First race of the season for Filipe Azevedo - Experiences of a professional athlete at Dubai 70.3
The home crowd in Dubai were unbelievable; I have never heard so many people chanting my name in one place. It was a great experience and it has made me appreciate this city and its thriving triathlon community even more. The chants gave me a huge boost and I finished in 5th place amongst the male pros. This was probably in line with my personal expectations: it was the first race of my 2019 season and I had been completely wiped out by flu in the week building up to the race. It is always hard to start predicting how you are going to do when the pro start list is revealed. Some athletes are at the peak of their season focusing on a performance of a lifetime, some are at the end and can’t wait to get the race over and done with, and some, like me, are still building the foundations for the season ahead. On this occasion, I was just happy to make it to the start line.
The professional briefing is at 5pm on the Wednesday before the race (Friday). It’s nice to see which athletes are there; including some that crop up from training camps when you were younger. The briefing is brief. Very brief. A grand total of 10 minutes. Key points of information included the uncertainty about whether we would be wearing wetsuits on the swim (as the water temperature was ranging around the professional cut off limit of 21.9 degrees C) and the fact we would have a box next to our bike stand, rather than the blue and red plastic bags (more of an ITU-style transition). No food is consumed at the briefing and no-one hangs around for hours to catch up afterwards. There is one common goal amongst all the athletes. It always puzzles me why many age group athletes love to spend hours at their race briefing, stay up much later than their usual bedtime and eat more carbs and rich food than they have stomached all year. It makes complete sense doesn’t it.
The other pre-race aspect I find amusing is how the professional athletes are incredibly hard to spot. You probably walked past Adam Bowden or Holly Lawrence on Kite Beach when you were off to rack your bike, but didn’t notice them as they weren’t wearing your typical 70.3 World Championships stash. In fact, they weren’t wearing any triathlon kit at all. You will have better luck getting a photograph with one of the pros next year if you look closer at the people wearing ‘normal’ clothing in the area.
Some reflections on the different aspects of my race at Dubai 70.3…
The swim:
It was only announced an hour before the start that it would be a wetsuit legal swim for the pros. This, combined with the fact I am Portuguese, left me in a mad rush to get to the start line on time. My wetsuit wasn’t properly fitted on my arms as a result, and I didn’t get off to a good start on the swim.
For the pros, drafting on the swim is needed if you are to keep up with the fastest group. This is why the swim times are usually within seconds of each other: everyone is in a line. I was in 9th place and 30 seconds down on the leader after my poor start.
The bike:
The bike course is also a tactical game for the pros. For age groupers, it tends to be a steady and controlled pace the whole way, but for the pros, there are attacks and constant changes of pace. You have to be really focused and ready for every move.
It is challenging to overtake another pro on the bike course, because we are often sitting in a large group with a 12m gap between every bike. You can’t overtake one person and cut in, because is considered blocking and you receive a penalty. Therefore, if you do want to overtake, you have to overtake everyone in the group, including the first guy. That’s a big challenge.
In the race, the athlete in front of me in the group suddenly dropped over 20m behind the guy in front of him. I was not strong enough to pass him and keep up with the leaders. As a result, I lost the main leading group and on reflection this movement later cost me a potential podium.
The run:
I had a lot of work to do on the run. I managed to overtake 7 athletes, surging past them as fast as I could and dodging to the side so that they couldn’t draft me. Drafting on the run can make a huge difference both mentally and physically, so I didn’t want anyone to use me to their advantage.
I tried to run as much as possible on the hard paving stones at the side of the running track, but at some points towards the end of my run, running on the soft track was unavoidable.
In my races, I check both my pace and power on the run. The power meter showed I actually produced more power on this run than I had done at Shanghai 70.3, but my time was around 2 minutes slower. I can attribute this to the surface of the run course, and I’m still not at my ideal race weight. I will discuss power meters and off-season in later blog posts.
I ended up finishing strong in 5th position, with the 3rd best run of the day. I was just 1 minute 42 seconds behind 3rd place and truly believe that if I hadn’t lost the leading group on the bike and had Fraysee in my sights on the course, then this could have been within my capabilities. Oh well, fuel for the fire for next time.
