Aaron's Race Report Songkhla

After the Pattalung race, we headed down to Songkhla, our great friend Rory had booked us the hotel and was ready to deliver the local knowledge of the town with training and where to get the best foods, only 2.5 hrs drive we arrived at the hotel with a great surprize it had the most amazing 40m pool, yes we were all happy as the hotel in Pattalung had nothing, we unpacked our gear into the room and heading down for an easy recovery swim before dinner.

The week ahead was amazing we did everything we needed to do, check out the best local restaurants, visited the historic monkey hill and touched the mermaid's boobs on the beach (apparently its good luck) and of course, we trained, for me not a lot as wanted to let the body recover after 2 races in Pattalung so my swims were very easy (only added one short speed set Tuesday arvo, swim the course 2 x 750m on Friday morning, I rode the bike course just easy Tuesday 40kms and added some intensity, Thursday 20kms, my running was minimal just 4 x 400metres on the treadmill Wednesday and Saturday pre-race was on the course again for easy 750m swim with a few 20fast/20 easy strokes, hight cadence bike 10kms and a very easy 3kms run.

Check out how flat the water was all week.

For my Saturday night dinner pre-race I needed roasted veggies and salmon, for anyone that knows me I never change this (oh once I did a green curry and rice and had a great race) I asked Rorie how can I cook this he said come to my place and cook, perfect so ill cook for everyone, I love cooking for others it's definitely one of my passions so I was excited to share my favourite dish with everybody.

Sunday Race day.

Oh man, it was up easy at 4:45 am we needed to get down to transition and set up before 6 am, I rode down there only about 6kms which was a good little warm-up before, arriving at transition you get greeted very well with everyone thinking like your some kind of Ozzy pro or something

ready to take out the field.

Anyhow it was now time to head down to the water for a little warm-up, with the water as flat as it could be and very warm also I swam about 500m adding in some more fast strokes, there were about 10 mins before the first wave 20-40yo then our wave 40-50yo which meant I needed to swim around others which I actually don't mind:) the gun went for the first wave and we were 1 min behind, my plan was to go wide left and cut in last minute to avoid traffic and it worked a treat, my swim felt awesome nice and relaxed with a good catch and plenty of speed, coming out the water in 12 mins I was happy and in front for my age group already, running 200m to transition I was moving fast I knew my competition was hungry to catch me, getting on the bike fast and starting with a high cadence spin but keeping the speed fast was the plan here, I definitely felt the residual fatigue building from last weekends racing but kept on pushing hard, coming off the bike in 30mins and on to the run my plan here was to start a 4 mins kms and build into 3:45mins kms but seriouly in this heated climate it's unrealistic for me back in australia in 20 deree temps no problems but when its 35 degrees and 100% humidity is killing me, only being a 5 kms run I was dying struggling to keep 4:30min kms pace and wanting to stop, bringing back memories from lasts weekends double sprint on the last 5kms, but I knew people were catching me and needed to hold my position doing my best to push my self and not let my pace drop any more I finally came across the line in 1:08 mins 1st place in my age group taking home some cash an awesome trophy and 6th over all.