Coral Coast 5150

Nicholas Hull
Jun 17, 2015
3 min read

I've never visited Cairns before but now I find myself making two trips up there within a week of each other. Racing Cairns Ironman 70.3 next weekend has been on my list for a few months now but racing Coral Coast 5150 was a bit of a last minute decision. After a positive result a few weeks back at Byron Bay I saw this race as a good opportunity to do so again and also as a good hit out prior to the 70.3. It was an early start on Friday morning with a 7:00am flight and in retrospect I didn't need to fly in anywhere near that early and could have even gotten away with flying a day later but that's what happens when you leave it to the last minute, you take what flights are left! It gave me an extra day to put my feet up and enjoy the scenery of Port Douglas and prepare for the event. Friday and Saturday were filled with nothing worth writing home about, only the usual relaxation and easy training sessions to get the body ready to race. Come Sunday morning we were greeted with windier conditions than what you'd hope for and so much so that the swim was initially changed to a 750m swim due to the rough conditions before being further changed to a Duathlon consisting of a 2.5km run, 40km cycle and 10km run (with all of the running being along the beach!). Although this does change the race quiet dramatically I've come to accept it for what it is because every athlete is in the same boat and there's no point stressing about something that is out of your control. A small pro field took to the sand for the opening 2.5km run and not only were we running on sand but straight into a pretty strong headwind which split us up quickly. I found myself just off the pace of the two leaders mounting my bike and set about seeing what I could do about trying to close their gap. James Cunnama established himself a healthy lead early on and I found myself back in fourth place trying to limit my losses to second and third with the aim to try and run myself onto the podium. Unfortunately with a few km's left of the bike I felt my rear tyre start to deflate and with it my hopes of claiming a podium as I had to ease up and nurse my bike home, even resorting to running the last km or so just so I could finish without damaging my rims. It was pretty disappointing but not as disappointing as what a DNF would have been had it happened much further out from the finish of the ride. Heading onto the final 10km I immediately knew the gaps to the top three where too big to close and set about having a good run. It turned out to be a much tougher task than first expected with the headwind right in our faces for the first 1.25km of each of the four laps. Safe to say it was a feeling of relief to cross the finish line at the end! Naturally it's a little bit disappointing to not have everything go my way on the bike but at least I was able to cross the finish line in a respectable fourth place. On the bus trip back to the airport I got a good look at the bike course for next weeks event and it looks like a challenging but very scenic course and I can't wait to fly back up to Cairns this Friday to do it all over again.