The 2010/11 season was long and trying and I'm kinda glad that it's over. I had a few ups and downs, move state and had to get to used the cold weather again (still struggling with the last).
The last race of the season was in Darwin as part of the ARAFURA Games, which is on every 2 years. It's a week long that comprises a variety of different sports, with people coming from all over the Arafura sea. This games was my 5th time their and my 4th time racing the triathlon.
Usually the swim is in a man made lake, 2 laps, but unfortunately this year the Darwin government decided to flush the lake out and try and clean it with harbour water but what they didn't check was how dirty the harbour water was. Bzzzzzz wrong. Turns out the harbour was full of shit - literally - the amount of ecoli that ended up in the lake was too much to risk it. The change to the swim from the lake (1500mtr) to a pool (500mtr) was announced on the Thursday before race day, which changed the complexion of the race dramatically.
Race day - 150 people in a 8 lane pool, should be fun. To be fair the organisers had a good job. The ladies went first, 20min in front of the guys. In each lane there was about 6-8 which made the turns tricky but we worked it out pretty quick. I came out of the 3rd only 15sec down on the leader which I pretty stoked about. It didn't take too long before I caught the lead guy on the bike and pass him, along with 7 others, not too far behind me.
The bike was its standard 40km, 4 laps of a undulating course - lets face it, there isn't many hills in Darwin and they used most of them. I had 2 other team mates in the pack with me and we worked well together. The main worked for me, Peter Hughes did a fantastic job, attacking every lap and making the rest of the guys chase him down and pulling me along quiet nicely. Coming to the end of the bike leg we had dropped a few off and were down to just 4. Feeling confident and stoked on how the team helped me out, I was looking to put all their effort into the run and hopefully bring home a medal.
I came off the bike in equal 1st. I decided to sit on the other guys back and let him drag me around, all well and good in theory. All was going well until about the 3km mark when the body started to stumble. I lost the leader and was passed again a little later on. All I could do was buckle under and try and hold on to 3rd place.
I was a little disappointed and stoked at the same time. It was a great way to cap off the season and gives me more drive to go even better next time.
