Brayden Clews-Proctor: Runaway Bay: An ITU Learning Experience

It’s been a great first half of the Triathlon season for me.  Although I haven’t done many triathlons I feel things are right on track for an even better 2nd half of the season.  My season started off on October 31st with a win at the Sri Chimnoy sprint race in Canberra in a time of 58:21.  I followed up with another win in the first TACT race of the season a week later, which included a pool swim as opposed to swimming in Lake Burley Griffin.  Both races were low key but good to come out on top.

On December 16th I headed off to Queensland with the ACT Junior Squad for the first ITU event of the season at Runaway Bay. The event included 3 swim races, a Lemans style crit race, running races over 1k, an aquathon, and 3 short triathlons.  I’ve never done any ITU races so wasn’t sure what to expect but I knew that I was in good shape as I had set some running PB’s and had been racing well in local crit races leading up to the event. 

The first event on Day 1 at Runaway was a 50m, 100m, and 200m swim races with a short rest in between.  Times were added up over the three races to declare a winner.  I swam PB’s in all three but only managed 36th out of 64.  In the crit race I was able to place 1st in my heat of 32 but unfortunately final places were based on time and even though I won my overall place was only 20th. About 2 hours later we had a 1k heat followed by a final if you placed in the top 3 in your heat.  I treated my heat like a final as I really wanted to see what I could do.  I was able to win my heat in a time of 2:37 which was the fastest qualifying time.  In the final I ran well but didn’t have it in the end but still placed 11th overall out of the field of 64.  To say the least after the first day I was pretty exhausted.  

Day 2 saw me place 20th overall in the Aquathon which was a 400m swim/2k run, 14th in the Super sprint 300/6k/2k, and 11th in the Ultra Sprint 200/4k/1200m. These races were fast and furious and unfortunately swimming in the pool I found myself doing a lot of chasing but I was very happy with the day. With all the races if you placed in the top 16 you received points at the end of the day I was placed 18th overall.

Day 3 I raced in the B final and had a really good race as my running saved me.  I lost my cycling shoe coming into transition and lost several seconds and with the races so short I was worried but today’s race had the longest run at 2.4k on the track and I proceeded to run down about 9 guys in front of me and recorded the 4th fastest run split on the day and finished 2nd overall in the B final.  

I was invited to attend the Triathlon Australia Development Camp that was held for 3 days after the racing and it was great learning from some of the best coaches in Australia.  They were all very helpful and I learned a lot.  It was also great getting to know some of the guys that I will be competing against in the future.

The next race is coming to Canberra at the end of January.