How do you make a room full of grown triathletes cry? Cancel their Ironman race. This is exactly what happened at IMNZ this year. The race directors had clearly made the right call. Saturday saw the lake looking like the ocean approaching high tide, wind gusts up to 120km/h and a wind chill factor of about 4 degrees. Not only would it have been unsafe to let us race, it would have been near impossible to just complete the course let alone race it.
Luckily Sunday dawned a better day and the amazing organisation behind IMNZ managed to pull together a 70.3 for us. After mentally preparing for Ironman, I have to admit at first I really struggled to get my mind into the 70.3. All of Saturday I sat around stressing that I wouldn't be able to lift my pace from just Ironman pace; my mind wasn't ready to face a shorter but harder race. I was very much relying on the longer run distance to run through the field; I wasn't very confident that I would hang on to the faster cyclists on the bike. Finally on Saturday afternoon I headed out for a short run, which usually clears my head a little. I was frustrated, I was fighting the wind, I was blown all over the road... but my legs felt like a million dollars. I got back to my accommodation, walked through the door and just said to Roger "It's all or nothing tomorrow. I am just going to race until I either collapse or finish in the top two. If I get anything out of tomorrow, it's going to be a Kona spot".
Sunday morning saw me heading down to transition to rack my bike again. Seeing not much wind I took a gamble and threw on the Zipp disc wheel kindly supplied by Bob's Bikes for me. I had been a little nervous that I would end up fighting cross winds too much with it on, but it looked promising that the wind would just be a headwind riding back. Once this was done it was out of transition, had a bit of time to catch up with some good friends, Caroline and Mike, who had come down to watch, then it was into my wetsuit, a quick goodbye and into the lake for a bit of a warm up.
The swim was chaotic. Imagine 1600 swimming around the same 2km course in choppy conditions, everyone with the same idea of going out fast. It was like a washing machine of bodies. I ended up swallowing so much water in the first 500m that I started to feel pretty sick. It took me up until the turnaround buoys to feel better, and I could put on a decent pace.
Swim time was a whopping 36min!
A quick transition and I was on my bike. I knew I had spent longer in the water than what I wanted, and I knew I would be chasing the age group leaders. Thanks to the disc wheel and my all or nothing attitude I hit the bike course at a pretty good pace, and kept it up the whole ride. I was a little disappointed by how many athletes were blatantly drafting or cycling in big packs. Under WTC rules the race was draft illegal, and with Kona spots up for grabs it frustrated me to know people were intentionally saving energy on the bike. I made a point of racing as ethically as I could, even slowing right down when large packs swallowed me up, which cost me a little bit of time but allowed me to drop out of the pack situation.
Got off the bike in 2hrs32.
I got off the bike feeling good and hit the run hard. Roger yelled I was 5min behind the age group leader, so I knew I had to make up 1-1.2km or so to catch her. The first 5km of the run are always the worst for me. Once I have these out the way I always feel pretty comfortable. By the time I hit the second lap I knew I was only 30sec behind second place. Sure enough I caught Helen Kay just on Lake Terrace and could only pray she didn't have some awesome run split up her sleeve for the last lap. Helen is a very good athlete and a phenomonal cyclist, I have no doubt she will be in Kona next year. Luckily I managed to run away from her, finishing up with a run time of 1.28; 5th female overall (exluding pro's) and 2nd in my age group. And more importantly, with a very much coveted Kona qualification!!
Total finish time: 4hrs45.
The awards dinner on Sunday evening was a nice wind down and to catch up on the races of training partners Ange Walker and Candice Hammond. Looking forward to some hot hot training sessions with Keegan and Candice as they prepare for racing in Thailand and I set my sights on Kona. Bring on the heat!!
Despite not racing the full distance, the race organisers and volunteers did an amazing job in moving the race and still making everyone feel like the amazing Ironman athlete they are. The support out there on the run course was pretty amazing too and kept spirits pretty high. Everyone who was encouraging me (you know who you all are) - thanks heaps!! Thanks too to Bob's Bikes for their continued support - anything and everything you need to know about cycling Bob is always happy to share.
Big thank you to my family for supporting me regardless of how crazy they think I am, and an even bigger thank you to Roger, who gives me every form of support and encouragement you could imagine AND who is not upset that I am now moving our whole wedding to race in Hawaii....and that I will be in "race mode" for the first half of our honeymoon!
