Well, if you are not a confident open water swimmer I would not recommend Hell Of The West. At 5am in the pre-dawn darkness with silhouettes of red gums looming over us I dove into the river and complete darkness. It was quite eerie floating about in a dark river while every so often a spotlight shone on us from the shore. Then the hooter sounded and we were off.
As usual I positioned myself towards the back and just set off slowly doing my thing but I was surprised by the number of times I got kicked in the head or had someone swim over me or into me. Nevertheless, I got into a comfortable rhythm and as time went on the light improved and allowed me to tell whether I was heading in the right direction. The occasional bit of reed freaked me out a bit but not as much as the stick jutting straight up out of the water just to my left. I swam carefully around that one!
Before too long the bridge came in sight and I knew that the turnaround was coming up but then I saw a short jetty which made me think of the story of my father-in-law pulling a dead body out of this very river and suddenly I could taste the water and it didn’t taste very nice. But then I reached the turnaround and was on my way back to the boat ramp.
I got out of the water in just over 40 minutes exactly according to plan and began the long run to transition. Someone directed me onto the footpath instead of running along the road which was a good idea but I had to cross the road at some point and, wouldn’t you know it, just as a photographer took my photo, I stepped on a sharp stone which hurt like hell.
As I ran into the transition area I spied Lisa with the camera and she shouted out to me that my bike was five rows down. Thank gods she did because I had no idea. I had tried to count them before the race but couldn’t manage it because I wasn’t sure where I’d be coming in from the swim and because of nerves. There was also the fact that I had set up in transition in complete darkness and was now coming back in daylight so everything looked completely different.
Once I was out on the road and had put my shoes on I pulled out a banana to eat. I managed to get half of it down before I hit a bump in the road and the other half jolted out of my hand so I got down on my bars and prepared for the long ride out. It was here that I discovered where my training had been lacking as I could not stay down on the bars for very long at a time without it hurting my nether regions and I had to sit up regularly for some relief.
I was cruising along comfortably at about 32km/hr and not pushing too hard, saving myself for the ride back but I couldn’t work out whether there was a tail wind or not - I am hopeless at working it out usually. The trees by the side of the road didn’t seem to be moving at all so I figured that there mustn’t be a tail wind. At least, I hoped there wasn’t because if there was then I should have been moving at least 1-2km/hr faster. I don’t think I felt comfortable at any time during the ride out but I was passing people occasionally and making reasonable progress.
Immediately after the turnaround I grabbed a banana to replace the half I’d dropped earlier so my concentration was elsewhere and I didn’t immediately notice the instant headwind. But it didn’t take long for my speed to drop from 32km/hr down to 25km/hr. I settled down on my bars again and began the long struggle home. For the next 40km I only passed a couple of riders but seemed to be passed by a steady stream. At times, a gust of wind would slow me down further and I’d only be able to manage 22-23km/hr.
The longer it took to get back to Gundy the harder it got and all sorts of lovely niggles started to surface in my knees and hammies and then a new one in my lower back/glutes which felt like I’d been stabbed. The only things worthy of note on the ride back were the three dead boars on the side of the road which, combined with the playing of Duelling Banjos prior to the race briefing, did not leave me feeling entirely comfortable and the sun finally burning through the clouds just as I was getting back to Gundy to begin my run.
I was so happy to get to the dismount point and jump off the bike but I quickly found that my legs were so stiff that I could barely walk let alone run. I headed out of transition managing a very slow run but I could feel my legs improving rapidly and began the run at quite a good pace. It was pretty hot with the sun out and the first aid station seemed a lot further than a km away so I was quite thirsty by the time I got there. I walked through the aid station, drank some Pepsi, poured a bottle of water over my head and set off again.
Although my pace was alright I wasn’t feeling too good. Not helping was that every time I approached the end of a street which I thought was the turnaround I discovered that the course kept going along a path or something. I was quite surprised when I finally did reach the turnaround and found that I had only run 3.3km. It had seemed so much further. I was still stuffed when I got back to the finish line but as I rounded the tractor the crowd seemed to have an affect on me and I suddenly seemed to have a lot more energy as I headed back out for my second lap.
After walking through every aid station on the first lap, I now started running through the aid stations grabbing a bottle of water to throw over my head and a cup of ice to tip down my shirt and in my cap. At the turnaround I had a gel. It was an orange Hammer gel which I’d got free at another race and I’d never tried before; it tasted disgusting! I washed it down with water but there just wasn’t enough in the bottle and I had to grab another bottle at the next aid station to finish the job.
By the third lap the sun had disappeared behind the clouds again which made it a bit cooler but there was still a headwind on the way back. My pace had now slowed from 5:30min/km in the first two laps to over 6min/km and I was struck by the pain in the lower back/glutes again. I kept running and dug my fingers in to try to alleviate the problem which seemed to work but it struck again once or twice more.
With a couple of kms to go I decide to give it all I got and managed the last 2kms in 5min each finally crossing the line in just over 5hrs 28min - about 10 minutes slower than I had been hoping for but it’s pretty obvious that I didn’t do enough work on the bike so probably the time I deserved. I was pretty happy with the swim and the run though.
As a postscript, in the recovery area, I was talking to a couple of people when a photographer took our photo and told me he’d catch up with me later. I assumed he wanted our names for the paper or something and thought nothing of it. However, it turned out that he was writing an article about the race and had heard about our fund raising efforts and wanted to include it in the article. I am assuming that he found out about us through the link that the race organisers were good enough to put on their web site so a big thanks to them for that.
Although I wasn’t feeling completely compos mentis I did my best to give him an interview until Lisa came along to save me and give him a few pertinent details. All in all, a rather unexpected end to a very long day.
I raced this race for Kate to raise money for research into Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) by the wonderful people at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR). For Kate’s story and to donate to this worthy cause please go to
http://www.everydayhero.com.au/forkate.
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