Breaking the tape ….

Sunday was a long time in coming around for me. I didn’t really have that much of a ‘time off’ period after Clearwater. I was unhappy with how I raced there, and certainly didn’t feel that my 20th place was justification for the training I had been putting away. So we re grouped in the Shire and formed a plan; win SA 70.3. It wouldn’t be easy, but I felt I could stay in Stirling till Xmas whilst working on the swim/run combo and then top up the bike miles with a solid 2 week hit out once here in Stellenbosch.

I feel that it went to plan. – Easy to say that now after I have won isn’t it! I have had the best part of 6 weeks really solid, consistent and enjoyable training and so I started to believe that I was able to win. Also, I’m really lucky to have had such lovely support at home in Stirling from Blair, Gordo and Ali in particular, but also from so many of the Stirling Tri Club too … so often I had folk giving me reason to believe. It’s not something I am good at – a Scottish charachteristic perhaps? – but I am endeavouring to make 2010 a year where I become just that – good at believing at in myself. – Mum, dad and my best friends have been doing it years, but I seem to have struggled with the concept at times.

Race morning came, and it was a beautiful day to race. Clear skies, sunshine, loud and excitable crowds and a tough, challenging race course to get stuck into. Perfect. The swim had a decent swell to it – the Indian Ocean wasn’t calm by any stretch, and so I was happy. I am no expert in the surf, but the harder the swim is for me, its always going to harder for the weaker swimmers. I exited the water in 5th place, having missed the ‘wave’ taking us back into shore – just like that I was 25sec down to Anton Storm whom I had just been swimming alongside. I guess he grew up playing in the waves! I didn’t.

Once onto the bike I did my best to execute my race plan. – Ride away from the 3 guys I had grouped with. 10ks, 20ks and 30ks rolled by and still I was out front with the 3 of them strung out behind me. – Never once coming to front to help me push the pace and fend off the guys riding from behind. – Including home favourite James Cunnama, whom I was certianly wary of. However, as we made the turn at 45ks it became apparent why I hadn’t been able to ride the guys off my wheel … there had been a helluva a tailwind. And now there was a even more brutal headwind to negotiate. Myself and Brad Storm set to work and quickly opened up a sizable gap. By T2 we had built minutes on the couple we dropped at the turn, and I was nearly a clean 5 minutes clear of James. I reckoned it was going to be a reasonably safe bet I could control the run from the front from there on in.

Not so. As has been the case in a number of my 70.3 this past year, I just couldn’t get going during the first 6-7ks of the run. Brad, to his credit, and way outside any previous run form that I had witnessed, steadily put 30 seconds into me. By this point I had seen James running in the opposite direction, and I could see he was moving very well. None of this was in the outline I had for the run half an hour before whilst finishing my ride, and so after a well timed talking to myself, a few extra cups of coke and a gel, I started to ease into a good pace.

By 12ks I was leading the race and feeling strong again – Brad having appeared to implode badly. Good news for me at least! However James was serious eating time into me, and by the final turnaournd with 3ks left I was starting to wonder if he could close the gap. It was a daft way to think, as in reality he was still nearly 2 minutes behind me, and there is no way someone is pulling 2mins out me in 3ks when the win is at stake! I had one further talking to myself and started to enjoy the support of the crowd into the final mile. – The South Africans clearly love their sport, and they are without question very knowledgable multisport fans. It all helps to get you across the line I can confess.

A massive well done to my good friend Mari Rabie who stormed to the win with a seriously fleet footed run in her first ever 70.3 race! – And it was just ‘for fun and training’ she tells me? Watch out when she actually focuses on these things thats for sure. And lastly, but not at all least, my roomy out here for the last 2 weeks, Toby Jameson. He pulled out 6h place in a race that he really probably shouldn’t have started, let alone finished … he had been battling ‘tummy’ issues all week leading in, but he hung tough.

It was a great w/e – one I will remember for a long time. Still got the smile on my face now. Thanks so much for all the many many messages, txts and emails over the past few days. It’s been a bit overwhelming!

