Race Report

OK here it is my Kona 2009 race report!

My day started at 0400 with a hearty breakfast of porridge and pineapple! As I sat and ate my porridge I could hear the wind whistling through our condo complex and the crashing of the ocean waves - from my time out here I knew that if I could hear the ocean and the wind from my condo it meant that the swim was going to be full of swells and the bike was going to be windy - just another day in Kona then!

Hannah and Tania were brave enough to accompany me down to the race start so we made our way out to the side of Alii Drive just before 5am and caught one of the athlete shuttles down to the race start. Thankfully I had given myself plenty of time before the race to navigate the special needs bag drop, body marking and timing chip registration - as I exited the last tent 50 minutes later to walk towards my bike I realised I was walking alongside Chrissy Wellington! I attempted to think of something cool to say but ended up just blabbing out something that resembled a good luck wish!!

I didn't have much time to spend setting up my bike by the time I reached it - so just a little bit of fluffing pumping up tyres and setting up my drinks before lining up to enter the swim! I knew the swim wasn't going to be pretty - with 1800 people packed along the smallest of start lines so I focused on my race plan and lined up towards the ocean side of start line toward the back of the middle third of athletes. The pro athletes went off at 0645 to the sound of the first cannon - the force of which sent a massive shock wave through the water!! Then it was a case of treading water and waiting the 15 minutes for the start of the age group race! At the race briefing we were told that there would be no 3, 2 or 1 minute countdown to the start of the race - the canon would simply fire when the front line of swimmers were all in line which could be anytime from 0655 onwards. I'm not sure which is worse - a 3,2,1 minute countdown to the start or a cold start!

So without warning the canon fired, startled everyone for a split second and then it went crazy! The first half of the swim was absolute carnage - people kicking, punching, grabbing feet and swimming over you! I didn't lift my head out of the water to sight a single buoy until the turn around - you simply had to go with the flow and hope the flow was on the right track! Once past the turn around things settled down a bit and I found a pack of 4 swimmers who didn't feel the need to try and take me out every second stroke! The last 750m got a bit violent again as we converged towards the swim exit but I managed to keep my cool and exit in one piece - mission accomplished! I glanced down at my watch which flashed 12 minutes back at me - hmmmmmm - slight technical problem with my watch!!! I decided to reset it on exiting transition as there was a big timing clock that I could use to note my total swim and transition time which I could then add on to my watch time as I progressed - bit of basic mathematics was now going to be required throughout the race which I thought could get interesting as the day progressed and my mind got fuzzier!

The first 20 minutes of the bike is a dog leg around the side streets of Kona - it is difficult to really get up to a decent speed because of the sheer volume of athletes and also the numbers of spectators jumping out into the road to cheer you on makes it quite a tricky little section! Anticipating this I used the slightly slower paced start to spin my legs out and get some nutrition in. Finally we hit the Queen K highway and I fired my legs up into full race mode!

The winds were raging along the highway and seemed to be blowing from all directions - you would catch a tail wind and within a couple of minutes it would turn into a belting head wind. By mid morning the sun was really starting to burn and so I deliberately took my time through the aid stations to pick up as much water as I could to chuck over my helmet and down my back! My support crew had singled out the turn off to Hawi as the cheer point for the cycle - I had been cycling strongly so I wasn't surprised when I got to the Hawi turn off and my sea of pink was nowhere in sight! I had joked the night before that I would race them to the spot so I couldn't help but break a little smile! I knew that they would be waiting there to see me on my return and wondered at what point would they realise that they had missed me first time round!!!

The terrain up to the turn around in Hawi is hill after hill after hill so I focused my attention on my pick and pass strategy to get me up each hill - pick a cyclist ahead, close them down and then pass! It was about this time that I realised that my watch had stopped again - by now I had totally lost track of time and was more confused than ever about what my total time was - I restarted my watch again more so I could use it to time my nutrition intake rather than track my time - I figured it would be a case of resetting it again at the start of the run!

Once I had made my way to Hawi I braced myself for the crushing side winds on the return which are a little more fierce as you cycle right on the edge of the coast. I focused on the sea of pink that would be waiting at the entrance back onto the Queen K and pushed as hard as I could to get there as quickly as I could. As I climbed the hill towards the start of the Queen K I saw the familiar sight of crazy pink people waving signs and screaming my name! After a gruelling section it was what I needed to lift my spirits and push me forward!

The last 80km segment of the cycle which had been the easiest section in training from a wind point of view ended up being the most challenging. It felt like cycling into a brick wall of wind and was unrelenting. As I hit transition I glanced at the timing clock and realised I had managed to pull a 5:44 bike - just 5 minutes slower than my split in Taupo over a much tougher and gruelling course - I was ecstatic!

