TravTri: Natwest Island Games Bermuda 2013 - Olympic distance triathlon race report

I am sitting in a coffee shop in Brooklyn, New York sipping on a cappuccino while typing up this race report after departing Bermuda on Wednesday morning. The Island Games closing ceremony was this Friday. Part of me wanted to stay to attend the ceremony but the other part wanted to get back to my 5 month old son Jordan and my wife Jana. I have been blessed with the most incredible gift ever this year being the birth of my son Jordan on my birthday the 7th of February.

To date Bermuda is the most beautiful Island I have visited in my lifetime. Little Cayman also ranks high up there.

Attending the Island Games has been a wonderful experience and it has been a competition I have been aiming to attend for the last 5 years. When the opportunity presented itself to race the Island Games triathlon on an island like Bermuda I just knew I had to try and make the trip.

I arrived in Bermuda Friday morning the 12th of July and attended the compulsory race briefing Friday evening. Saturday morning all athletes had to attend the compulsory course familiarization session which was a good thing as I was very uncertain of the bike course at first. I rode one complete loop of the bike course which was a 12.33km loop close to the Airport. The swim took place on a section of the island called Clearwater beach. After the bike I ran 1 loop of the 2.5km run course which was a path through an area with plenty of trees.

My bike all setup and ready to go for race day

One big mistake I made on Saturday was that I forgot to take any nutrition with to eat after the course familiarization. I end up going hungry for an hour which is not good the day before a race.

Sunday morning (race day) arrived quicker than I thought. Triathletes staying at the Fairmont Southhampton had to wake up at 4am to load our bikes into the truck at 5am. The 2 Cayman triathletes departed the hotel with approx 6 triathletes from Guernsey and 3 triathletes from Jersey. The mood in the bus was pretty tense as most triathletes were either in race mode or busy catching a nap.

We arrived at the race site at approx 6:15am and the 1h15 min to the race start of 7:30am just flew by. At approx 7:20am all triathletes had to line up and were introduced individually to the crowds. What I did not realize beforehand was that we would be lined up on the shore according to our race numbers. As I was number 43 I was the furthest away from having the best line to the first buoy. As the gun went off I remember running full steam ahead and got boxed in by slower swimmers to the first buoy. I immediately lost the first group of swimmers which was not ideal as I was aiming to place in the top 10 on the swim. The swim course consisted of 2 loops x 750m. I got past the first buoy and tried to draft 2 swimmers ahead of me. There was slight chop on the water which made the swim slightly more challenging. I eventually found my rhythm but could feel I was not swimming as strong as I usually do. I remember my stroke feeling sloppy and tried to straighten it out.

I exited the water in just over 22.5min which was about 1.5min slower than I wanted to swim. T1 went pretty smooth and I headed out on the bike course. It did not take me very long to realize that the field would comprise of very strong bikers. I end up posting one of the slowest bike splits of the day and one of my slowest bike splits to date of 1h08min. Not to make excuses but it did not surprise me too much afterwards as I found it very challenging to train during the months of February - April adjusting with the birth of my son Jordan early February and covering for my team manager at work during the busiest time of year. The weekly sessions I skipped in these busy weeks were my biking sessions. This had the result that I just biked once a week for many weeks leading up to the race. The bike course was also rather hilly which makes it difficult to prepare for training on the flat roads in Cayman.

Moving onto the run coming out of T2 it took a minute or so for my lower back to ease up and get into my usual running stride. From the 3 disciplines on the day I remarkably felt the strongest on the run. I end up running 45min flat which was good enough for the 22nd fastest run split out of 45 triathetes racing. It was very hot and humid during the run which suited me as I have been training in the heat in Cayman over the last couple of weeks. The average run split for the 3 medal winners was approx 39min. As mentioned the run course comprised 4 x 2.5km laps. There was a rather steep hill on each lap which made the run course challenging together with the humidity.

Out on the run course at the turn around point

I finished the race placing 31st out of 45 triathletes starting the race. 39 triathletes eventually finished the race with approx 6 triathletes dropping out due to mechanical problems on the bike or heat related issues. Overall I was disappointed with my race performance. I have however learnt a couple of valuable lessons from the race which would enable me to tackle things slightly differently if I ever get another opportunity to race an olympic distance event at this level. I found the level of competition to be very high with some of the competitors having raced before at events such ITU World Age group championships, Commonwealth Games and Ironman World Championships.

Getting a picture post race

Lastly, a big thank you to my coach Guilherme Campos for getting me ready for the race. Guilherme did an excellent job of providing me with a weekly training programs leading up to Island Games as well as following up with weekly skype calls. Also a huge thank you to my wife Jana for supporting me during the last 4 months to train while raising our son Jordan as well as my parents.