Inside the Elite Pack at Gatorade Race 6

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Inside the Elite Pack at Gatorade Race 6

Written by Paul Attard

Thursday, 25 March 2010 13:59

Here is my last race report for my season!

Race 6 of the Gatorade series was held at St Kilda on 21^st March, 2001. As this summer unfolded for me, I have actually raced all 6 races of this series. I had not planned to do this at the start of the season but as it turned out this wasn’t too bad of an idea.
I went into this race feeling pretty good as I was well rested throughout the week. The Elite field of competitors was in excellent form, as it usually is, and the weather was kind to those of us favored with an early start in the day; not much wind and a calm bay for the swim.

From the gun I just tried to hang in the 750m swim just as long as I could, as I usually do. This turned out to be about the 200m mark for me. From there I found a good rhythm and just held that as long as I could.
I exited the water about 50 seconds down on the “superfish” and about 30 to 40s down on the good swimmers. For me this was a good swim result.
Out of T1 and onto the bike we formed a group of 10 but only about three of us were pulling turns with the rest recovering in our slipstream. By the end of lap one, we had lost ground on the lead pack but not too much. On the second lap we managed to pull that lead back a little but due to having too few willing to take a turn at the front we could not close the gap completely.
We entered T2 about 50 seconds down on the lead pack which had about 8 guys in it. As I was feeling really good about my pre race preparation, I was pumped for a fast run off the bike. Unfortunately this didn’t exactly occur. I was feeling pretty heavy in the legs out of T2 and found it hard to get them going. I gained a couple of places on the run but I also lost a couple to some of the guys from our cycle pack. (ed the ones who had a good rest out the back?)
I came across the line in 9th place after running the 5km in 16.47 which I was pretty happy with considering how the legs felt. (ed. that’s 3:09 per km – blistering!- What happens in a fast run Paul?). The top ten guys finished all within 60s of each other which goes to show the depth and quality of field that comes to these races. Hopefully next year I will get myself on the podium a few more times as I ended up 4th in the series. My next serious race report will be from the US where we are headed in June. Maybe there will be a race or two in Melbourne before that. See ya soon.

Paul Attard.