My bike to run transition went pretty smoothly and I loaded up on panadol extra in the hope that would get my foot through the marathon course. I could feel the sharp pain at the base of my foot and as I hit the first hill and my first team of supporters it took me all my strength to keep running. I began to wonder if I could finish what I started, if I could make it in the unrelenting heat to the finish line on a foot that was clearly not very happy with what I was asking it to do! I knew that I needed to snap out of this destructive chain of thought and just then my prayers were answered by a man shouting on a loud speaker 'you are the best Ironman athletes in the world and you are all doing great' nothing like a goose bump evoking pick me up! I thought back to the day I got my Kona slot, the agony of waiting to see if I got a roll down, about the people who would give anything to be out on this run course and the last 6 months of training that I've put in to get here - why wouldn't I finish! So I left the thoughts of self doubt on the road, slowed my pace a little to take some of the pressure off my foot and then blocked the pain in my foot from my mind. By the time I passed my condo complex on Alii Drive I was beginning to feel that my running stride was about to kick in - I got another massive cheer from Team Whelan which spurred me on - and by the time I hit them on the return I managed a clap and shout a 'lets go'!

Once out on the Queen K and amongst the lava fields the intensity of the sun was sauna like proportions! I was drinking what felt like my body weight in electrolyte, water and coke and pouring ice into any spot on my body I could get it to stay!! The highway was shimmering with the sun and a haze settled on the long stretches of road ahead. The kilometres ticked by and eventually I reached the Natural Energy Lab of Hawaii - an area covered in solar panels that you run through - they say the energy lab sucks the energy out of you - I decided it was going to give me energy!! So I set off through the solar panelled lined road and knew once I was out of the energy lab I was on the home stretch! I emerged like most feeling victorious but had begun to become aware that my race clothes were beginning to slip off me and I knew I needed to get as much fluid in as possible on the run home however I wasn't able to tolerate more than a mouthful of fluid at each aid station.

In the last couple of kilometres I ended up keeping pace with an Ozzie chick who was an experienced Kona athlete and mother of 2! She was carrying a cup of ice and kept passing me ice cubes to suck on! As we hit the downward hill of Palani we could hear the finish line and the roar of the crowd! I got lost in the emotion of it all and as I came down the finishers chute I made my way towards the fuzzy pink team, grabbed the flag and brought it home kiwi style!

After the adrenaline buzz of the finish I began to feel a little ropey and couldn't believe my eyes when I weighed in 6kgs lighter! Despite being really conscious of taking in fluids throughout the day I had still managed to finish with a massive fluid deficit. I therefore spent the next 3 hours checking out the Kona medical tent hooked up to what ended up being a total of 5 litres of intravenous fluid! I did manage to pass as well enough to discharge after 3 litres, made it 10 minutes out of the medical tent before promptly collapsing in a heap and being readmitted to receive another 2 litres! Thankfully I was one of many in the IV line so I didn't feel too much of a dork - well that was until the medical staff found out I was a nurse!

I'm so pleased with how my race went and my overall time! I managed to complete a much tougher course than Ironman New Zealand and come home adding just 13 minutes to my finish time! I think qualifying by roll down really focused my training over the last 6 months - I think it made me more determined to line up on that start line and prove I had the right to be there. I finished as the 2nd female age grouper across all divisions on the New Zealand team and placed 24th in my age group out of 66 athletes - I think on cloud nine would probably sum it up! I'm now looking forward to a couple of days or R&R in Honolulu before heading back to the cold of NZ!

I can't thank everyone enough for all the support over the last 6 months - I feel so lucky to have you all around me! I will post some piccies from race day when I get back to NZ!

Mahola from the Big Island :-)

Result

Hi Guys - quick post to let you know my result -
11:02 Finish = 1:17 Swim, 5:44 Bike, 3:52 Run - 24th Age Group
2nd female kiwi age grouper over the line across all age groups!
Will post a race report tomorrow!

It's Kona Time!

Well guys it's finally here - it's Kona time! I have just got back from racking my bike, handing in my transition bags and navigating the transition area! The transition area is HUGE! Every athlete is allocated a peg to hang their cycle gear bag and another peg at the opposite end of transition to hang their run bag - all peg racks are mirror images but I can't help but think that isn't going to help me much tomorrow :-) Thankfully my transition escort today assured me there would be people making sure that you got to your gear and your bike as quickly as possible! Phew!

The race week preparations have been a little hive of activity! I went down to register on Tuesday morning which was a very long process and involved a total of 7 check points to navigate through!! The most time consuming check point was the 'paperwork' area where I had to pretty much had to agree to sign my life away and take full responsibility for anything potentially bad that might happen to me on race day! I was surprised they didn't photograph and fingerprint me!!! I weighed in on the scales in the medical checkpoint a little high but have since spoken to lots of other athletes who said the scales had put them between 1-3kgs heavier - nothing like a pair of dodgy scales to send your mind into a tail spin!

