Weekly Newsletter 14 April 2014

Sundays Race Report
The second last club race for the year, for reigning country champions – Coffs Harbour (yay go Team!), saw yet again glorious weather conditions.  Blue skies with a slight breeze & a gentle current in the Jetty made for perfect conditions for almost all racers.

The end of the season appears to be creeping up on a lot of people with a reduced number starting out this morning.  At least you won’t get hit in the head whilst swimming everyone thought…WRONG!  By now we all know the course so won’t get lost everyone thought…WRONG!  By now we have all our race gear sorted for each leg of the course we thought….WRONG!

The race was started perfectly by Jenny Williams, holding back all the fine young men until their allocated handicap time.  The short coursers come out of the swim all looking good, with the long course swimmers exiting not long after, pushing hard to try to take the lead.

All the swimmers have exited the water & the water safety guys are about to pack everything up when a lone swimmer is spotted still making their way around the buoys.  Then out of nowhere it seems, dead last out of the water comes Mark Garner.  It is later revealed that Mark took a few ‘wrong turns’ out in the water, ending up crashing sideways into Phil Benoit, who thought the rumours about sharks in the jetty were coming to fruition!  Phil being the trooper he is pulled himself together & managed to get out of the water, with all limbs still intact, in a respectable time.  Meanwhile Mark was still swimming round & round in circles, with the water safety volunteers wondering if they would have to turn him around to face the shore so they could actually get out of the water before lunchtime!

Now for the cycle component.  The riders are transitioning well, apart from Richard Pearson who before he even manages to do his flying mount, turns his bike around to head back to his car to pump up his tyres (oops!).  A big shout out now again for our volunteers who did another magnificent job out of the course today & special mention has to go to Maddie Clarke, who noticed that one rider was flaunting one of the very important safety rules of triathlon.  Maddie noticed Cec Tempone shining in the sun as he was riding up towards her & thought ‘wow that is shiny’ then the realisation that he was not wearing a helmet, so Maddie following her volunteer duties to the letter, stepped out onto the course and sent him back to the start.

So you can see why the committee has been continuing to harp on about race rules each & every week.  However in Cec’s defence these have all focused on drafting, overtaking & general bike safety & we must apologise for omitting to talk about the need to actually wear your bike helmet! 

Thankfully the run leg did not appear to have any drama to it today!  No crashes, stacks or people running the wrong way!

Today’s results saw some different faces getting to the Tim Tam stage.  First across the line is as follows:

Short Course
1.       Josh Leckenby
2.      Emily Malouf
3.      Michael Ylinen

Long Course
1.      Barry Campton
2.      Cath Harrison
3.      Holly Newton

Fastest on the day
1.      Richard Pearson
2.      Hadley Black
Congratulations to everyone today – whether you won, took out fellow competitors or just turned up & finished without any drama.  A perfect day to be out with our fellow tri club members.  See you all in 2 weeks for the LAST CLUB RACE of the season L

CLUB PRESENTATION & GALA EVENING

• The evening’s proceedings will be held at the Coffs Harbour C.ex Club on Friday 16th May
  
• Tickets are $50.00 per person and $20.00 for juniors. To secure your seat please EFT the amount with your name into our club BCU bank account BSB 704328 Account number 197693 (S11 if you are transferring from another BCU account). 
  
• Craig “Crowie” Alexander is our guest speaker for the evening – three time Ironman World Champion and two time Ironman 70.3 World Champion
  
• Pre-dinner drinks start at 6:30pm with the formalities to begin at 7pm sharp
  
• Dress is formal 
  
• Anyone who requires a vegetarian meal or has special dietary requirements please email Deb Tennant at [email protected]   
  
• A seating plan will be available at the door, however if you have any preferences please email Deb again at [email protected]  
  
• Don’t miss the annual awards, induction of Life Members, the memorable “Cliffy Awards” (or “Moments the Nominees Would Rather Forget but No-one in the Club Will Ever Let Them Live It Down” Awards) and many members doing their thing on the dance floor.
  
• Tickets are selling fast, so get in quick to avoid disappointment.
  

RULE OF THE WEEK
It’s not just competitors that have rules to follow. The Technical Officials also have to follow a code of conduct. The Penalties section of the Race Competition Rules covers how a TO should notify a competitor that they have breached the rules and are to receive a penalty.

