Jen Weatherstone reports in from Adelaide  

Well after getting back from Switzerland and watching Benny have the race of his life in Ironman I decided to switch over onto Marks “Performance Programme” to see if he could work his magic on me. I had 10 weeks till Adelaide and was in pretty bad shape, all those chocolate croissants, deep fried cheese (Jimmy’s influence) and many bottles of French Vino had definitely taken their toll.

Before the race I was really nervous, I wasn’t sure where I was at fitness wise and every training session I had felt really flat and tired – Riding 6 out of 7 mornings and double track had definitely taken its tole. I had blown up deluxe at Thursday night track the week before and was really down on myself. Also I hadn’t done much swimming and that was playing in the back of my mind.

Ben, being the ever understanding person he was, gave me a “shut up and get out there women shove” bless him!

I didn’t write a race plan and decided that the primary goal was to hurt myself the whole time and not worry about time. First race of the season just set a benchmark. I won’t be doing that again.

The swim was tough, I know when during the swim I start thinking of taking up duathlons that it is not going to be a good day. I thought the water was going to be cold, so double capped only to find out the water was beautiful. Something I should have found out during warm up. That will happen next race too.

Half way through the swim my cap came off and started filling up with water changing my stroke to keep my head out of the water was a nightmare. Finally got to the beach and chucked my cap at Ben – who said “your 3 mins down on Fee”, Good work Ben that was what I needed – you know me too well. I looked at my watch which showed 27mins and thought OK I can live with that. It is time to catch Fee.

Transition was quick and I was out on the bike course in no time, the wind picked up with every lap and I gave it everything I had. Coming back in was super fast. I passed Fee on the second lap and told her to jump on she gave me a look that pretty much said “get Stuffed”!

Back into transition and onto the run. I really wanted to run around 40mins today if I had set one goal that was it. However, my legs definitely disagreed. The cheer squads got no acknowledgement during the run (apologies) I could hear the “looking good Jen” followed by “she is doing it tough” after I had passed.   Focusing on keeping a high cadence and not much else was all that was going through my mind.

At the finish line I was bitterly disappointed, Ben was trying to cheer me up with a “its your first race of the season” pep talk. But I had let myself down by not writing my plan and goals down and sticking to these. Lesson learnt.

Now I have a benchmark for the rest of the season and if that is what Mark can do with me after 10 weeks of training I am really excited to see what the improvement will be after bike camp and another 10 weeks of solid training.

to off though!

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