After registration there was a team NZ meeting! We got a little 'pep' talk from Cameron Brown - although the first part of the talk left all of us with our jaws falling to the floor.......he opened the pep talk with statements such as 'this is the hardest thing you will ever do' 'Ironman New Zealand is a breeze in comparison' 'you will hit many walls of wind and feel like you are going nowhere' 'the heat will get up above 40 degrees' 'the hardest part of the marathon is the energy lab which is the final 13km of the course' and so it went on!!!! Once he had all those statements off his chest he did however give us all some really good course tips about positioning for the swim start, wind reading on the bike course and mental strategy for the run! He also gave some good pointers for support crews in terms of good places to be out on the course! Gina Ferguson also gave a little talk too and pre-warned us all that our special needs run bags are not handed out at the midway point of the marathon but two thirds into it - extra energy gels in my fuel belt have now been added!!

The race briefing was 8pm last night - quite late in the day but it only took half an hour - ironman NZ could take note of that one as it usually drags on for over an hour!

My tonsillitis has gone - yay - however my right foot has decided to pack a bit of a sad for some unknown reason! It decided to swell to double the size of the other and seemed to take offence to any weight being put through it!! Frantic email sent to super sports physio Deno who sent a big email back full of useful advice to try and get it right before race day! So here's hoping I can conquer the swelling foot demons with the buckets of ice I'm plonking onto it!

Otherwise feeling good and ready to give it what I've got! Swollen foot or not I'm determined to finish the journey I started 7 months ago!

You can follow the race live on the Internet - http://www.ironman.com/ and my race number is 1666 for the athlete tracker! I'm hoping to be in a coherent enough state at the end of the day to post a blog results!

Thanks for all your good luck texts, emails and support! Rock On Kona - go hard or go home!

L xxx

Hang Loose

Well it's been a funny old week in Konaville! My week got off to a bit of a slow start training wise which I put down to my epic cycle up to the top of the course! I was able to complete all the sessions at the correct pace and intensity but I was finding it hard to get out of bed despite lots of early nights! Thursday rocked around and I had my hard interval bike session which I have been doing on my windtrainer in the exercise room of the condo complex. Half way into the session I was really struggling to hit the power targets that I have previously managed to hit and 10 minutes from the end I decided to give it up as a bad job and retreat to the condo - I had tortured myself enough for one day! A frantic meltdown email was sent to Tony who then adjusted the volume of my training for the end of week and who thought that perhaps the heat load on my body was starting to take it's toll a little - now comes the best part - I was instructed to crank the air con up in the condo on my day off from training on Sunday and chill out - in the literal sense! Whoop Whoop!

With a day in the air con in sight Friday and Saturday felt a little more do-able! We had a hire car on Friday so I was dropped at Waikola Beach Road so that I could do the top part of the course! So whilst Hannah and Tania managed to blag there way into the Hilton complex at Waikola and enjoy the super sized pool complete with waterfall I took on the Island headwinds once again! By chance I happened to take on the winds on their worst recorded day in the last 4 months! Gusts across the course were recorded at 60mph - those were the ones that quite literally blew my bike across a traffic lane and then blew me back to the edge of the coast line. Three miles out of Hawi as I was hanging on with all my might to keep both myself and my bike on the ground I passed a group of cyclists on the opposite side of the road - 2 minutes later I had a guy who introduced himself as Rob was at my side - he instructed me to 'turn around' and join the group! He told me it wasn't safe cycling and I needed to be in a group in case anything bad 'happened' - I wondered if it could really get any worse but so scared by his last statement I made an about turn and joined the back of the group! There I got stuck alongside Martha - an American girl who was quite literally sobbing into her handle bars and proclaiming that she was going to be blown off the cliff to which Rob replied 'Martha shut up - Laura weighs 20 pounds less than you do so if anyone is going over it's her!'.........gulp! Needless to say I made it back to my pick up point in one piece and waved goodbye to Martha, Rob and Co! Very relieved to see Tania, Hannah and Colin the hire car making their way towards me.....chilled diet coke at the ready :-)

Today I woke up with a sore throat and banging headache - so despite being in the warmer climate of Hawaii I have still managed to pick up my usual race week bout of tonsillitis!! I'm still baffled as to why without fail before a big event I score a bout of tonsillitis on my taper but on the up side it explains the nuclear meltdown on Thursday! Usually it only lasts a couple of days so I am confident I will be in tip top shape again by Saturday - I know that I can relax with the knowledge that the work is done now - so it's time to 'Hang Loose' as they say here!

