Brent McKinnon
Age 31Sport Played Surf Life Saving - Endurance Ironman
Years Played 22 years
Tell us about yourself
I have been involved in Surf Life Saving (22yrs), Surfing (22yrs), Swimming (22yrs) & Waterpolo (15yrs) throughout my life. In somewhat of a return to form, I have for the past two years trained throughout the depths of Sydneys winters between 15 & 25 hours per week to compete the iconic Coolangatta Gold ironman event. Gold is noted as the toughest one day individual ocean event over 46.5km from Surfers Paradise to Coolangatta & back involving a 23km ski paddle, 650m beach run, 3.5km ocean swim, 4km beach run, 5.5km board paddle & finishing with a 10km beach run. Proving to be Mr consistency I have finished middle of the field with a 34th & 35th from my last completions, both in a time of 4 hours 54 minutes in varying conditions. Although 2008 I see as an improvement with the last 10km being run in hightide wet sand!! I will be back for more punishment.Proudest Sporting Achievements
Representing Australia in waterpolo - 1995 Aust Schoolboys team to South Africa Training and completing 2007 & 2008 Coolangatta Gold. 3rd Place overall (1st place 30-34yrs) 2008 - Coogee Wedding Cake Island Swim 2nd Place Overall Club Pointscore - World Life Saving Champhionships - Elouera SLSC - Team Manager. Numerous State & Australian medals in swimming, waterpolo & lifesaving.What are you hoping to achieve
I am currently training for and hopefully will put in a good showing in the 2009 Harbour Bridge to Manly swim (11km) - 15th March, 2009. This year after two years competing in the opens against the professionals in the Coolangatta Gold, I aim to step into my age category of 30-39's with a view to winning or giving it a damn good shot anyway!How does LineBreak help
Over the years of training and competing I have become atuned to my body and what pains and twinges are what and at my age with the desire for endless hours on & in the water as well as beating the pavement, I now know what it takes to maintain my body. Linebreak compression garments help me before, during and after training/racing to do this. They get me warm before, keep the blood circulating during hours on the ski, board and running when feet, leg and bum get cold and numb and afterwards they aid my recovery. The problem is keeping up with the amount of gear I need from day to day in getting it washed & dry as well as the wear and tear.My Blog
30/08/10
The end of the summer season went well for me with some good results at the NSW & Australian Championships as follows:
NSW Masters Championships
1st – 30-34yrs Surf Race
1st – 30-34yrs Tube Race
3rd – 130yrs Taplin Relay
5th – 30-34yrs Ironman
NSW Open Championships
Finalist Open Surf Race
Finalist Open Taplin Relay
Australian Surf Life Saving Championships
2nd – 30-34yrs Surf Race
7th – 30-34yrs Ironman
As you may have heard, the Australian Championships were cut short due to tragic death of Queenscliff competitor, Saxon Bird.
Following a big year with Coolangatta Gold preparations and a long summer I took a couple of months off to recover.
After a lot of consideration, the break convinced me that I wanted to get back into training and decided to have another assault on the Coolangatta Gold!
I am 11 weeks into my program, with the race scheduled a bit later than usual on November 7th, so 9 weeks to go.
It has been hard with the weather as this winter feels like it has been the coldest out of the last four for training. Getting a good rhythm with training has been tough, but making solid progress now and feeling stronger on the ski & in the pool, still need more work in the run and just starting on the board.
Thankfully, my LineBreak gear has come in handy and getting plenty of use in training and recovery.
Anyway, thanks again for the support and I will be sure to keep you updated as training progress before the Gold.
22/10/09
I am excited to say that I came 2nd in the 30-39 Masters category. I also managed to achieve a PB of 4hrs, 40 mins, beating my old mark by 15 mins. Of course conditions help with this, but there was a lot of improvement in a lot of areas such as the run & board legs. I had the tights on as much as possible leading into the race and my legs felt great come start time, especially after a calf strain.
I will send through another training and competition update for the site in the next week and include a full race review.
24/8/09
My LineBreaks are definitely coming to good use during the cold mornings and equally as much on the warm winters days we have been experiencing.
Favourites so far have been the Long Sleeve White top, Short length black shorts and sleeveless top – which apparently someone liked more as it was stolen as I left it dry for 5 minutes only to come back and find it gone, not happy!
Otherwise, training for the 2009 Coolangatta Gold is going well. We have been blessed with this warm winter, but that is not to say that we haven’t had our fair share of bitterly cold mornings.
The race is now only 8 weeks away and I am well into my 3rd training phase with 2 more really big weeks before a long run-through day and a nice recovery week. Last week saw a sharp increase in distance and intensity at swimming, but it is welcome and I know that if I can push through these next two weeks of the same sort of effort I will be all the more better for it.
A typical week at the moment is seeing the group cover 25km swimming, 60-70km Ski paddling, 35-40km running and 10-15km board paddling, which constitutes approximately 16-20 hours training on top of a standard working week. Needless to say Sundays as a rest day are more than welcome relief and a chance to relax, recover and get ready for the next week.
Competition wise I will be competing at the NSW Surf Life Saving Endurance Championships on 19th Sept at Cronulla Beach and the first leg of the Fenn Elite Ocean Series on Saturday 26th Sept at Long Reef SLSC. These will be my last two hit-outs before the Gold on October 18th at Surfers Paradise.