So the racing has begun – 2009 is well under way and I’m delighted to have kicked it off with a 2nd place on Sunday in Buffalo City, East London. I started to get a little ahead of myself around 30k on the bike – got a tad excited shall I say, as I reckoned I could win it right there and then. I was riding super well, I thought I was flying, I had jumped away from the 2 others I was with and all I had in front was the lead car/clock. I should know better by now shoudn’t I? However 70.3 miles is a long way and it’s obviously not over till it’s over.

I had a really good fun lead up to the event; training had finished up nicely here in Stellenbosch early last week and then I just had a couple easy days Wed/Thursday coupled with travel to give the legs a little reprieve. Myself and Blair travelled up with Tim Don and his folks, who are in Africa for a holiday just now, so we had a nice and relaxed time leading into race day. Tim was in excitable spirits in anticipation of his debut half ironman, and that easy going atmosphere made the time fly by. We had a good laugh and were pretty much horizontal in terms of our relaxed state I thought.

Back to old school for the sunnies!

We had a beach start and there were a couple of rolling waves to porpoise through to get into our strokes. I didn’t really mind about leading the swim on this occasion, indeed we were pretty sure one of the three Storm brothers would take up that position, and by half way Anton Storm had pushed on a few meters in front of me.

We had a bit of a choppy swim, but at least it was a lot more like the appropiate distance this year, and not closer to 1500m! As we got to the beach we stopped to wait a few seconds to ensre we caught the one wave breaking in – another Storm brother (Brad) caught it much better than me, and I ran up under the showers in 3rd. I was however aware of a sizeable pack forming behind, and it actually included all of the guys gunning for top positions – something like 8 or so.

I had a pretty smooth transition and was out in the lead on the bike by 3ks. Blair had run out onto the bike course to give us a time check on Raynard – we reckoned we could get up to 90secs relative to previous swims against him. However Blair was shaking his head after receiving a call from Tims dad at T1, telling me it was less than 30secs; ‘get ready for the train to come by’ he told me! Which is just what I did.

From 10 to 30k Raynard really pushed the pace, especially on the ups. We were riding as a 3 along with Brad Storm. Just shy of the turn point we were joined by the German, Bachor. ‘Mike the Mike’, who does the commentry at many many 70.3 and Ironman events round the world (and is also German) had tipped me to watch out for Konstantine Bachor, since he was apparently in great bike shape. I did my homework anyway, and found that he had jumped off the bike at the Roth Ironman last year in 3rd spot; which in simple terms means he can ride a bike!!

We had a solid headwind on the way out (and up) to the turn – and it took me 1hour 19mins. The return leg took approximately 62mins.- We were hooking! I must say I was feeling great. I am not much of a power rider; I struggle with big gear work in training (as Darren always dispaired at) but on Sunday I was riding the 53*11 gear (my biggest) with relative ease.

Between me and Konstantine we surged and pushed Raynard, sensing he was hurting. At times he seemed to drop quite far off the pace, but always managing to claw his way back to contact. Then, being the classy athlete that he is, just when we ourselves we starting to suffer, during the last 5-8ks into town, BANG! He dropped the hammer on the last ramp into East London. And as he powered past I saw his chain was still in the big blade,I thought ‘oh dear’. I had already dropped into the small ring in anticipation of the looming hill! And just like that he has 45 seconds into transition – a healthty buffer.

just after I'd run into 2nd plce

Once onto the promenade and into my stride I realised the sun was HOT, and I didn’t feel so fantastic anymore…. I was in 3rd, the German was literally a surge away – something like 100m and Raynard that bit further again. But they might as well have been a mile up the road. It took me till 12ks to get going – much to the disgust of Blair on the sidelines; and in true talking to myself fashion (we all do it right??) I got going step by step into a decent clip. The lad on the mountain bike sensed it, and started to encourage, and within a couple Ks I had caught and dropped Bachor. 2nd was secure but Raynard was long gone. I crossed the finish line a couple minutes back, but a step further up the podium than last year.

