2013 Mandurah 70.3

Mandurah 70.3. The logic behind doing this race was pretty straight forward; it is about an hour’s drive from my house. A 70.3 that I can drive to, it didn’t really seem like it needed more of a reason than that.

Other than the proximity to my house, there were other reasons to do the race. This year is only the second year they have run the race, but after last year it has a reputation for being a quick course, so there is a lot of potential for PBs. As well as that it is the 70.3 Australian Professional Championships, so it attracts a very impressive professional field, for example 1^st and 3^rd from the 70.3 World Champs in the women and 2^nd from the 70.3 World Champs in the men. This year there were also Kona slots on offer for the age groupers, which meant it attracted a large, and fairly quick, age-group field. All these factors, in addition to a course that incorporates the Mandurah town centre, means the race has a lot of buzz and a pretty good feel.

So what is a Mandurah? Mandurah is a town about an hour or so south of Perth. There is a large inlet there and Mandurah is situated quite prettily on the coast between the beach and the inlet. It started life as a quiet holiday town, but as is often the way, is now viewed as outer Perth. It is a large town with everything you might need if you are staying there, including plenty of holiday accommodation. It is also commutable from Perth, just, but it will mean a lot of driving around race weekend.

The race itself is a pretty straight forward half ironman. No tricky different T1s and T2s, no gear bags, all very simple, other than the fact that there were about 2000 competitors, it was almost low key.

The only unusual parts of the course are the swim and the finish of the run. The swim is a point to point course, I will get to the run later.

Mandurah has a lot of canal developments and the swim is in the main canal of one of those developments. Because the canals are open to the ocean they are tidal. I am not sure if the tide rips through all the canals, or just the one the race uses, whichever it is, the swim has a fair bit of assistance from the tide. This year I would say the tide was worth 2 or 3 minutes, although that would probably depend on how strong a swimmer you are. If swimming isn’t your strength it could be worth more. Combined with the salt water and a wetsuit legal race, it makes for super-fast swim times.

The swim obviously finishes at transition, but the start isn’t far away, 5 or 10 minutes’ walk (more like 5 I would say, it really wasn’t far). Being in a canal navigation is pretty straight forward. I think there are probably 3 or 4 buoys for the entire swim, which isn’t many, and to be honest I found that you didn’t need them much. Just follow the channel, dodge the moored boats. Whilst I can’t say for sure, I think you can be pretty certain that they will always run this race with tide assistance, if they tried to run the race against the tide I think half the field wouldn’t make the swim cut off.

There really isn’t much more to the swim, it is pretty straight forward. The exit is via a large temporary stairway built from scaffolding, which functioned perfectly well. The course is protected by the houses around it and so it is pretty flat. Simple, fast and fun.

Once you are up the stairs out of the canal it is a couple of hundred metre run up some carpet and footpath, through a shower to transition. Once in transition it is straight to the bikes, no gear tent, or change tent, transition at the bike, just leave the wetsuit at the rack. I loved this, my last few races have had gear bags and I have missed the simplicity of transitioning at the bike. They do of course have change tents if you want one though.

Out of transition and you are onto the bike. You immediately turn left and head north. The first section of the ride heads through the café strip of Mandurah which has a nice atmosphere. The café strip has a number of round abouts, but once you are through them you are on a road called Mandurah Terrace. A bit later Mandurah Terrace merges with Mandurah Road. These two roads are where you spend most of the next 90kms. Once again very simple.

Mandurah Road is a pretty big road, two lanes heading North and another two heading South, with a large median strip. Not long after Mandurah Terrace merges with Mandurah Road, they direct you onto the Southbound side of Mandurah Road. The organisers close the entire Southbound side of Mandurah Road. You ride north on one side of it and then ride south on the other side. The entire ride course is closed to traffic. It all works very well.

You ride north on Mandurah Road for about 20km and then turn and head back South again. On the way back you turn left and take a slight detour along Paganoni Road. You ride along Paganoni until it hits the Kwinana Freeway and then turn around and ride back to Mandurah Road and continue your way South towards Mandurah.

The bike course is two laps, but you don’t ride all the way back to Transition between laps. Instead at the end of lap 1 you turn once you hit the Mandurah café strip. You repeat the whole lap again and then once you are done with lap 2, you return to Transition, obviously.

