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Paul Attard secures 2nd in Murray Man |
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Written by Andrew Evans
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Monday, 15 March 2010 20:27 |
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This triathlon season is nearing its end and I've just completed my biggest race for this year.
I raced the Murray Man triathlon in Murray Bridge S.A. This race consists of a 2k swim in the Murray river a 60k bike leg which is two 30k laps and a run course of 4 laps for a total of 15km.
This race has been won by South Australian athlete Matt White for the last two years and he was back again this year to defend his title. From race start my goal was to be up with Matt by the end of the bike. He usually swims quite a bit better than me, so if I were to come out of the water with on his shoulder I would have been off to a good start.
That didn’t happen but I wasn’t too far behind; about 80s down, a gap I thought I could bridge.
It didn’t quite work that way for me though on the bike. The gap to Matt was growing and Kevin Fergusson also passed me. It seemed that no matter how hard I pushed I just couldn’t get my legs going the way I wanted. ”Not to worry”, I thought, “There’s always the run to try and smooth things over and make the final result look a little better.”
By the time I hit T2 Matt White had a 6 minute lead on me and Kev Ferguson was 4 minutes up ahead. For me to catch Matt it would have been nearly impossible or something would have to go wrong with him. So I aimed to catch Kev and keep a good pace for the remainder of the race. I caught Kev at the end of lap 2 and was slowly putting time into Matt but too slowly. At that rate I would have needed another 50k to catch him! So in the end second place was it for me.
(Congratulations to Matt White on a successful defence of his Title this year! - ed.)
I must say The Murray Man was one of the most impressive race events I have ever done! With only two months notice the Adelaide Vales Club put on an awesome organisation with hands down the best post race food ever! I hope I can come back to Murray Bridge next year even if it’s just for the food!
(So we will be back! - ed.)
Next week at St Kilda will be my last race before I have a break. Then it will be time to get ready for the trip to the US in June. I’m planning to stay about 2 months and compete in a number of events through the northern summer.
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