Next week will be busy with the race week preparations! Registration is on Tuesday followed by the Team New Zealand meeting and then the parade of nations in the afternoon. Thursday is race briefing and Friday bike and transition gear check in which will mean a couple of days preparation getting everything sorted for Friday - you don't want to forget to put anything in those!! I kicked off the race week preps with a bike wash/shower - videos attached :-)

The support crew preparations are currently in full swing! Hannah and Tania are currently making posters on the living room floor with the usual catchy slogans - 'Harden Up Iron Princess' and 'My Nana Can Run Faster Than That' to name just a couple!

Right time for some more chilling in the air con............

Well today I have been in Kona 2 weeks! Hard to believe that the time has passed so quickly! Hannah arrived a week ago and Tania 5 days ago so we are now 3 and it feels good to have my friends around me!

Unfortunately our plans to hire a car here for 2 weeks fell flat on there face within an hour of Hannah stepping off the plane! We went to pick up the car from the rental place and discovered that the price we had 'paid' was subject to some additional local charges..... which totalled over $1000 US dollars!! Needless to say we decided that was a little over our budget and cancelled the car hire! Instead we found a local car hire company in town and rented a car for a weekend so that we could use it as a support vehicle for my epic cycle to the top of the Ironman course on Saturday and then use it to explore the Volcano National Park on Sunday. We have booked in another rental period for 24 hours at the end of the week so I can be dropped at the top of the cycle course for my final 'long ride' before race day. Not having a car during race week will make it a little harder to get to all the places I need to be like the bike shop for a pre-race service, event registration, the parade of nations, the athlete briefing and the all important race start but hopefully we will all figure out the best plan of attack to get me to each of those!

So Saturday was the big training event of the week for me - getting to the top of the cycle course and the big crew event of the week for Tania and Hannah who were manning the support vehicle (attached pic of Tania at a check point!). Friday evening was spent planning the various check points along the route, working out what I needed to be handed at each and also featured a quick lesson in making up my electrolyte drinks! I set off just after 7am and the first check point was scheduled for 0830! I picked a great day to cycle - the heat intensity was high and the Island winds were the strongest I had seen so I got a real taste of the legendary Ho'omumuku headwinds which blast at you from just north of the airport (10 miles out of Kona) all the way to the turn around at Hawi (mile 55) - I have to say that there were a few moments of despair as at times I felt like I was making little if any progress in a forwards direction (I have attached a video Hannah made on the side of the Queen K highway so you can hear the winds)! Just 10 miles out from Hawi I cycled into a belt of lashing rain - Hawi is situated at the very Northern tip of the Big Island and I have since learnt has a more tropical rainy climate - so I arrived at the turn around soaking wet and was greeted by an equally wet support crew! I didn't stay wet for long - 10 miles out of Hawi I hit the familiar intense heat and was blown dry in no more than 2 minutes! The top of the cycle course brings you right to the edge of the coastline and features much steeper sharper ascents so it felt good to finally see what I would be up against on race day! I certainly couldn't have made it up there without my support crew keeping me in a constant supply of electrolyte drinks and water! I managed to drink my way through just over 9 litres of water and arrived back at the condo only one kg lighter which I was really impressed with! I ran 40 minutes off the bike and felt good so all in all the day was a big confidence booster..... I had made it to the top and survived the heat and the winds! Below is a map and course profile for the cycle course.

Yesterday I got really excited because I spotted that the second part of the swim course had been marked with a couple of orange buoys! Today I had planned to swim the entire course however all the beaches and local water access points have been closed because the swells and currents are dangerously high following the Tsunami in Samoa and the Big Island is now on full scale alert for a Tsunami hit - some of the locals say the water should be open again by tomorrow so hopefully the buoys won't have been swept away!

This week sees a dip in the volume and intensity of my training so I feel that the taper has finally begun towards race day. I still have between 2 and 3 sessions a day but they are mostly shorter in length and at a much lower intensity. I am maximising my rest periods and taking advantage of a few more sleep ins! I finished my race plan this morning so have sent that to Tony this morning for feedback and comments!

Generally I am feeling good and looking forward to the excitement of race week Hawaii style! The rest of my crew arrive next week so it will be great to see Kathryn, Noo, Elaine, Mags and Kati! We have recruited a couple of locals to the kiwi support crew and hope to get as many Americans holding kiwi flags out on the course as possible :-)

That's it for now! xx

Kona Learning Curve

Well today I have successfully completed the first 5 days of training here in Kona and I have certainly learned heaps! The biggest challenge has been getting my fluids right for the longer sessions and picking the best times of the day to train depending on the nature of the session - I definitely won't be running intervals in the heat of the day anytime soon again!


