Friday 6 January 2017

Port of Tauranga Half Ironman

Just finished racing Port of Tauranga Half Ironman, new PB of 3 hour and 55 min....including a 3 minute penalty, and a distraction time of who knows! Was pretty rough getting my first penalty from a ruling which didn't seem fair (guy made a pass then slowed down, causing me to be in the '12m' spacing and apparently not giving him enough room within 30 seconds?) especially after riding 75km solo after missing the front group of riders out of transition, but thats racing and shit happens.

Back to the start of the race though, the swim was choppy conditions which I actually quite like! Was able to get a good start, get into the front group and get into a rhythm. My goggles got pretty fogged up after a about the first 500m so the rest of the swim was lets say, more finding feet than sighting the buoys. New goggles on the to do list!

Came into transition with the group so was looking up at the stage, but the this is where the big learning from this race came (pretty much over learning stuff now lol), I was to focused on getting into my bike shoes when I should just get on the bike and put feet on pedals and haul ass...worry about the feet in shoes once at speed! Seems pretty practical right...

So missed the group on the bike again and didn't have the power/strength to put in the effort to catch them, like Simon Cochrane did....good man!  Anyway, road the rest of the bike basically solo, few guys providing help for a few minutes..and thought when Cam Brown came passed I might be able to pace with him to the front group but there was no shot in hell I was holding that terminator for any serious length of time!

So along came the Tech official and the penalty.. shitty shit shit... but got through that mental battle and sat the penalty, finished the bike and got on the run. Plan was to pace the run out and try to have an even split for the 21km but that had gone out the window, so just thought "stuff it" and buried myself. Pretty happy with that decision though as I was able to run myself back into 8th place from 15th (I think) and have shared equal run split with Cam Brown (74min) and 9 seconds behind Braden, who again had a sweet race and got a new course record..legend!

So, again good learnings...but over learning now, so next up in Geelong 70.3 and you'll be sure I am going into that one with even more fire in my belly!

Loved the new bike, went super smooth! Thanks for the support from friends, fam and sponsors!! SKINS, HOKA ONEONE, DIMOND BIKES, BALANCE SPORTS NUTRITION.