Local triathletes conquer Trirock Durban

Scores of triathletes were up at the crack of dawn on Sunday October 5 for 113km of Trirock exhilaration. Tri-athletes from all over the country graced the Durban promenade in anticipation of a great coastal event.

Ballito was represented by Scott Duncan and local sports physiotherapist Marc Colia. Colia raced in pink to raise awareness for breast cancer and raise funds for Reach for Recovery. With October being breast cancer awareness month, Colia jumped at the opportunity to race for charity. Breast cancer awareness is close to Colia’s heart as both his mother and his best friend’s mother were affected by the disease.The 1.9km swim event, originally meant to start at the Bay of Plenty had to be moved further down to Ushaka beach due to rough sea conditions. “Going out to sea and swimming up the coast was easy but coming back in from the sea was extremely rough,” said Duncan. Duncan said he got caught in no-mans-land on the way back in and found himself having to swim back out in order to position himself favourably for the swim back to shore. “A lot of people got pulled out of the swim because they couldn’t cope,” said Colia.

After an 800 meter run from the sea to the first transition area, tri-athletes were off on a magnificently scenic 90km undulating bike ride along the M4 to Ballito and back. Duncan, who finished the race in an astonishing 4:52:29 said he smashed it in the cycling leg. “The conditions were perfect and this was the best bike route out of any triathlon I have ever done,” said Duncan. Duncan said the smooth new road surface on the M4 was ideal for the stiff time-trial bikes that are super sensitive to bumps in the road surface.

Colia, who finished the race in a very respectable 5:49:40 had prior to Sunday never done more than 65km on a road bike and the 90km bike leg took him into uncharted territory. “I’ve been training on my mountain bike and that made me strong. I’ve also done the 65km Amashovashova road bike race so I knew I could do it,” said Colia. Colia said climbing the hill up to Zimbali before the turn-around point was the toughest part of the bike leg but going back was relatively easy with long downhills.

The second transition zone preceded a fast and flat 21.1km run on the Durban promenade. Different triathletes had different experiences of the run leg of the race. Everyone agreed the water points were well positioned and managed and the crowds highly motivational. Duncan said he had a hard time on the run with heat and cold that came and went as the cloud cover kept changing. He also found running continuously on a flat surface extremely tiring as there is no undulation on which different muscles can work and rest at different times. Duncan felt good on the first two laps but extremely nauseous on the final lap. He thinks the heat might have had something to do with that. Colia, also felt the effect of the midday sun but all in all had a fun race and said he will definitely be back next year.