By Jason Pye
The trip started off magnificently and probably set the tone for our racing on Saturday. We were lucky enough to get a free upgrade from a hatch back to a brand spanking new 4WD. This made fitting both bikes and Brooke’s entire wardrobe into the car a lot easier.
After discussing some of Brooke’s iPod songs, we decided that Jessica Simpson was probably not the most inspiring music and thus chose to listen to my music for the 3 hour trip from Perth to Busselton.
Busso – Registration 5pm
For some reason there were only 3 lines for registration. One line for the pro’s, one line for ALL ages groups and one line for teams. Naturally, there was not one person in the pro line up, there were maybe 5 people in teams’ line and approximately 400 in the age group line.
As we went to line up, it also started to rain. Awesome, I thought to myself; 400 nervous, cold and wet skinny people in a line up for rego. I couldn’t think of anything worse. We then decided to ditch rego till after dinner, which was a very good call.
As a side note, Brooke is somewhat of a rock star in WA. We couldn’t go anywhere without someone stopping and talking to her. They were also mentioning her name over the loud speaker what felt like every 5 minutes. I got to meet Peter Robertson as a result of Brooke’s WA fame. After fending off the media and throngs of people wanting to say hi, we finally registered at about 8pm (it poured rain on us for the 5 minutes we were checking our bikes in, and then stopped as we got in the car) and headed back for some much needed sleep.
Race Morning
Coach had me doing a few different things for tapering. This included a jog on race morning. It seemed to work, as we trudged up and down the hotel driveway, I found myself waking up quicker than the normal 40 minutes it takes.
The weather was overcast and rain appeared to be just around the corner. Deep down, I was hoping that it poured down and there were cyclonic winds. This would make the bike harder and hopefully even things out for those of us who are H2O challenged (can’t swim very well)…Unfortunately the rain held off for a while and the swim started under dark clouds.
There were around 1,000 people doing the race and it was reported that the Busso half was now the biggest in Australia. I felt important for a while, then I thought that it just meant there would be thousands, instead of hundreds of people swimming over me.
Swim
The swim was a one lap course. You swim parallel to the famous Busselton Jetty for 900m, turn left for about 100m, then back to shore. Nice and simple for those that can’t swim straight.
I had pushed my way near the front for the start, adopting the ‘peleton’ theory for the swim. If I sit in here for a while, I should be able to get a good draft. It worked and I had a good swim start. Picking up some fast feet early and getting out to the first turning can at around 14mins. By the first turning can, the race was spread out and the swim back in was fairly comfortable. There was no real swell to speak of and I was able to exit just over 30mins. Brooke had an awesome swim and was 23rd overall after a 26min swim. She was the second female out. I was the 142nd swimmer. Bring on the duathlon season.
Bike
The bike is a 3 lap course (90kms) consisting of mainly ‘hot-mix’ cement. The average ascent and descent of the whole course is around 1.1%. This means two things. You will ride faster than you ever have and there will be big groups forming.
Lap one was interesting. I had made my way past various large ‘peletons’ with a few head shakes and some kind words as I went past. This seemed to fire me up a little and I had a good first lap. Lap two was much of the same. I finally managed to catch Brooke after the turnaround and she was doing well being the 6th female overall. Not long after passing Brooke I had caught another pack of people including all but the leading female. They were all working very nicely together and were very happy when myself and three other guys came past. Next time I race Busso, I think I will have a sign saying ‘all aboard’ on my back. The lead females were literally on the back wheel of myself and the other 3 age groupers that came past. Three of the girls managed to stay with us for the majority of the bike.
The draft busters in WA are very friendly and gave out numerous warnings, with little action.
Bike split was 2:18 and a lot faster than I had predicted.
Run
The run was a 3 lap (7km) course along the ocean road/bike path. (3x7=21km’s for those who can’t do maths)
The weather had remained overcast for the entire bike and there were only a few drops of rain. The first lap of the run was great; I felt comfortable and had run away from the other 3 guys and the lead females that came off the bike at the same time as me. The second lap of the run was still ok, but my legs started to fatigue and I was tightening up in the quads. By the third lap, I was in the pain box and battling to hold my form together. I knew that I was definitely going to do a PB, so I sucked it up and battled my way to a 1:33 run split.
My final time was 4:25.38. 3rd male 25-29.
Brooke was looking strong the whole race and was still around the top 10 females overall. She had an awesome run split (1.38:58) and finished in 4.37.42. 3rd female 18-24. 13th female overall.
The extra run training that coach had planned for us including the Sunday arvo track work really paid off. Thanks to coach for all the advice and helping us exceed even our own expectations.
A special thanks to all those that sent well wishes and congratulations. Even you Smitty.