Raynard was impressive on Sunday, and he deserved his win. I know what it is like to win at home, and it’s great fun – the crowd were cracking support for me, so I can only imagine how much of a lift it provided for him, and with his smart tactical racing he ensured his win comfortably in the end. Next year though!

A BIG thanks to all at the Triangle team for a fantastic race, and for looking after me and Blair so well. I look forward to returning next year to an even bigger event.  (photos courtesy of Triangle)

Fraser Cartmell just finished Ironman 70.3 South Africa in second position, only 2 minutes 3 seconds behind last year’s winner Raynard Tissink (raynardtissink.com).

Fraser’s splits:

SWIM: 22:36
BIKE: 2:21:48
RUN: 1:16:28
TOTAL: 4:04:07

Results are available at ironman.com.

PS This is Nikola, Frasers web support

Tim Don, Raynard Tissink and myself at the press conference

I’m in East London now after flying up the coast from Cape Town yesterday morning. I travelled up with Blair, who as I said has been out here with me for a couple weeks plus my training buddy in Stellenbosch, Tim Don. Our bikes and gear all rolled off the bagage belt in one piece and half an hour later we were at our hotel. Happy days.

Blair cruised around town for a look yesterday, although it didnt take very long, for East London is not the most scenic of places i’m afraid! However it does have a lot of hotels, which confuses me slighty.

Today we had a few bits of pieces to do, including the press conference for the event and then the pro briefing. I don’t ususally arrive for a Sunday event on the Thursday, but because of these, I had to. Tim and I also headed out for a look at the bike course, which is something I was keen to do, given the terrible ride I had here last year (which I was asked about plenty already…!). The course is a really honest bike course, just like I remembered – we basically head inland away from the sea and climb steadily for 45ks to the turnaround, which is at 500m elevation. If the wind is like it was this morning then we will have a cracking tailwind on the way home, which is an incentive to get up there to the turn!

We also had a look around the run course, scouted out the swim bouys and generally familiarised ourselves with the whole gig. The run course has been altered since last time, with the ridiculously tough hill mostly being removed, although there is still a reasonable grade for 500m up to a dead turn on the lap. Whilst driving back down it I commented on it being nice to ‘relax and float back down’. To which Tim responded ‘bloody hell, you can float all you like – but i’ll be piss-bolting down it!’ I liked that

I am really looking forward to having a hit out this w/e however, so lets wait and see when the business end gets going!

the spectacular view across Jonky park

The last week, which spanned last year and this new one, has been solid. It had to be, given the week off I had whilst spending Christmas away plus the extra enforced lay off due to mangled big toes…..

Monday: travel back to Stellenbosch, 70k bike (in pouring rain!) with 20mins jog off

Tuesday: swim 6k aerobic, bike 90k

Wednesday: swim 4.5k aerobic outdoors (brrr), bike 40k wi 8*4mins hard – 20min jog off, run 15k easy

Thursday: bike 70k aerobic, swim 6.7k (Happy New Year set!), run 30 mins steady

Friday: bike 130k hilly, run 15k solid wi 3*8mins hard

Saturday: swim 5k solid wi 1500m broken TT, 70k easy, run 12k wi 10k nasty hard (no w/u!, 2k w/d)

Sunday: bike 95k solid wi 3*15mins TT, run 8k off with last 10mins race pace, swim 2k easy drills

All in all it totals up to just over 24k swimming (7.5hrs), 560kish biking (19hrs) and only 65ks running (5.5hrs)…… as I have been having to be careful on the volume with my toe.

Highlights were the long ride on the Friday, the swim sets on Thursday and Saturday morning where I surprised myself and the solid run in Jonkershoek Park. – This is an exact 10k loop and is flippin’ hilly. I ran 36.40ish which is as quick as I think I have managed according to the diary from last year!

2 weeks to go to the SA 70.3 in Buffalo City, East London. Lets hope the form comes………