Western Australian 80 K TT Champs

This morning was the WA 80k TT champs...
I was kind of looking forward to this , I've been riding well in training and in most races.. So i thought I'd be able to have a reasonable day if the body decided to play along...
The joys of being a triathlete is you are never tapered for these events. Saturday was long run day, so you always go into these races a bit cooked..." time to roll the dice and hope the body has an ok day"

With two time Olympian Matt Illingworth starting , I was hoping 1) to have him not lap me and 2) ride close to or just under 2 hours

The conditions weren't to bad, a bit windy on a rolling course with a cool temperature ( for Perth ).

My body decided to play along today and i could get a fair amount out of myself...
I think it was the pre race chat i had with myself. I told my body if it didn't play along i was going to throw myself off my bike at 60kph into a ditch....lucky it listened....

With my slick Rolf Prima wheels ( see picture ) i managed a 1:59:29



RESULTS

1st Matt Illingworth 1:51:16
2nd Tim Roberts 1:58:34
3rd Guy Crawford 1:59:29
4th Troy Coulthard 2:00:33
5th Scott Neyedli 2:00:35
6th Brynt McSwain 2:01:32
7th Cam Berg 2:01:34
8th Nathan Jones 2:02:02
9th Paul Taseff 2:02:42
10th Chris Roberts 2:02:45

Singapore 70.3

Well its that time.
Lets cut to the chase..
Singapore was not the race I was hoping to kick off my 2011 season.
But we train, we race and we learn…
Travelling to Singapore and spending a few days looking round pre race was great. It was kind of relaxing me….but at the same time I had a lot of nervous energy… So race day couldn’t come round quick enough…



Finally race day rolled around and it was time to go.
Guns goes off :
My swim 9 times out of 10 will get me in the lead group… but as it turns out this was that 10th race and I had a shocker…. Loosing Faris’s feet at about 500metres and swimming at warm up pace for the remainder of the race… really not sure why I couldn’t push any harder.. ( getting soft in my old age perhaps )
Onto the bike and we had a great group including James Cunnma and Scott Nedeyli .. We rode well together to rejoin the lead group just before half way through the bike. Coming off the bike we were in a huge group and it was time to run like a scorched cat…. Unfortunately for me I ran like a beached whale…Slowly. I wanted to run faster but I was deep in struggle street trying to survive….At the end of the day I did survive and finished in 12th with a time of 4:09… Not my best result to date. I did manage to take the fastest bike split of the day so it wasn’t all bad.


Picture below Of me smiling pre race... the smile that was soon to vanish



Still Busselton 70.3 is just round the corner and I’ll be hoping to redeem myself.
Singapore is a great place. You don’t have to leave the air conditioning.. as there are under ground tunnels, trains and plaza’s. If you fancy shopping, Singapore is the place for you..
If you fancy a drink , it’s expensive.. they do have some very cool, unique bars and pubs, but you pay for the experience.
Post race Kate and I ventured out to Sentosa and Universal studio’s where we had a great time riding rollar coasters…( you get wet on some of them… take spare clothes… I didn’t , it was a bad choice ) chilling on the beach… trying to stop monkeys from stealing my shinny stuff….





All and all i had a great trip , but a very average race.
Untill the next time

Guy

Kates mum, Kate and me

Ok Blog update
It’s been a few weeks or four , but who’s counting

So a few weeks back I thought while I’m in base training faze it’d be a great idea to ride with Kate Bevilaqua down to Busselton ( roughly 220KM ) So off we set with another triathlete Scott into a head wind ….. yes a head wind.. ohh bugger.. after a stop at about 130k , I was feeling great, I had the legs and thought this wasn’t going to be so bad.. then at 200k I thought the same.. “ohh I’m having a great ride” then at 210k I was lying on my back in the middle of the road with a broken and dislocated finger , also sporting some new road rash on my hip and elbows.. ohh how 10km can change ones ride….