Today I managed to get it right on my longest session yet which was a 6 hour cycle out on the course. As Hannah (and my support vehicle!!!) doesn't arrive until Tuesday I had to break the cycle into 3 hour loops that started and finished at my condo so that I could replace my drink bottles and replenish my food stash! It was really windy today so I got a taste of the Island winds in full force which I would safely say were some of the strongest I have encountered! I fully enjoyed every second of it though and finished feeling well hydrated and in good condition! I am now itching to get to the top of the course - I saw plenty of cyclists with their support vehicles making there way up to the top and I have to admit to a few pangs of jealousy as I had to turn around at mile 25 to get back to the condo to stock up my fluids! I know that Tuesday isn't long to wait for Hannah to arrive and I have a big cycling week ahead which will provide lots of oppertunity to get up there......hopefully that is if Hannah is willing :-)

My heart rate is starting to come down to the upper end of normal during my training sessions so that is a sign that I am adapting to heat. The black lava fields on both the run and cycle course make the heat quite intense (I have attached a piccie of said lava fields!) and the wind hot! It's a bit like when you open the oven and get that blast of warm air in your face - someone likened it to cycling in a furnace although I'm not sure that must be a hypothetical comparison!!

It has been really nice to do some open water swimming - on my first swim out on the course I came across a large pod of dolphins and I really couldn't resist the urge to suspend my training session (like everyone else out there) for 20 minutes and have a play! Amazing experience and so far I haven't come across another pod so I think I really struck gold that day! Also on the swim front I received my blue seventy swim skin in the post (yay yay yay) which as many of you know has been a bit of a mission for me to find in New Zealand because they had all been sent overseas for the Northern Hemispheres summer season! Blue seventy in New Zealand arranged to have one couriered from a store in the US to my conodo in Kona and timed it to arrive the day after I arrived - now that's what I call amazing service! So I now have my swim skin of choice (blue seventy pointzero3) which came in a box that said on the front 'you are now holding the fastest swim skin ever made' - I feel there may be some key words for the swim on race day in there somewhere!

Still not yet able to communicate with the outside world by cell phone yet! I need a tri band phone to pick up a signal so the lovely Hannah is bringing out a spare tri band phone for me this week which will mean I will be back up and running on the cell phone super highway...I hope!

I am making good progress at eating my way through the stack of nutrition I brought out with me! I have had to limit my porridge consumption to just two bowls a day as my Uncle Toby's oats are running a bit low as are my low carb protein bars. I will try to resist the urge to go crazy on the bars and porridge when the rest of the supply arrive on Tuesday!

OK - I thought that I would finish up with 10 "interesting" things I have learned thus far in Kona.......

1. You will never need to bring something warm to wear in the evenings - it really doesn't cool down.

2. There are 73 TV channels here and I still can't find anything to watch

3. Boys on flashy bikes with deep dish wheels have a lot to say for themselves when powering past you on the downhills but are strangely quiet when you pass them on the uphills

4. All downhills are an optical illusion - you still need to pedal like crazy to move forward

5. Never wear anything black - you will melt

6. Suncream is not conducive to 90% humidity- just when you think you have rubbed it in it resurfaces quietly and makes you look like a streaky white zebra

7. The more sun tanned you are the faster you go

8. If you want the experience of swimming in a washing machine - hit the swim course after 11am - that's when the swell 'gets up'

9. Salt tablets melt in extreme heat

10. Dolphins are very big up close

Right - time to cook some dinner and make a plan for tomorrow!

Aloha Kona!

Well aloha Kona! Hard to believe that I am actually here, sat in my condo on the infamous Alii Drive! My last week in New Zealand now seems a distant memory although my physical limits were pushed to new levels of intensity and agony with a big training volume, hard sessions and a weekend that featured the 90km cycle time trial on Saturday followed by 3 hours of run fun up the concrete monster on Sunday! A year ago I would not have thought that combination possible and as I fired my cycle wind trainer and legs back into action at 0600 on Monday morning I really began to wonder what it would take for my legs to simply stop working altogether! I am constantly amazed at the moment by my bodies ability to bounce back and to keep pushing the sessions out. Although my sessions on Monday and my squad swim on Tuesday morning were a little below par in terms of energy levels and stamina I have arrived into Kona feeling pretty fresh and I'm now ready to get stuck into the last couple of weeks of training.

Getting here once past check in was pretty straight forward! I copped a $120 luggage charge in Auckland - not because I was over my weight limit but because I had packed my bike into one box, my wind trainer plus nutriton into another and then had a suitcase too! Apparently 3 items of checked luggage are a big No No but if I had called Air New Zealand before I flew they would have waivered the charge - really didn't quite understand the logic as to why they couldn't waiver it at check in but hey ho I needed everything in all the boxes so the only option was to pay up! I have to admit to something resembling a large scale nuclear meltdown after that but thankfully Hannah was on hand to calm me down, mop up the tears, feed me diet coke and safely deposit me to the security check point!

