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Author Archives: Henri Schoeman

First podium in the BSG Triathlon Series

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First race this year for the BSG Triathlon was up in Buffelspoort. I am currently in hard training, prepping for World Champs on the 20th this month in Auckland, I had no rest and raced on a tired body for training. I finished in 2nd and I am very happy with the end result!

I flew up on Saturday afternoon and settled in with a good dinner and sleep before the 8.15am start on Sunday. I wasn’t feeling sharp but I was ready to push my body very hard. I started the swim slower than what I should but was still in the lead, just! I opened about a 10 second gap exiting the water and time trailed the first 3-4km to see if the chase group will catch me. They eventually closed in until Wian and Erhard broke away to me and we decided to break away. We all worked well on the tough course and opened a lead over Wikus and Rudolf chasing together coming into T2. Wian exited out of T2 first about 10-20m in front of me with Erhard just behind me. With no leg speed yet I couldn’t go fast enough to catch Wian and run with him. I kept running as hard as I could and finished on the podium for the first time. Well done to Wian and Erhard for a good hard race and all the athletes that competed yesterday.

I am racing in a new team and new colours this season. Look out for the colours of black and yellow for Team FINIS!

Thank you to my support team – FINIS, Cytomax and Futurelife. My family and girlfriend for their support as well as to the organization of the Event by BSG. I am happy to say that I can soon add Blueseventy to my support team. Thanks Chris for the amazing pictures!

I will be racing this weekend at Midmar Dam in a sprint race and then I will be off to Auckland on the Thursday.

Thanks for reading :)

Training run with FINIS Hydro Tracker GPS

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After last nights track session I had a moderate 1hour run today and thought I would try out my new FINIS Hydro Tracker GPS. It’s a simple GPS that you can use while swimming, by strapping it to your goggles, cycling and also running. It comes with an arm band for you to clip it in, but I just stuck the small GPS into my pocket when I went out for a run just before lunch.

You can view my run here on the FINIS site: http://www.finisinc.com/streamline/share/workout/view/506184096ace2

It took some shortcuts but its great to be able to map out my exercise on a map and can check splits, elevation, time, distance and speed! It will take a recording or two to settle with the satellites.

I will be using it in my race this weekend at the BSG/Energade Triathlon Series to map out the course:)

I will post an update shortly after my result.

10km road race, Ballito

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This past weekend I ran a 10km road race in the 2012 Medihelp Dolphin Coast Striders Ultra event. It was a last minute decision to race, and it would be a good race to see where my running is at the moment with out any rest.

With only getting 3 hours of sleep because of a party the night before I woke up at 4am feeling very tired. On our way there I was sipping on Cytomax and soon began to wake up and feel more alive. Slowly warming up and getting light on my feet I was ready for a big start at 6am. There was some very good competition from some of the top African runners and I had no idea how this race would unfold.

At the start I was in front and slowed down to just hook onto somebody who had a better pace than some who sprinted out in the beginning. After 1km I was lying about 10th and keeping a good pace. Soon after 2km I was already passing runners one by one and at 5km I was in 5th. I had passed another 2 on the way back having to put in a surge when one runner was hanging on to me. I was now in 3rd and really trying to catch the first and second runner about 20-30seconds in front of me, but it wasn’t enough and came into the finish like that with a time of 32.30 for myself on a difficult course.

I was really proud with myself as it was my first running race I competed in and being the only white runner amongst the gifted Africans in the top positions because it’s very rare that you find that, especially on the podium.

5150 Bella Bella Triathlon

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The 5150 Triathlon in Warmbaths, Bella Bella was a race I have been looking forward to all year. There was good prize money and an interesting race format as it’s a non-drafting bike leg so it comes down to the best man overall to take the win. Here my plan was to not hold back in the swim like I usually do but to go my own pace from the beginning and race my own race without having to worry about a group forming together and working to catch me. The weather was going to be a factor on race day as temperatures reached into the mid 30’s and we had a start time of 12:00.

I had tapered and prepared well for the race using it as preparation for World Champs coming up in October and was feeling good and ready for some hurt.

It was a wetsuit swim and I had a slower start then in an ITU race. Soon I saw I had a 5m gap at 300m and then continued to further my lead at a comfortable pace. I exited first with a healthy 1.45 minute lead over Kent Horner. I got onto the very tough 2 lap of 10km bike course were we had a head wind going up and a tail wind coming back down. I made up more time up and lost a little time coming back because I was on a normal road bike while everyone else had their time trial machines. I came to the end of lap two with about a 2 minute lead but that’s when things went wrong… There was confusion at the turns and the leading motorbike took me off route back to the transition area. I knew the route and tried to argue with the lead out bike and referee, but they instructed the turn. When I joined the race again I was well over 5 minutes behind the leader. I had passed a couple of athletes again, but I put too much effort in to catch up. Half way through the run I was fighting the heat, exhaustion and dehydration more than just finishing and pulled out. I have hard training coming up to prepare myself for World Champs in October so I wasn’t going to kill myself for minor placing’s after what happened.

I was very disappointed that I had a weekend with no result as I gave up a chance to race in the ITU World Triathlon Sprint Championships in Stockholm on the same day. I take this as an experience and learn from my mistakes and move on to the next race more confident.

ITU World Cup racing in Tiszaujvaros

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After a good hard race in Holten I arrived in Tiszaujvaros, Hungary for the World Cup. I settled in well and was just doing race preparations all week to get myself ready for a very fast sprint format event. A different format from usual, we raced in 3 Semi-Final heats and the best 8 plus the best placed 9th finisher qualified to race the final the next day, making a start list of just 25 athletes.

I was feeling sluggish and dead all week and I think it’s from eating a lot of bread and carbs, so on Friday I cut out bread completely and started feeling a difference already.

We raced at 16:40 so I had a wake up swim after breakfast and tried to relax in this heat during the day.  It was very warm when I was busy warming up  before the race and felt reasonably good.

We started with a start list of 27 athletes and the first 100m was a mad out sprint and I was caught in the middle of the bunch but found myself 3rd after the bouy and moved up to the front very quickly and kept the pace up high to maybe create a few splits in the field. I exited with the quickest time of the day with 8:32 for the swim.

On the bike a group of 7 athletes joined together, including RSA team mate Wian Sullwald, and started working very well together and made a 50 sec gap to the chase pack.

I didn’t have a good transition as I was last of the 7 athletes out of T2. I never quite found a rhythm and felt my legs weren’t ready. They just didn’t want to go fast. The last lap I pushed and gave everything when I saw two athletes passed me and I had to beat them to at least be placed 9th but they were sprinting and I could only hold on and not pass and finished in 11th in my heat.

My time of 54:46 gave me 26th placed on the day and some good ITU points! I am disappointed I was so close to making the final, and didn’t but it’s my first World Cup and was happy to soak in all the experience. I love fast racing like this, I feel like I am in my territory because I can swim hard and have athletes around me and make a break away.

I want to thank TSA and Lotto For giving me this opportunity to get this racing experience I really hope I get to do many more in future. I also want to thank my family and girlfriend once again for all the support back home.

I am leaving back for South Africa on Tuesday for a long 30 hours plus traveling time, but will be happy to be home and get into hard training again.

AJ LEE ONLINE CASINO