able to swim back up to the main group and exit in 15th place.

The bike course was a little long but I wasn’t going to complain about that and averaged just under 40km/h without really exerting myself. The run leg was a two lap affair with both on and off road running. Once again I was passed by the speed demons doing 3:30/km but had done enough to finish in 6th place (2:18:05).

Congratulations must go to my training partner Phillip van der Leeuw who took the lead early on the bike and finished it off with a fine victory.

Results

Women

1. Yvette Velleman 2:37:56
2. Jocelyn Bretherick 2:49:57
3. Jeanine Williams 2:49:01

Men

1. Phillip van der Leeuw 2:11:50
2. Johnny Young 2:12:50
3. Joggie Rossouw 2:14:47

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Gauteng, Jeanine Williams, Jocelyn Bretherick, Joggie Rossouw, Johnny Young, Phillip van der Leeuw, Robin Frankland, Spectrum Sport, Yvette Velleman, race report, report, standard distance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.