Tim Berkel

It’s been over a month since I’ve given my last update, and I sincerely apologise for that. Life has a way of getting ahead of you, but really there’s no excuse. I last left off with a bittersweet update. I got engaged to my sweetheart Belinda Coates, but I also faced a disappointing DNF at the Abu Dhabi Ironman. I simply wasn’t prepared for the extremely high temperatures we faced over there.

As an athlete, you never quite know how to approach a situation like that. I was as prepared for that race as ever, but no amount of preparation can get you ready for something so unexpected. After a DNF like that, you tell yourself to train harder, but that isn’t always the best solution. In triathlon, it often makes things worse.

So I just kept charging on, trying to put it behind me in the best way I can. I went up to Lennox Head to do some training with Team Aeromax and I spent a good four weeks with Clayton Fettel, Mitch Robbins, Joey Lampe, and Josh McHugh. My training for the Port Macquarie 70.3 started five weeks before the race, so I had plenty of time to prepare and get my mind off of things.

The Bussleton 70.3 was six days after the Port Macquarie 70.3, so I had to be a little more careful about not wearing myself out. I got back to Port Macquarie one week before the race to do a little light training, visit with the family, and get fully recovered before the race. Much thanks for Coastline Chiropractic for the adjustment, and of course to my mum for her amazing home cooking. Exactly what I needed to get race fit.

2011 Port Macquarie 70.3
The field was fairly well stacked for the Port Macquarie 70.3 this year. At the top, you had Joe Gambles, who has won several 70.3 events in the past few years, and 10 time New Zealand Ironman Champion Cam Brown. All of my favorite Aussies were there too. Matty White, Josh Rix, Leon Griffin, and Tim Reed all made an appearance.

Overall, I was happy with the way the race progressed. I came out of the swim with the main contenders, Gambles, Cam Brown, Tim Reed, and Matty White. I knew I had four people ahead of me, but that didn’t matter too much. The run is my strength, so as long as I was close enough by the time we got there, I knew I had a chance at victory.

Port Macquarie had a new bike course this year. It was a single lap 90Km course. The first 45Km put us right into a strong headwind, and I lost my pace with Gambles and Brown somewhere around the 13Km mark. My legs were exhausted, but I managed to pull off a strong ride back into town. I gained on a few of the other guys, except for Gambles who looked like he was on a mission from God.

Right around the transition from bike to running, I was in fifth place with Gambles a good 5 1/2 minutes ahead of me. There were four other guys in the transition area with me, and as we exited, I made a wrong turn. It took me some time to correct it, and by the time I did, I was back to ninth place.

That’s when I got frustrated and really started to push it. At the end of the first 2 and 1/2 Km, I was back in fifth. It wasn’t too long before I pushed past Joey Lampe and Leon Griffin, putting me in third place.

I kept pushing. Somewhere around the first part of the second lap, I overtook Christian Kemp for second place. By then, I knew Gambles had won the race, but I still managed to get a good three minutes into his lead. Aside from the mishap at the beginning of the run, I’m still very happy with the results. I had the fastest run of the day and ended the race in second place.

Everyone wanted to party after the Port Macquarie race, but I knew I had to stay within reason. The Busselton 70.3 was just six days after that. I also knew I had to fly out to Perth on Wednesday to meet with a group of 20-24 year olds who show promise in the sport. They invited me to visit a nearby high school to, talk to some students, and do a few drills with them. Time flew by, and before I knew it, I was racing the Busselton 70.3

2011 Busselton 70.3
I’ll admit that I still felt a little fatigued at the start of this year’s Busselton race. I kept telling myself, “you’re a little tired. Don’t do anything stupid!” The swim felt good, and just like Port Macquarie, I came out with the main pack. Guy Crawford had a phenomenal swim and appeared to be on his own program for the entire bike leg.

A part of me suspected that Guy would eventually “pay the price” for his lead, so I didn’t pay much attention to it during the bike. The transition went well for me this time (no wrong turns!), and I had all of the top runners in my sights. I put in a big surge to give myself a gap on them, and I managed to hold onto it!

At this point, there was no looking back. I could hear them. They weren’t too far behind me. I overtook Jamie about 500 meters into the run, and then I caught up with Josh Rix somewhere around 3Km. That only left one person. The mysterious Guy Crawford who hadn’t yet paid his price. I caught him at 6Km.

By the end of the first lap, I had Dellow, Reed, and Matty White about 50 meters behind me. Just for good measure, I surged ahead some more to put a little extra space between us. The run felt really good as I slowly pulled away from the other guys. When I made the final turn towards the finish line, I saw that nobody had gained on me, so I eased up and enjoyed the win.