There are three aid stations on the ride, approximately at 25km, 50km and 75km. They are located about where Mandurah Terrace becomes Mandurah Road and just after you turn on to Paganoni Road. Technically you go through each aid station twice, but the aid station at the merging of Mandurah Terrace and Mandurah Road is only about 5km into the first lap of the ride, so they don’t open it until people are on the second lap.

The ride is all pretty flat. There are a couple of long, slight hills on Mandurah Road, and a couple of bumps on Paganoni, but they really aren’t serious. According to my Garmin there is 122m of elevation gain on the course. Over 90km, 122m counts as not much. The road surface is pretty good, but not wonderful. Some of the northern parts of Mandurah Road are a bit coarser, but only in sections. Paganoni Road is a lovely surface. On the whole the surface for the ride isn’t bad, not wonderful, but certainly not the worst either.

Off the bike, back into transition and you are out onto the run. Now I am going to be very clear about this, because the maps they give you in the athlete briefing are rubbish. After you leave transition, you turn right. That should answer some questions. The athlete information says the run is two laps, but it is actually two and a bit. That brings me to the other tricky bit about Mandurah 70.3, besides the swim, the finish line isn’t at transition; it is about 1km away on the Mandurah café strip. That means you have to cover an extra bit of a lap to account for the distance between the start and finish locations for the run. So once you leave transition you run to the café strip. Once you are there you turn around and your first lap officially starts.

Like the ride, the run is pretty straight forward. You run from the café strip, back past Transition and then out to the coast. The run is mostly along a major suburban road through the same canal development that the swim was in (in fact you run over a bridge that you swam under earlier). Once you get to the coast, you follow the coast for a little bit, turn around and then run back to the café strip. You do that twice. At the end of the second lap you stop. Once again, simple.

As with the ride, the run is pretty flat, 118m of elevation gain over the run. Unfortunately nearly all of that elevation gain is in one place, at the far turn around point. At this point you climb a long (just short of 1km long), but gradual hill to the far turn around. You then turn around and get to run down the hill, so it isn’t all bad.

There are officially eight aid stations on the run, but in reality there are two double sided aid stations on the lap. You run through each one on the way out and then again on the way back, so four aid stations per lap, two laps, you can probably figure out the rest.  The organisers don’t give you the distance between the aid stations, but I would say they are probably pretty evenly spaced. Given the hot weather that was forecast on race day, the organisers also provided another aid station at the far turn around, but it was only water.

Most of the run is pretty open; there isn’t a lot of shade. So if you have a hot day like we had, it gets hot.

So how did my race day pan out. All up it went pretty well.

After a bit of deliberation I opted to stay at home the night before the race and drive down race morning. This required a pretty early start (3:40am) and a long drive on race morning, but all up I thought it worked pretty well. If I do this race again next year I would probably do it that way again. As a result of being at home I had a very relaxing evening the night before the race and slept pretty well that night. I went to bed very early and so as a result didn’t feel that tired when I got up. I would probably recommend doing the drive to Mandurah with somebody though, doing the drive alone was a challenge in alertness. If you are going to drive down, my other recommendation would be to figure out your parking options the day before. There are a lot of cars trying to find parking and you don’t need that stress on race morning. If you are looking there is plenty of parking near the café strip, you are then just a quick walk across the bridge from Transition.

I got to Mandurah with plenty of time, got my gear all sorted and then walked over to Transition. I didn’t really have anything go wrong all day, but I did have a series of silly little hiccup. One of them occurred at this point. Given the forecasted hot weather I had meant to take a spare bottle of electrolyte to sip prior to the start. In the business of getting my gear out of the car I forgot that bottle. As I was setting up transition I realised that I was at risk of starting the race dehydrated (bad idea). I supplemented by drinking a bit out the bottles I was putting on the bike, since I knew I had more than I needed. Plus I grabbed a drink out of a tap I found. Not ideal though.

I got transition set up, did the usual nervous second guessing about whether I had forgotten anything, got the wetsuit on and then headed for the start line. 

