CFA / CORP Health Triathlon team Challenge

by Cranbourne Fire Brigade Leading Firefighter David Gorman

Blue skies and still waters greeted the 21 CFA competitors at the inaugural CFA/CORP Health Triathlon Team Challenge held within the Gatorade Triathlon at Elwood Beach on 15 February 2009.

With the events of the previous weekend curtailing a few teams involvement it was great to still get a large number of CFA personnel there on the day. With everybody wearing their commemorative cap made for the event it was pretty easy to spot us all standing out in the crowd.

With this particular race being the most popular of the Gatorade series the large throng of competitors and spectators (in the excess of 4,000) took a few of the CFA personnel by surprise with this being their introduction to the sport of triathlon. Luckily for us competitors start the swim leg in intervals, and the Team wave start was sometime after the Elite wave start. This gave us some extra time to familiarise ourselves with the bike compound entry and exits, the rules of change over in transition and some last minute team strategy and tactics discussion.

With the bikes safely in the compound all the competitors, families and friends made their way down to the beach to await the start. The event MC was doing a great job to get us noticed with a few shout outs for CFA over the PA and also allowing a few of the competitor’s children to give a “Go Dad” on the mic.

With start time approaching there was a bit of friendly rivalry going on at the beach. A few wetsuits zips were being pulled and the odd leg being poked out just before the racers got into the water.

The starting horn blew and off went the swimmers to a chorus of cheers from all the team members and spectators. With relatively still and warm water the swimmers made quick work of the 500m swim with Brodie Rafferty from Team HQ#1 (The A Team) emerging second from the water out of all the competitors in the Team wave. With only one other competitor passing Brodie on the short run from the beach to Transition she recorded the third fastest time of 8:55 minutes for the swim leg in the Team category. With all swimmers making it safely into Transition, although I think the bay went down a few inches in water level with the amount of water drunk by Andrew Smith from Team Cranbourne#1, it was now the turn of the bikers to show what they had.

At the start of the day it wasn’t hard to guess who would be the person to beat in the bike leg with Allan Rankin from Team CFASECC1 arriving with his 'super duper' road bike and decked out in his CFASRA bike clothing - he looked equally professional and fast. This proved to be the case as he blitzed the 20km bike leg in a time of 33:52 minutes and I’m sure when he passed me going in the opposite direction he looked to be taking it easy. The bikers were encouraged on their second lap by all the swimmers congregating at the turn around point to cheer, clap and hi-five them on their way.

The competitors have a laugh before race start

CFA and CORP Health Tri competitors

Once the bikers had finished it was then up to the runners to finish of the job and fight for the prize. With the lead that Allan had established from the bike leg, it was going to be very hard to reel in Team CFASECC. With a very fast and hard run, James Wong from Team PATRO1 (Patterson River) almost did it, making up 4 minutes with a time of 21:20 for the 5 km run leg. Also with a very respectable time was Anita Faras from Frankston with a time of 22:17.

Again it was great to see the other competitors at different points of the run leg cheering the runners on to the finish.

All transitions throughout the race went nice and smooth with all the competitors knowing exactly where to go to change over. It wasn’t too hard to find where the bike was racked as it seemed like everyone was in the compound, cheering and waving madly to all teams.

Once all teams had finished it was time to relax at the CFASRA tent for some refreshments. With plenty of fresh fruit (the pineapple was a big hit) and chips to eat, everybody had a laugh and a story to tell. Next were the presentations with Team CFASECC taking out the honours this year. They went home with the Triathlon Team Challenge Shield, Trophy and prizes totaling up to $100 each (approx). Also quite a few lucky competitors won spot prizes around $30-$40.

The winning team, CFASECC

With only 1:39 minutes separating the top three teams the day proved to be competitive but most of all it very enjoyable for all competitors, also raising the profile of CFA. Incidentally the winning team contained the youngest and the oldest competitor for the day. This goes to prove that you don’t have to be in your mid twenty's or thirty's something to compete in a triathlon.

All competitors had a great time with the event proving to be a big success in its first year. The Challenge will be run again next year so look out for the announcement around September/October and see if you and your team can wrestle the title away from the SECC.

Thanks to CFASRA, CORP Health, Sapak Pty Ltd, Aussie Disposals and Cranbourne Cycles for their support of this event.