Fifteen minutes into the ski I began sipping my electrolyte drink from my pack. Five minutes later, I was questioning my pre-race meal. Nausea started to creep in in subtle doses; not enough to vomit - but enough to make me want to. This made for a difficult time in staying on top of hydrating when not thirsty.
Racing in any competition of any distance requires particular mental states. The longer the race - the more paramount the state. In a race of this distance a poor mental state, or simply the loss of focus, can literally end your race. It is a culminating effect of training, and just living, that we learn how to cope with different situations. We form mental models* from trial and error, and use these to move through future events in a (hopefully) successful manner.
Compartmentalizing nausea and increments of pain, I focused on simply following the wash of a ski in front of me. This is where my fears of preparation rung alarmingly true. I jumped onto the wash in front of me, focusing on good ski technique - drive from the leg, twist through the core, hands eye-level. i managed to stay in a train of 10 or so skis for a few minutes before they pulled away, and the gap, where I once was located, had closed without me. I would then grind for a few minutes until another small group moved up to me, and I would jump on their wash - only to be dropped again a few minutes later.
When we hit Burleigh Head (~10k from Surfers) we rounded a can to our left and continued Southeast toward Coolangatta. I gauged this to be approximately halfway and noted the time on my watch, 0750. (I would later fall prey to this false assumption). At this point I had managed to line up on someone's wash who I felt I could hold onto for a while.
A sip here. Some nausea there. A knot in my left Glute, that felt like sitting on a golf ball, started to form. At the 1-hour-45 mark I began looking for a turn can at the end of the ski leg. Scanning the horizon I found what I wanted - a white 3meter high buoy, red shirts of the event on shore. Rejuvenated by the thought of getting off the ski, we closed in on the can - only to turn left and continue to some foreign point that I couldn't fathom. My mental model had fallen apart at the seams, and my mental state went, in the words of one of my Welsh teammates: "Down da shittah!" I was gutted. Gapped and dropped again.
I closed in on a surfboat I had seen earlier. They were dressed in the white singlets of the relay teams. As I settled into pace next to them, the noise of their oars cracking rhythmically in the locks provided a comfortable distraction to my ears, one boatie shouted over to me, "you're doin' a'right mate. Keep it up. Just a bit more to go."
Mentally gutted - get me off this F*%#ing ski, were the words that came to mind. Finally, the red final turn can came into sight. Thank you God! Rounding the can and heading to shore, a wave was the only thing I had on my mind.
Onto a wave. Off of the ski. Into the first of three (progressively longer) runs. Into the water for the 3.5km swim.
Already around the can on the swim was a man with a standup paddle-boarder for a paddler - A TARGET.
*Note: The concpets of "Mental Models" and their nature were taken from works by Lawrence Gonzales
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