 All up I found that I was pretty relaxed race morning. I have done this a few times now and I am finding that I don’t get anywhere near as nervous as I used to, which certainly makes race morning a little easier. I could have perhaps been a bit less relaxed at the swim start though, since I was standing around chatting and realised that the wave before mine had just left and my wave was heading to the start line. After a slightly panicked swim entry, I made it to the start line with plenty of time.

Since the swim course is so tide affected, staying on the start line can be a bit of a challenge. I just told myself the station keeping could act as a good warm up. After a bit of swimming backwards, the gun went and finally we were away.

The canal we were swimming in was pretty wide and so there was plenty of room, so pleasantly little carnage off the start, which was nice. I was pretty sure the swim was going to be quick and so headed off pretty hard. After the usual 200m of everyone sprinting like mad, the field started to thin and I saw that I had a friend. This was a bit of a new experience for me. Usually in my swims I end up by myself, either in front or behind a pack or something. I have never done the swim leg with somebody else. However, this time around this guy was almost exactly the same speed as me. Right I thought, time to put all the drafting and pack swimming training practice to work. We spent pretty much the entire swim together. Sometimes I would draft off him, sometimes he would draft off me. Once or twice I thought he had got away, but I kept telling myself to make sure I stayed with him. I knew I needed to push the swim and I also knew this was the perfect way to do it. Navigation wise I found the swim was good, I never had trouble finding my way. The canal you swim in follows a big arc, so it really was just a case of sticking to the inside of the arc and dodging the moored boats.

Working together with my new friend we moved through most of the wave in front. Once I hit the stairs at the end of the swim I had a swim time of 22 minutes 30. With the tide I knew the swim was likely to be quick, but I hadn’t wanted to assume it would be, so I had been conservatively planning for a 25 minute swim, being quicker was a perfect start to the race. Technically I was the first of my wave out of the water, but really I was only four seconds or so quicker than the guy I had been swimming with, so I am not sure if that counts.

Once out of the water I grabbed a couple of cups of water from the aid station on the way into transition, always mindful of the forecast conditions, then headed to the bike. This is where hiccup two occurred, I ran past my bike. This is the second race in a row I have done this. During transition familiarisation I had been pretty sure I had the location in my mind, (I was at the end of the first section of rack, next to the first yellow pole) but I just wasn’t seeing it. I had to pause for a moment, find it and then head back. Once I had found the bike I got the wetsuit off without hassle and then it was time for the riding bit.

I thought the mount line was a bit tricky to find, but once I got that out of the way I was away. I knew the day had been forecast to be windy, but just how that wind was going to manifest itself was something I was interested to see. Head wind on the way out as it turns out.

Most of the way out was pretty quiet, since by that stage the course was still mostly empty. I focused both on keeping the pressure on, but also not on fighting the headwind too much. I also focused on slowly working my way through the cyclists ahead of me who were from the earlier wave. Whilst the wind was pretty nasty (approx. 20km/h north easterly) I didn’t feel it too badly on the way out. Certainly the speed was lower and there were a couple of exposed bits where it was particularly horrible, plus it made small hills feel like big hills, but other than that I didn’t find it too much of a chore. I was very happy once I turned though and then it was tailwind time. Whilst the headwind hadn’t been too bad, the tail wind was awesome. Except for the detour up Paganoni Road, the spin back to Mandurah was just a case of enjoying the tailwind and sticking to the nutrition plan.

As fun as the tailwind had been I knew I had to fight that headwind again, which I wasn’t looking forward to. I knew though that if I could stay strong in the headwind, it was probably where I would make the biggest gains on any competitors. I also knew that I could hurt myself a little bit going into the headwind since I had about 20kms of tail wind to spin the lactic out. So I was keen to keep the pressure on. At this point I had a bit of luck.

My age group was one of the first waves, the teams were one of the last waves. Just by chance I happened to turn around to start my second lap at the same time as a fairly rapid team rider started his first lap. Right I thought, he is my goal, just keep him in sight. Which is what I did, I actually passed him a couple of times (he was slow going uphill) but he would usually end up in front again. Using him as pace was a great tool for keeping my focus on pushing the pressure. Looking at my ride time, I think that was the difference.

Even with somebody to keep my focus on the pace, the 2^nd lap was tough. If anything the wind was a bit stronger and I was certainly a bit more tired. At the 2^nd aid station I took a moment to grab a two bottles since I was feeling pretty dry. The exposed sections of road were particularly brutal. I was very happy to see the far turn and get back into the tail wind.