I arrived into Honolulu at 11pm last night so grabbed an airport hotel for the night and then headed back out to the airport this morning to catch a domestic flight across to the 'Big Island'. I arrived at midday into 34 degrees and 90% humidity and navigated my way to a taxi that delivered me to the complex of condos I'm staying in - a little gated community off Alii Drive. I was making slow progress moving all my boxes from the front of the condo the back stairs when a friendly guy called Scott pulled up! He was a friend of the owner of my condo and knew who I was and that I was here to do the Ironman World Champs! He quickly moved all my boxes up the stairs for me and after several minutes of chit chat asked if I wanted a quick tour of the town and a drop off at the supermarket! I knew that not having a car was going to make getting groceries difficult as taxis mostly just operate to and from the airport and I figured that a bit of local knowledge would be useful so within 5 minutes of arriving at my condo I was out the door and in a massive jeep heading into the town with a man called Scott! The quick tour ended up being one of the most comprehensive tours of a town I have ever been on in my life and featured a lot of Ironman course information! I then got dropped off at the supermarket and picked up 45 minutes later and deposited back to my condo! So within 2 hours of arriving I had a weeks worth of groceries and all the information I needed to kick start my training! Go Scott!

I assembled my bike this afternoon and then headed out for a quick run to get my muscles moving prior to the start of my Kona programme tomorrow!! The start of the week has been very low on volume as Monday was dedicated to packing and Tuesday to flying and getting settled in! Tomorrow I've got a swim in the sea, a wind trainer cycle session and a run.....the best thing of all however is that I don't have to get up at 0430 to fit it all in - I've got the whole day!

So yes it's hot, yes it's humid and yes it's pretty windy........bring it on Kona!

90km Cycle Time Trial

Today I had my 90km cycle time trial and I've attached my pretty power graph - time trial starts just after square 1 following a bit of a warm up! Again the time trial was on the cateye trainers so it was a test of pure strength, power and speed! I was the only one in my squad down for 90km so I knew that it was important to stay focused on my own speed, distance and power goals and not get distracted by the number of people around me stopping after 60km!


I had got through my last 90km time trial on a cateye trainer in 2 hours 24 minutes so I was looking to improve on this and set my sights on a finish somewhere between 2:18 and 2:20. I was also pretty determined to get to the 40km mark quicker than the recorded time for my last 40km time trial when my brake had been locked on the wheel - I knew that was a bit of a dangerous tactic as I could quite easily blow up and not make the next 50km but deep down I knew that I was faster and stronger than an hour flat 40km and was confident I could hold the pace through the remaining 50km.

I approached today like I would a race, eating a hearty pre race meal of porridge and protein powder at the crack of dawn! I packed up my bento box with race nutrition and intended to eat like I would during my Ironman bike - 20 minute intervals alternating between GU energy gels and 1/4 pieces of protein bar. By 7.15am I was set up on my bike ready to go and I got the signal from Tony to start.

I decided to break the time trial down into 10km segements so that it was mentally easier to deal with! Probably one of the biggest challenges doing a long cycle time trial on a trainer is mental endurance rather than the physical side of things. It is hard work to keep pushing yourself at a maximum effort for so long when you are stationary in a room rather than out on the road racing against other athletes that you can use to pick and pass.

I started hard at a speed of 40-41km/hr and opted to begin with a higher pedal cadence and then move into bigger gears as the time trial progressed as I'm much more comfortable grinding it out at a lower pedal cadence in a big gear - I felt that when the fatigue began to hit I would be able to lower my pedal cadence and achieve the same speed for less percieved effort!

I hit the 40km mark in just under 57 minutes which gave me a much needed mental boost - a small wave of panic did wash over me when the reality of another 50km at the same effort sank in but I focused on the 10km blocks and hitting them in 15 minute increments. The hardest 10km block came at 70km when I felt so close but yet so far to finishing. Once I hit 80km however I knew that I was on the home straight and it was simply a case of pushing on at a consistent effort.

I managed to keep it together and average a speed of 41km/hr which got me a 2hour 12minute and 51second finish for the effort! Not only had I managed to pace myself consistently for the 90km but I had managed to knock 12 minutes off my previous personal best effort over that distance - all in all I was one happy camper!!

I got all of about 2 minutes to celebrate my achievement then it was a quick transition into my running shoes and into a 40 minute run - 10 minutes of easy followed by a 20 minute hard effort and then a 10 minute easy. I was unsure exactly how my legs were going to perform given the fact they had never cycled that hard for that long in their life before but I was pleasantly surprised to feel them fire into action after 5 minutes of easy running and cope with the increase in pace midway through the run.

Tomorrow it's time to do my last battle with concrete monster before getting on the plane to Hawaii so I'm seriously hoping that my legs recover enough to push out a solid 3 hour run tomorrow! Compression tights on and an early bed tonight!