Long story short , I clipped the side of a stick with my wheel, it bounced into my spokes and then hit my fork on the way round and my bike stopped instantly…
I actually got very lucky… thought I’d broken my collarbone, but after a quick self check i realised it was ok..then I looked at my finger and thought hmmm that’s not pointing where it was about 30sec’s ago..
So off to the hospital in the back of some nice peoples car. In Hospital the doctor came up to me and In his words said“ your finger it bent “….. WTF? ..”Yeah mate thanks for that information”…. So there I was sitting in a room in a dodgy hospital with a doctor who’s diagnosis was “ your finger is bent”??? So I clenched my fist and relocated my own finger…. I would not recommend doing this….it stings a bit…
Anyway… after my relocation, and the great assessment, the nurses told me it’s only broken , patched me up , tapped my fingers together and off I went .. another successful day at the office… yes yes… OHH and check out how the hospital spells Emergencie???



So then it was back to Normal.. training ( with a sore body ) getting ready for my next race 70.3 Singapore… only to be surprised with a last minute trip to New Zealand to watch Kate race IM …. I haven’t been back to NZ for 15months.. so I was more excited than Monkey in a banana farm…
The days rolled past really quickly and it was time to pack my gear and head back to NZ for a week….
I flew over with Kates dad and had my first experience of first class lounges. It’s all table service and they offer massages.. yes that’s right I got a massage between flights… it still makes me laugh.. the lovely lady had to use her elbows…. I wasn’t into the touchy feely massage, I wanted deep tissue on my calf’s….. good for me… not good for her..



So then I land back in Aotearoa / land of the long white cloud , otherwise known as New Zealand. Race day rolled around pretty quickly and I thought it best to be quiet and try as hard as possible to keep out of Kates way and pretty much do whatever I was told.. Race morning can be stressful , but everything went really smooth and soon enough the pro gun had sounded and they were on there way.. Albeit in the most miserable conditions I have ever raced or spectated in, it rained and rained and then rained some more….

Picture of a lone rider in the rain




My attire for the day was, t-shirt, garbage bag, jumper, jacket and another garbage bag… At 8:54Am I remember the rain dripping down my chest onto bare skin… then the next 9 hours were spent shivering uncontrollably… Oh the good times… now all I need is the ebola virus and my life will be complete… HAHA.. Ok I joke… The day wasn’t to cold and it was great to be home to support all my friends and Kate..
Funny enough the next few days were great and the sun came out , it got warm and I had a great time showing people around my home town and getting in a bit of training in a cooler climate.

Swimming in Lake Taupo



I also got to see my mum .. see the picture of me mum and Kate




Time flys… Now I’m back in Perth getting ready to fly to Singapore in a few days to compete in a stacked field at 70.3 Singapore. It should be a lot of fun and I look forward to avoiding getting heat stroke or hopefully avoiding getting heat stroke… Until after Singapore be safe , avoid dislocating joints , crashing your bike and standing in rain for 9 plus hours… I only give wise advice!!
Guy

My Mums Dog… why is this in here… I have no idea… just because I like random things and this dog is random…..

From Floods to Fire

From the Floods to the Sun

Well it’s been two weeks since I left Queensland and headed for Perth.
A few stats before I begin.

The Last 30 days I spent in Queensland I had only two days of Sun.
The rest wasn’t only cloudy , it was pelting rain, rivers were flooding like we were in a movie and the world was about to end. “ whats that movie called ?“ the day after tomorrow?”
Needless to say when you are training full time, riding in the rain gets old quick. So after 30days of having a wet bum , i thought I need a change .. so I moved to a desert…
I’m not joking.. Perth is pretty much a Desert . it’s the single most isolated city in the world… the city sits on the edge of one dry big sandy desert….It’s in the ass hole end of no-where…… but we love it and it’s a crazy beautiful city……

Ok so now down to business.
I came to Perth with the same thing in mind as a couple of other professional “Luke Mckenzie and Amanda Balding”… avoid the rain and train with our good friend, fellow pro and Perth Local Kate Bevilaqua .
Kate was only to happy ( I think ) to put me up.

