Photo by: Delly Carr
Event
12/05/18
10.06am start Elite Women
Start number
31
Olympic distance
2 lap 1500m harbour saltwater swim with exit run between laps, 9 x lap, very technical 40km ride with some 19 turns per lap. 4x 2.5km lap run- FAST & flat.
Weather
Mostly Sunny, low winds, pretty perfect racing conditions!
Result
17th with a solid hit out 😊
Splits
1:57:19 – 18:59/ 1:05 / 59:29 / 0:48 / 37:20
Yokohama World Triathlon Series would be my 4th WTS Event ever & I couldn’t have been more excited to rip in off the back of a great result in Chengdu World Cup the week prior. I was really relaxed, confident in what I was going out there to practice, execute & learn, under the pressure of the best of the BEST!
I arrived into Yokohama, just south of Tokyo Japan on Monday night, with the WTS racing Saturday morning I was able to have a light few days of training to recover, settle in, & then dial back up for the big dance! With of course a little site seeing on the cards post-race, hello MT Fuji. We’re very lucky that part of our job is to ride & run, and you would be surprised how much of a city you can see on a 90minute ride or 12km jog, ticking off the tourist map!
I’ve never been to Japan before so I was stoked to be seeing a new country this racing calendar, a regular stop on the WTS circuit so I hope to be back again because Japan has won me over! The people are so friendly, proud & welcoming, the food is amazing & this city is stunning with a harbour side race, riding through the heart of Yokohama down town, under the giant Cosmo World Ferris Wheel, through the Red Brick Warehouse buildings & back through to transition & the finish set in the beautiful Yamashita Park.
Yokohama was my first Olympic distance race for the ITU Season & I knew with the run work I had been doing in training targeting some recent sprint & super sprint events that this 10km run off the bike would sting, but I went in with a level head, realistic with where I’m at early in the international season. Yokohama also marked the start of the Olympic Qualification Points period, a 2 year process to the next Olympic games here in Japan! #ROAD2TOKYO2020
Kicking off with a pontoon start, 53 Elite women leapt into the water for some hard, furious & fun racing, and it didn’t take long for the pace to be on! The water was a chilly 18.1 degrees after some rain earlier in the week, so it was a wetsuit swim & with a stacked field there was a fight for position coming up to the first buoy turn & a bit of “friendly” chaos around the buoys! Heading back to the pontoon for a run around & dive back in for lap 2 of 750m.
Flora Duffy, world number 1, & Katie Zaferes had an early lead out of the water with the rest of the field not too far behind & chasing hard!! A critical moment in the first transition appeared, it was go time or you were going to miss the main front pack of riders who were on a mission to hunt down Flora & Katie up ahead! I made this front pack & after a hard first 10km we popped a few riders off the back & were catching the 2 leaders & by lap 3 we had caught the girls with 6 laps to go, certainly not a common theme having Flora reeled in but it provided great motivation for the pack & presented an oppourtunity to ride, watch & learn from the world number 1 out there.
With a nasty crash the next lap our lead pack got smaller again & from here we were 9 girls on a mission to get away, extending our lead over the 40km to the large chasing pack to around 1:15 min. Getting off the bike onto the run I knew this was going to sting, but I was ready to hang tough mentally & after working hard in Canberra at the Aussie Institute of Sport I had some run cue’s to tap into & focus on back end.
The km’s ticked by & after the 5km mark a few of the speedy chase pack ladies started running past & this was the time to hold it together, focus on me & keep my form solid. To my surprise I started to feel lighter out there towards the last few km, possibly because the finish was getting closer in sight. With a battle on my hands over the last 1km this would be a great test mentally & physically to give more when I was already tiring back a few km’s down the road. Winning the (minor) victories to take the mini battle to the line down the blue carpet finish!
Some days its about the little wins, objectives achieved & lessons learnt that can only be done through a hard day out racing!