What Not to Wear!

Well I'm sat here after successfully swimming, cycling and running my way through just over 200km today - pretty big day at the office all round! I had been psyching myself up for my 'Big Sunday' since the middle of the week so when my alarm rang out this morning I was ready and focused for the day ahead. After a solid swim down at my local pool I layered up with a couple of thermal polyprops and headed out on my bike to the Eastern hills of Miranda. I pushed out a 6 hour ride broken only by a puncture just before the halfway mark and had a decent paced run off the bike firing up to full speed within a couple of kms! So delirious with my accomplishment for the day I happily posed for the attached picture on my return home only to realise now that I could have done with running the GHD's through the curls first!

It feels good to have finished a solid week with a successful day and to have again got through every session with ticks in all the boxes - all in all training hours this week tipped the scales at 23. Aside from my Super Sunday my other key sessions for the week were a hard bike interval session tagged with the simple instruction from Tony to time trial each effort - nice! I had another key long swim session of 5km and my key run session was short and sharp -descending 800m track reps.

I have just got my programme through for my next block of training - the end of which is race week......eeeekk! Next week is a big run week which can only mean one thing - concrete monster time!!! It also features a 90km cycle time trial on Saturday so I will be looking to break my previous PB of 2hour 24min at that. The time trial will be a good oppertunity to practice race nutrition and also pacing - hopefully simulating an ascending effort and negative split for the second 45km.

Having spent most of the previous week sourcing nutrition for my month in Hawaii this week I focused on race wear! I have deliberately held off on getting this until now as I wanted to be as close to race weight as possible to ensure the best possible fit! I have recieved so much advice over the last few weeks on what not to wear on race day that I was finding it difficult to make any kind of decision on clothing for any part of the day!! Due to the extreme temperatures and humidity in Kona what you wear I have been told can make or break you....dark colours are deemed an absolute No No, tight lycra on the run viewed as risky and the balance between exposed skin versus unexposed skin crucial in balancing sunburn prevention with over heating!! I need to find a swim skin that had been approved by the American Triathlon Federation (USAT) in light of all the controversy surrounding them in recent months and also think about a complete change of clothes from run to bike - I usually race an Ironman in a two piece tri suit and chuck a pair of cycle shorts over the top for the bike so the thought of actually having to get naked in the changing tents is more unnerving at the moment than the thought of taking my place on the start line!! Needless to say this week has mostly comprised of me buying random white stuff that I'm hoping will eventually come together to form the perfect race ensemble! Current plan is to take as many options as I can with me and then spend a couple of weeks trying different combinations until I find what works!!

So it's only 8 days until I get on the plane to Hawaii and I have just 3 days at work left before my leave officially starts! Hard to believe that this time next week I will be 2 sleeps away from starting my 4 week build up to race day in Hawaii!! Aloha!

Bye for now!

I'll get by with a little help from my friends!

Well it's fair to say that the killer week on paper certainly translated to a killer week in practice! There has been an abundance of long sessions that have been hard to fit around even the most basic functions of working, eating and sleeping! Logistically the week has required some thinking outside the square and getting to end of it with a tick in every box is definitely thanks to friends helping with gear drops, lifts home and providing the all important moral support to foster the self belief required just to get through it!



The week kicked off early doors on Monday morning with a 3hour 30 minute run before work. I opted to run up through the waitaks and then loop back down to finish at work (first gear drop and lift home for the week - thanks Hannah and Elaine!). I quickly realised that wasn't the smartest of moves to head out up through the waitaks at 4.45am - the absence of street lighting and uneven ground made for an interesting start so I was relieved when the sun began to rise! To add to the fun of running in the dark was my musical mix for the run - I had 'misplaced' my ipod the night before so Hannah came to the rescue with the loan of her ipod shuffle - my usual run mix comprises of techno beats and motivational tunes so it was a very different experience to run to the dulcid tones of Lionel Richie, Shania Twain and Blue!! I have to admit to hitting the fast forward button on a few occasions but the highlight for sure was 'once, twice, three times a lady' kicking in at the base of scenic drive!



Starting my week with a long run meant that my legs felt pretty jaded from the get go! It's hard when you start a week with a monster session not to let it affect your mind set and approach to subsequent sessions. It is all too easy to use your hard start to the week as an excuse for 'taking it a bit steadier' or perhaps not quite hitting the correct level of intensity specified on your programme. I therefore made sure that I took my fair share of sets to lead at swim squad and that I hit the specified power zones in my cycle sessions and also opted into alot of group sessions where I would be forced to keep pace with a group.