So being a bit late to arrive and suffering from a bit of jet lag, i thought an easy day in the saddle would settle me in fine… Luke had other ideas.. 150k later in 100degree heat the hurt box had opened , I had climbed in , it closed over me and I had turned on my flashlight…. Just in case you are wondering , I am still in that hurt box, but the batteries in my flashlight have gone dead and it’s dark in here… very very dark….. but I’ll get to that later..
After a few days in said hurt Box, Kate and I did have the pleasure of joining Luke and masterchef Amanda for dinner. Amanda doesn’t to things by half EVER and the size of this steak matches her personality perfectly… seriously..



Anyway I won’t get into the details of the evening , But Kate and I couldn’t drive home, we had to stay, A few red wines and a good old catch up was in order. Needless to say that bottle of red in the photo is no more.

Perth offers some great riding. It has some really great hills and quiet roads.
The photo below is of Kate sitting behind Luke on our long Sunday ride. 5 plus hours in the saddle and 4:45 with us sitting on Lukes wheel.. lol
Below that is a picture of Luke updating his twitter mid ride… that’s commitment to social media people….




After a week of pain it was time for Australia day celebrations. You can’t train all the time and after a heavy week with Luke Amanda and Kate it was time to unwind for a night.
Kate assured us Perth does Australia best…. ( fireworks and all )
So off we went with our picnic basket packed with the essentials, Wine, Cheese, crackers , Chicken , Rolls and salad…. All packed triathlon styles into our blueseventy transition bags…
The best spot for the fire works is the south side of the river . so that’s were we set up camp with about 100,000 other people. Some who had been there all day and were a little worse for where.



Now Kate was not wrong about these fire words… OHH good lord…I think they spent about 80 billion dollars on these fire works.. at one stage I wasn’t sure if they had just set fire to the entire city or not….
It was pretty special and the gun powder smelll still stings fresh in my nostrils even now… ( one week later )




Great night out …. But it was time to go home …. As we were plenty cooked from training over the last week.

After nearly two weeks training together the wheels begun to fall off even one..
Luke was putting in extra miles on the bike and one choc milk stop ( Choc milk is essential ) he was so deep in the hurt box he couldn’t climb out of it .. Even the local shop owner had to come see what was going down… She eventually got him out…







That was it .. After this we all realized we had roasted ourselves internally and it was time for a little R&R .. So Luke and Amanda jetted back off to Queensland . The land of cyclones and rain and I begged Kate for a place to stay … I promised I’d move out before I turned 40…some 10 years away yet…… My face looks old from to much sun…. “ take it easy”…..

So from me in Sunny Perth … that’s all for now…. Got to go to bed .. Kates making me ride 230K tomorrow to a small town south of here… I swear she will be the death of me…… As they say “ no easy way” or was it HTFU? Either way I think the point is clear….

Thanks for taking the time to read the babblings of a madman…
Thanks to Luke Amanda and Kate for two weeks in the Hurt locker, Pain Cave … insert multiple other descriptions of hitting the wall here…

Guy

Rain, Floods stuff

Hey

So i'm back training on the Gold Coast untill Next Tuesday the 18th of Jan when i fly to Perth.

The past 2 weeks have been crazy here , it hasn't stopped raining, There have been floods every-where and thousands upon thousands of people have been evacuated from there homes.
recently Brisbane city has been hit with major floods.

Follow the link below to view the images of the flooding.... It's been bad to say the least.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/slideshowajax/139318/floods-ravage-queensland.slideshow

Onto a lighter note.

I have started to grow a beard... reason? ... purely to shield my face from the rain when i'm out riding.
Here is a close up... " hey every body come see how good i look "

yeah not the best look, But hey i do what i want...



o

Other than that life has been all about the training... and selling things on ebay... !!! yeah the excitement just keeps rolling in...Envious any-one?

Ok so i'll report again once i hit Perth.... Floods on the Gold-Coast to bush fires in Perth.. Australia is messed up...
But they do have Koala's !!! ....

Later G

Tasmania

Well..from Perth and Ironman i went back to the goldcoast for a few days then off to Hobart and Tasmania to see my good friend jarred for a week . He's a Sea Plane Pilot down there and took a week out of his busy schedule to show me around.

here are a few of our pic's .. these first two are in his home town of Strahan..i can't remember what was so funny... think its was the beers we had prior to this photo.... (Strahan it's a tiny little tourist town with not alot in it)... Don't expect a mcdonalds or anything resembling any kind of chain store for that matter... quite nice that way... there are a few pubs and some great pub food however.





