Back then I remember looking the pro's with awe. Clearly they were some kind of superhuman with their freakish fitness and flash gear.
Back then I never thought one day I would be lining up at the pro start.
Bearing this in mind, in Busselton I decided to be as down to earth and humble as possible. This was largely determined by how broke I was. I think I was possibly the only pro... in fact, the only triathlete there, who had to catch the bus. Everywhere. I had to time racking my bike on Saturday with the bus timetable. Luckily we had a family friend come down for the race on Sunday (with a car, woop woop), otherwise chances were I would have had to have slept in transition overnight.
As a bonus though, the bus drivers were very friendly and chatty :-)
After a win at the Karapiro Half Ironman four weeks prior, I was ready for another hit out over Ironman distance.
Race morning was pretty much perfect - the ocean was nice and flat with only a little swell out toward the end of the jetty. And there were no sharks (well, none that I could see).
I had a pretty good swim, managing to hold on to Maureen Hufe's feet for a 59min swim. Unfortunately she ditched me rather quickly on the bike, being the super cyclist she is.
Going in to transition I wasted a bit of time getting tangled up in my wetsuit. Prior to leaving my Orca Alpha split a seam. Orca were brilliant in repairing it, and sent it back to me with instructions for the courier to deliver it before Tues (when I flew out). The couriers clearly misread this as "keep this as long as possible" as Tues morning they didn't know where it was, and then finally located it just after my plane took off. So I raced in my old 3.8, which is only loosely classified as a wetsuit now due to it falling apart and sporting a massive hole on the leg. The hole which I managed to stick my foot through trying to get it off.
Once I finished my own private wrestling match with my wetsuit in transition, I hit the bike.
The temperature was a cool 25 degrees with not much wind on the first lap. The course was a flat, fast 3 lap course. Laps 2 and 3 were a bit more chaotic trying to dodge age groupers, and we had a nice headwind spring up too just to keep it interesting.
Came off the bike in 5hrs10.
I hit the run feeling pretty good, and tried to stick to my pacing. I always get a little too excited about the prospect of running a marathon after 180km on the bike, so I tried to keep my pace in check. I felt awesome. Until the 20km mark, when someone clearly flicked the "feel sick" switch. I slowed down a bit and soldiered on to the end.
Total run time was 3hrs17.
I was the 6th pro to finish, out of a field of 12. I was pretty happy considering the quality of the pro field there. In hindsight, there are things I could have done better, but this is only one step in my journey.
Congrats to the race winners, Elizabeth Lyles and Jeremy Jurkiewicz, and fellow kiwi athletes Michelle Bremer and Melanie Burke for their 4th & 5th placing.
A big thank you to Sandie for looking after us in WA, my sister Nadine for consenting to be dragged along as support crew, SkyCity, Bob's Bikes, Adidas Eyewear, coach Keegan Williams (VO2Coach.com), swim coach Cameron Stanley, Roger for giving me a leave pass, and the Busselton bus drivers for always being on time!