Now the Port Macquarie and Busselton are done, I’ve got my eyes on Challenge Cairns. It’s less than four weeks away, and there’s plenty of work to do. Before I go, I want to thank WTC for putting on two fantastic events. I also want to thank the organising committees and Triathlon Western Australia. You always do a great job of looking after the athletes!

See you in few weeks.

Well it’s February 7th, and I’ve just finished my second race of the year. Two third-place finishes to start off 2010, but there was a top field today so I’m really happy with my result.

I decided to travel on Saturday, for a Sunday race, so I didn’t have many distractions with any of the media commitments. I arrived in Geelong in the early afternoon, so I quickly needed to put the bike together, register, and get my bike into the compound, as soon as I arrived. After I finished all of the necessities, I went and had an early dinner with my mate Clayton Fettell. It’s always good to kick back with him, so I was pretty relaxed leading into the race.

As I said earlier, it was a top field, and they gave me number “2″, and I felt pretty honoured to be given a number so low. I had two time World Champion Craig Alexander (number “1″), on my left, and former World Duathlon Champion Leon Griffin on my right. I was also racing with Triathlon Legend Jason Shortis, as well as Olympian Bronze medalist Jan Rehula. I was also racing against my mates Matty White, and Adam Holborow as well as a host of other Australian pros.

I wished I could’ve done this race last year, however my training wasn’t up to scratch at the same time last season. The race has really good atmosphere, and there were nearly perfect conditions when we started the swim. I expected Clayton and Michael Murphy to go out hard in the swim, so my focus was to just stay with Crowie and Griff. When the gun fired, Clayton took off, and Murphy was trying to hold onto his feet, but that didn’t last long. I would guess that we were only 200 m from the shore, and Clayton was already away on his own. I was swimming well and in the group that I wanted to be with, but when we turned at the first can, we got hit with a lot of chop, and it was difficult to see. I could tell that I was swimming side-by-side with Leon Griffen, but I couldn’t tell who the others were. By the time we turned toward shore, I had fallen back a bit, so I was about 15 seconds behind the group that had all the main contenders in it. I wasn’t concerned, and I had a good transition as we led out on the three-lap bike course.

I was able to catch up to the main group within the first 2 km, so I tried to make it up to the front of that group (which now had about nine guys) just in case anybody was going to make an attack. By the time we reached the turnaround, I could tell that it was only Clayton out in front, and he was looking really strong. As we were coming back into town at the end of our first lap, Matty White seemed to surge ahead a little bit, so I went with him thinking that everybody else was with me. As we made a few of the turns going into town, I saw that we had already created a gap of 20 seconds or so, so we tried to make the commitment to pull away from that group. Unfortunately, the group rallied together and hooked back onto us a few kilometers later.

Somewhere along the second lap, we were joined by the second group, which included Jason Shortis, Adam Holborow, and a few others. So other than Clayton who is out in front and appeared to be pulling away from us, we seem to have the entire men’s pro field stretched out in one long group. Throughout the rest of the three lap bike course, a few others tried to surge ahead, and the only one that looked like it was going to last was when Jan Rahula made a move in the third lap, but that also was in vain, because we caught him before we made it back to the transition area.

I was about the fourth one into T2, but we were all within seconds of each other. I normally have a quick transition, but I decided to put on socks, whereas Crowie and a few others chose not to, so I was about eighth place going out onto the run course. I couldn’t seem to find my run legs straight away, and I could see that a lot of the other guys were going flat out from the beginning. I learned my lesson and Busselton, so I decided to run my own race, and ease into the faster pace when my legs were ready. This paid off for me, and as soon as I was feeling stronger, I started to run down some of those that had shot out of the transition area. I first picked off Rahula, then a few of the other guys. Crowie took the lead from Clayton in the second lap, and Leon was next to overtake him. By the time I made it up to Clayton, he was running side-by-side with Peter Schokman, which represented third and fourth position.

It was early in the third lap, and I was feeling pretty good, so I just eased ahead and even though they tried to stay with me, I think the heat had taken its toll on Peter, and I think Clayton was feeling the effects from smashing it in the swim and bike. I could see at some of the turning points, that Crowie and Leon were uncatchable due to their lead, and the blistering pace they were setting. I was pretty confident that Peter and Clayton weren’t going to get a second wind, so I cruised home to take third. I was really happy with my result considering the quality of field that this race attracted. This race really came down to the run, and even though Crowie had taken a whirlwind trip to the US the weekend prior, he was still able to back it up with a 1:11:57 half marathon. Likewise, Leon ran a 1:13:21, and I clocked a 1:14:51 half marathon. So the three fastest runs of the day represented the top three positions of the race.