This is a shot jarred took of me taking some footage of the amazing sunset Strahan had to offer that night..



This photo is of Mt Wellington in Hobart.. it's roughly a 18-20k climb from bottom to top... but be warned the top is bloody cold.. there were small piles of ice at the top and we really weren't dressed for the occasion... so take a jacket people.. for the love of god take a jacket...



Out side our hobart visit we did a bit of touring around.I had to keep some sort of fitness.. So these next two shots are of Eagle-Neck bay and of me running at Eagleneck.,,,, jarred was getting his artist grove on while i was doing reps... he takes a pretty good shot actually...A beautiful place only an hour of so from Hobart. ( i sound like a travel show? )




hanging with my mate was great , we dont get to catch up to much , so it's always good to see him.
Tassie is beautiful and remote.. ( it's also bloody cold ) If you go there , Go to Strahan and go get a flight on a seaplane...
Jarred will buy you a beer afterwards...unless you have a morning flight that is??

Ironman Western Australia

My First IM

On Sunday I raced my first Ironman….
I had a 3 week break in October, so coming into Ironman Western Australia I was concerned I hadn’t done the work required to pull this off in one piece..
Pre-race nerves were high….when I say nerves.. I mean to say I was packing myself…

Race day rolled round way to fast and I found myself drinking my chocolate milk at 3am in the morning ( it was a 5:30am race start ) thinking what have I got myself into..
Diving into the unknown is always a little scary…

Once I was down at the swim start the nerves actually started to ease and then when I entered the water I was fine… swimming felt good and started to relax… I think being around 1500 nervous IM starters before hand was freaking me out….

A few mintues till the gun and all the pro starters were standing in hip deep water….The gun went off and it was business time with the usual suspects taking the lead out in the swim ( Pete Jacobs and Luke Bell ) The pace was steady until we hit the turn around at roughly 2k when Pete put in a big surge…and I was caught off guard being at the back of the lead pack. I started to kick hard to bridge the gap…Unfortunately for me a few feet/calf cramps and swimming with my feet bent like I was running caused me to lose the front group.. Lucky for me another group was coming along not to far behind. I swum the rest of the way to shore with them. Existing the water a little over a minute down on the lead guys.
Was on the bike I must have thought I was in a sprint race , because I went out hard and soon realized I had left my biking legs back in the hotel and then started to suffer.. this was all in the first 5k of the bike… ( I laugh now ) .
At the time however I wasn’t overly excited about the fact I was struggling to stay with the cyclist I knew would be near the front off the bike…In the end I had to admit defeat and ride my own race.. the pace was a bit to hot for me and the lack of time trailing was showing.
I proceeding to settle into a pace I could sustain for 180k.. I rode most of the ride with Scott Neydeli for company.




Coming off the bike i was scared as I had no idea what the body was going to do.. Cramp, vomit, poo, puke, shut down, or go like a cannon ball on heat… I was hoping to the later option… I went out of T2 at a pace I thought was manageable. Trying not to let the crowd wind me up to much , although the laps through town were great, hearing the crowd cheer for you was an awesome feeling and It made the pain go away for about 1KM every lap..
The first 30K was pretty good I held onto a smooth-ish rhythm .. the last 12 K was PAIN.. I was holding close to the same pace but it was hurting a lot more… ( I was so happy at this point that I didn’t go out any harder at the start of the marathon or I would have been paying a big price for it ) As it was I managed to hold on a cross the line with a 3:15 marathon and a time of 8:50 on my IM debut . To top it off I had my friend and voice of IM call me over the line ( Mike Rielly ) it




Was a moment I won’t soon forget..
A few first for me done and dusted..
First IM and First Marathon ( first time I have run over 30k actually )
I don’t know if I’ll be back for more IM races soon , but it’s nice to have the first one ticked off. I just have to work out how to go 8:30 for my next one now…. Pain is the only option..

I’m back in Perth now, relaxing having a few beers and doing not much of anything… until next week anyway.

I’ve piped on long enough… Until the next time

Guy

PS: thanks for all the messages.