Once I turned my friend the team rider took off, but I didn’t mind, he had served his purpose. I now focused on finishing off my nutrition and getting back to town feeling as good as possible.

I hit transition unsure of how I was feeling, but thinking that I felt okay. At the dismount line hiccup three occurred when I accidentally knocked my shoe off the pedals and had to pause for a second to go back and get it. Not a big deal but annoying. My goal for the bike had been 2 hours 15. From my own watch I was expecting the time to be more like 2 hours 18, but I hadn’t accounted for the course being 1.5kms short, so in the end my time was almost exactly 2 hours 15. Win. My race plan was tracking along nicely.

Once out onto the run I found that I was feeling pretty comfortable. I did the usual fast take off, but managed to reign that in within 500m or so and within a few kms I had found my rhythm. My aim for the run was under 90 minutes, but I found after few kms that I was moving at a quicker pace than that. I slowed the pace a bit, but by 7 or 8kms I saw that the quicker pace was holding and I felt it was sustainable, so I went with it. As is usually the case with my running, my mantra was 'run comfy' and I found that it was working.

The weather was starting to warm up by this stage (it was on its way to 34 degrees), but I didn’t find it too bad. I had my usual heat mitigation measures in place, grabbing as much water as I could at every aid station, over the head, in the mouth, everywhere, ice at every chance. The organisers also had a couple of showers on the course which I used as well. I found that by utilising that approach the heat didn’t bother me too much.

At the far turn on the first lap I got passed by a runner who was moving very well. At the time I glanced at his number and saw that it was in the 1200s. From that I incorrectly assumed that he wasn’t in my age group (my number was 81). In fact I sort of thought he was a team runner and so I didn’t mind that he had gone past. It turns out he was in my age group, but had started in the wave before me, in the end I finished close enough to him for me to be ahead of him overall. Slightly confusing.

By the second lap I was still feeling pretty good. The running was comfortable and the pace was mostly holding, it had dropped a little, particularly going up the hill to the far turn around. I was feeling good enough though that I could plan for the next 10km, rather than just feel like I was holding on as long as possible. I knew by that point that I would obtain my goal of running under 90 minutes as well as turn in a total time of near 4 hours 10.

After I turned to head for home I got passed by another runner in my age group. He passed me going well, but didn’t get away from me completely. I suspected that he had also started in the wave before me, so I knew that as long as I finished within a couple of minutes of him, I would end up ahead of him overall. We were also getting into the last few kms of the run. With these things in mind I used him as motivation to try and lift the effort and work towards the line.

By the time I hit the line I was hurting, but then that is the point of the finish line. Each lap of the run you ran through the crowds at the Mandurah café strip and each time it was a big buzz, but running through them heading to the finish chute was particularly sweet. 

All up I was pretty happy with how the run had gone. I felt I had stayed controlled the whole way and as a result the pace was nicely even across the course. I still need to improve the run significantly, since I am giving up 4 or 5 minutes to people. But this run time was a PB and a step in the right direction.

All up it was a pretty good race. My personal race went well, but the race itself is also a good one. Well run, good vibe etc. I would certainly consider doing it again if it fitted with my calendar.

Other than a couple of very minor hiccups the race went to plan and I achieved the goals that I had set out beforehand. The time of 4 hours 10, 29 was a massive PB and one that I think will stand for quite some time for me. The course is a fast one, but I am happy to claim the time anyway.

Overall I was 1st in my age group and 1st age grouper overall. Out of interest I was also the third Western Australian across the line (first non pro). I was 12^th male and 15^th overall. All those are results I am pretty happy with. My goal is to be quick enough to mix it with the pros and this reassures me that I am on the right track.

As with all my races a big thank you has to go to Daryl for his coaching and his advice, without this I wouldn't be racing fast, simple as that. Also to swim Coach Paul Newsome at Swim Smooth for helping my swimming improve as much as it has. I would also like to thank the folks at Break Your Limits who let me hang out with them before the race and made me feel very welcome. It made for a nice relaxing race morning.

As always the biggest thank you has to go to my wife and my family. Without their forbearance, patience and blessing there would be no training and no racing.