So now I’m back to Port Macquarie to continue my training for Ironman Australia, as well as doing the Australian Long Course Championship in Huskisson, NSW in two weeks. I’ll keep you posted with my results.

I just wanted to get out a new race report for my results up at the Gold Coast Half Ironman this past weekend. As you may know, I won the Long Course Triathlon up in Port Douglas Queensland two weeks ago, which is a great race, and a great place to visit. I won there last year as well, so I was keen to go back to regain my title. When I came back to Port Macquarie, I had a solid week and a half to focus on the Half Ironman up in Goldie. I have built up a good base for my run, but I still hadn’t put in enough kilometres on the bike, and in the pool. I traveled up to Brisbane on Saturday morning, and got out to the race site in the afternoon to make my way through registration. I caught up with a few mates, had a quick meal and got a good rest. I messed up on my change to daylight savings, so I ended up getting up an hour early. I felt a bit off from the start of the day, and made a rookie mistake, that I don’t want to go into…

When I got to the race start, I was able to catch up with a few of the boys, and we were able to muck around for a bit, before we got to business. I knew that Clayton Fettell and Joey Lampe were going to lead out the swim, and I wasn’t planning to try to stay with them, because they are just way too strong. I settled in with Adam Holborrow, Nathan Stewart, and Ollie Whistler. Adam brought us in to the finish, and when I got to the bike compound, I noticed that we had James Bowstead from New Zealand with us. I’ve raced with James a few times, and he’s a really good cyclist, so I figured that between myself and Adam, Nathan, and James, we would’ve caught up to Clayton and Joey in the first lap.

I was told when we left the bike compound, the boys were two minutes up the road. James Bowstead broke away from the groups that I came out of the water with, and Adam and I were able to bridge the gap to keep him in our sights. However that didn’t last long, and he was able to edge away from me, and I didn’t want to burn out too early with an early chase, so I settled in and let the other boys catch up to me. By this time we had swallowed up Joey, so I knew that Clayton, and James, were out there on their own. I felt that we were moving along at a fairly decent clip, however when we were given the time split after the first lap, I realised that Clayton had gained an additional one minute 42 seconds over his swim lead. I pushed myself a little harder, and I was hoping that I could reel in some of this time gap, but after about 35 km into the ride, I began to see black spots, and felt really uncomfortable. I eased off a bit, and try to settle in with a piece that was comfortable, but when I got into the turn at the second lap, I was told that Clayton was now over seven minutes ahead of me.

I did not want to compromise my run, so I maintained my pace, hoping that Clayton would fade in his last lap. However, that didn’t happen. Clayton had a phenomenal swim, followed by an excellent ride, so by the time I made it into T2, he had nine minutes, and nine seconds lead on me. So at this stage, I was running angry, and tried to get straight to work.  I was a little upset with myself, for letting the lead slip away, the way that it did.  James Bowstead was running in second place, and when I rolled into T2, I had five guys with me, so I wanted to push out hard, to focus only on the guys ahead of me, and not the group that was starting with me.

I had a good start to my run, but each time my got to a turnaround where I was able to see Clayton and Bowstead, I could see that those guys were running really well, so I had my work cut out for me. I was moving along pretty good, but I knew that the only way that I could beat Clayton, was that he’d totally blew in the run. I was closing in on James, and I was able to move into second with about 4 km to go. I didn’t give up, and I was pushing really hard, but when I got to about 1 km from the finish line, I could hear the announcers calling Clayton over the line. I ended up running a 1:16:16 Half Marathon, which was over 4:30 minutes faster than the second fastest on the day, so I’m very proud of that accomplishment.

So now I’m going to prepare myself for the Scody Half Ironman in Port Macquarie on November 1st. I will be leaving tomorrow to head up to Alstonville to do some training with Clayton Fettell, Simon Thompson, Joey Lampe and possibly Jason Shortis. My main focus is still on Busselton in December, and everything seems to be moving on track.

Just keep coming back and checking out the website for updates, and I’ll send another blog update once I start my training with the boys. I also want to thank Lisa Pringle from the USM for allowing me to come back up in race and the Gold Coast. It’s a great event, and I have now finished on the podium for the last four years, and I will keep coming back here, until I crack this one. I also want to thank all of my [intlink id="109" type="page"]sponsors[/intlink], and my supporters, who have made it possible for me to get the results. Everyone of you play a part in my successes. Thank you.