Rule 6 - PENALTIES
6.2          Notification of Penalties
A Technical Official should carry out the following actions when issuing a penalty to a competitor:
a.            Gain the attention of the competitor;
b.            Confirm with the competitor their race number;
c.             Show the competitor a Yellow or Red Card and inform the competitor of the rule infringement; and
d.         Advise the competitor what action needs to be taken.

South Africa IM 2014 Race Report- Joe Kane & Andrew Pitzen
We arrived on the African Continent with a little background from our South African friends and a fair amount of googling to try and understand just what we were getting into. We have been over whelmed with kindness and support from the people of South Africa and especially the people of Port Elizabeth, which is known as the friendly city. Another name for PE is the windy city which we will cover more below.

Our Ironman SA travelling party are staying with a young family in PE just up the road from race start. The host family also raced the IM and the Corporate Tri the day before, staying with a tri family has been a bonus with help on building the bikes and getting some inside info on the weather and what to expect race day.

Onto the race and what a day it was. With a forecast wind building to 35km’s an hour everyone knew the bike was going to be a slog.

Some complications with mobile phones and alarms meant that Pito was up out of bed with plenty of time and Joey was left with about 5 minutes from wake up to the vehicle leaving. Lucky he was organised the night before so all that was required was a pitstop and 2 bananas and we were on our way to compete in Ironman South Africa.

The ocean swim was typical of IM, crash and bash for the first 500, however if like Pito you were happy to swim way out wide (close to Antarctic) you could keep clear of the pack and find your own clean water.

After T1 there was a long run to the bike and we were off on our ride with African drums thumping through the morning haze. Being not the most professional triathletes we didn’t drive the bike course pre-race so the first 14km’s of up hill through a few shanty towns was a less than welcome surprise. The support on course was amazing right from the get go with people lining the streets to cheer on the athletes. Around every corner was another group of people with the boom box set to max and a Braai cooking up a Boerewors.

The bike course was something special and our words cannot describe the beauty of the landscape, the scenery on the coastal sections would make you forget about the ridicules head wind you were pushing through. The up hills sections were achievable being consistent long slogs followed by a white knuckle descent that had you holding on for dear life.

The wind was the most significant factor on the bike. All the early talk had been about how much the wind would blow and blew it did. Building to what felt like a hurricane on the second lap we had to ease right off to ensure we had legs to run out the day. There is nothing like seeing 23km’s per hour on your speedo with 50km to go and thinking about trying to run 5 minute kms for a marathon.

When we finally got off the bike and onto the run we were met with on course support like we have never seen before. The run was 3 laps of 14kms, of which the crowds were 3 deep for most of the way. We sore people setting up tents the day before and new something special was brewing. We had been told about the amazing locals who get behind the event but racing through screaming fans, bikini girls, African dances, DJ’s, cheer leaders, bikini girls, our very own beautiful WAG’s, Mum & Dad, rappers, locals on the cans and everybody in PE it made the run something very special.

To finish up the South African IM is defiantly an event to add to your calendar as a destination race, it’s a tough ride and flat run but its more than just an IM, this place is amazing and you will be left in wonder and amazement when you finished not just with your achievement but with what you have seen and the amount of fun you just had.

Pito and Joey are off to run the Two Oceans Marathon in Capetown on the Easter Weekend, it will be an easy run with 11 thousand elite African Runners and we can’t wait!!

We would like to say a special thanks to our Coach Rowlo who put in hours helping us get in shape for this event and to The Centrefold for putting together a great group helping us prepare for this IM.

A final thank you must go to a Wife and a Girlfriend who have endured so much over the last 6 months and supported us on our adventure. It’s now finally time to visit those winery’s we promised you once IM is over.

Cheers Joey and Pito.

For Sale
Felt B12 TT bike (650), Shimano Ultegra 10 speed, includes new vision bars and hydration system and Gravity Zero carbon race wheels. Great little racer, suit smaller frame person. $1500.00. Call Phil Benoit 0418635153. Pic1  & Pic2 attached.

Wise Words
"We will not have failure – only success and new learning." Queen Victoria

"Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: "I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it." Groucho Marx