The start of the 15/16 season

I became a member of South Bank Tri Club and within hours of joining Emma (the membership liaison officer) messaged me welcoming me to the club. I felt things were going to be great. I did my first club training session that Friday morning. Something that they called "Funky Friday" but rather than going with the main group doing a "river loop" I joined a smaller group of people who were going through the basics of bunch riding and some general bike handling skills. I knew how to ride a bike but I'd never really ridden with others, at most it would have been me and a friend or two in my teens.

Everyone was very friendly and wanting to have a chat and get to know you. This was great. The best part was after you finished your ride you went back to their local coffee shop Cowch to have breakfast and a coffee with the main group and chat.

I started going to any other sessions that I could attend, such as running on Thursdays and "Work Hard Wednesdays". This was fantastic, everything I was looking for. No clicks within the group, everyone seemed genuinely happy to be there and wanting to hear about what I'd done and my next race.

As I wasn't working I would often come home from training and have a little sleep before going for another run or ride during the day. On the days I had Sapph I would spend time with just the two of us, we would often frequent the theme parks or one of the various Max Brenner chocolate shops around South East Queensland, in fact there were a few jokes made that Max Brenner would go broke if I stopped going there.

I made another significant change to the equipment I was using, I had the right shoes, now I want the right bike. I was on the hunt, a lot of time was spent on sites like Gumtree and Ebay to find the best deal, I found it. An Azzurri Time Trial bike on Ebay. Nobody had placed bid on it so I messaged the seller offering slightly lower than the price they were asking. She responded saying that she was clearing out some of his bikes as he had too many in the garage and would accept my offer.

One thing to be very wary of when hunting for the right deal. The size may not always be perfect, I highly recommend going and getting a proper bike fit done, this may add a little to the overall cost of the bike but the difference it makes have the bike fitted to you is incredible. I got the team at Planet Cycles to do this for me.

With this new bike I needed to give it a real test and get my first race of the season done, during coffee after a run one day I was recommended to sign up for the Greater Springfield Duathlon, it's was a good race with an "undulating bike course". Now I want you to know when someone says a bike course is "undulating" thats not a nice thing, its hard, theres lots of hills and about half the time you are going down hill but the other half you are going uphill.

It was a cold morning in Springfield, Sapph was at her aunties and I had racked my bike. But this race was different, instead of just walking around aimlessly until my wave started I had a tent to go and sit under. As well as other people that I could chat to and so this pre-race time passed much faster than before.

We were off, I did my 10km run and was feeling very good, turns out that the run wasn't 100% flat but that was ok as every lap no matter how tired I was there were maybe 10 people that I kinda knew from my club cheering me on, and even other supported just shouting out "Go South Bank" so I felt great no matter how tired I was.

I got to the bike leg, this was the part I had been waiting for, until I saw the hill, dammit theres six laps of this hill, down in the lowest gear with people flying past me. "Larger" people are not designed for going uphill. But on the way down that was great, I felt like I was flying past everyone. Then when I got to the end of the lap I heard my club cheering again. Wow this is awesome!

I felt like I was almost dying when I got to the final 5km run, I knew it was only 2 laps but they they were hard. One leg after the other was all I could think about. During the first lap I caught up with Juan from SBTC as he was suffering from cramp, but I thought fantastic, I'm was able to catch up with someone who looks like an actual athlete. I must be doing ok. We stayed together for that lap and most of the second until we reached the home straight. I was off. I still remember hearing over the loud speaker "Isn't this great, the two boys from South Bank. They train together and the finish together, WAIT whats that, and he's off!" I ended up beating Juan by a few seconds. This has started a slight rivalry that I can see continuing into the future.

That was the best race I'd done, yes I know there was no swim to feel happy about. But the sense of excitement that you got from doing this with other people just made it that much more exciting.