My cycling power targets this week where set in the very hard zone which left me pretty wiped out after my hard interval session on Tuesday night and a similar zoned cycle as part of Saturday tri squad training - managed to hit an all time high of 440 watts in the sprint sets. My long cycle this morning was the key cycle session for the week so I arranged to meet up and ride with Sacha who is training for the ITU long distance worlds at the end of October. The plan was to be on our bikes out East in Maratai 'ready to ride' at 0730....... the weather however had different ideas! As we made our way out to the meeting point there were a few frantic texts as we both hit the motorway and a wall of torrential rain and wind. There was a sharp turn around and rapid relocation to my living room where we set up our indoor cycle trainers side by side - not quite what we had envisaged for the day but yet again the winter weather won out! Between the two of us we devised what I can only describe now as a very sick and twisted pyramid effort session with zoned power targets which managed to halt our chit chat about 17 minutes into it - after several hours of torture we hopped off our bikes and backed up the cycle with a hill run in the driving rain - all in all a solid day - thanks Sacha!



My other solid session this week was a swim test set of 40 x 100m on descending interval send offs! I opted to do this in the 50m Olympic pool to limit the push off assistance I would get from frequent turns - regretted that decision at around rep 30 when I would have taken all the assistance I could get :-) Managed to hit the send offs and get done before the pool got busy with breast strokers! Yay!



So with just 2 weeks to go until I leave for Kona I am frantically making many lists full of everything and anything that falls out of my head at any given moment! My main focus this week has been stock piling all the nutriton I will need for the month I am out there and also on race day! I bascially need to take with me a months supply of all the protien bars, energy bars, energy gels, electrolyte powders, protein powders, recovery formulas, thermogenic formulas and supplements that I usually race and train on. It's important that I take these with me as my body is use to the products I use and trying something new in the month before the race and on race day is really not recommended! To give you an idea of how much nutrition I will need I've attached a picture of the supplies I sourced this week - this is half of what I will need!!



Righto! Once again the bed beckons so that I'm recharged for tomorrow morning and the start of a new week............

7 Week Count Down!

Well it's hard to believe that 3 weeks have passed since my last post and that I am now 7 weeks away from race day and just 3 weeks away from jetting off to Hawaii. Given the timeframe it was no surprise when heat acclimatisation training appeared on my programme - the aim of this is to increase my core body temperature by 1 degree during selected sessions.



As it is quite hard to do this in the pool the focus between now and when I leave will be during cycle and run sessions. Having had to do this before World Champs in Holland last year I have a fair idea of how many extra layers I need to wear during different sessions to achieve the increase in core temperature as this is dependent on the type, length and location of the session and also the time of the day. Indoor cycle sessions are easiest to target to achieve this increase with a couple of thermal polyprop tops and a beanie! Last year I discovered that the spare bedroom was a perfect area to heat acclimatise in - relatively small with long thermal curtains it doesn't take long for it to get steamy in there! Hannah managed to take a sneaky picture of my first heat acclimatisation session on my indoor cycle trainer (attached).


I've had a few key sessions thrown into the last 3 weeks - a 2 hour cycle time trial, 2 swim time trials and another more extended visit up the concrete monster.


The 2 hour cycle time trial was an outdoor course and I managed to get through this without any technical hitches i.e. no brake locked on my back wheel! It was a windy day so my power output was higher than I would have liked and it was also pretty lonely out on the course once the one hour mark was reached. There were 2 options for the time trial - 1 and 2 hours - and we all got set off together, although on the line up there were a fair few riders numbered for the 2 hour time trial many of them succumbed to the conditions and pulled out after an hour. This made it difficult to pace and led to a few rather 'dark' moments at the hour mark when riders numbered for the 2 hours who I had paced myself against at a pretty solid effort pulled out - bit of a sinking feeling when you realise that you are on your own for the next hour!

My visit up the concrete monster in this block was slightly extended as I had to do an extra loop at the top to get extra kilometres into my legs. I pushed out a solid 3 hour run on the course and was pleased to feel that my legs recovered quickly to push out a solid session the following day. I imagine that there will be one more visit to the monster before I leave :-)

Well my bed is calling me as the alarm clock is set for 0430 ready to take on what looks like on paper a killer week! Apologies for the silence over the last 3 weeks - I promise weekly updates for here on in!!

Cheerio!

Farewell to the easy week - sniff!

This week has been the easy week in my block with just 15 hours of training to push out. Although the sessions have been at an easier intensity and shorter in length there is a strange phenomenon associated with an easy week - sometimes it feels incerdibly hard! Perhaps it's the extra couple of hours sleep per night or the luxury of being able to be more selective about what days to put each session on but it can become a bit of a mental battle to get through the shortest and simplest of sessions!

I have got myself to the gym three times this week and focused my efforts on lower body weights and core strength - a good week to do this as the running volume has been low. I have been pushed a little more on the swim front this week with Tony moving me up 2 swim lanes on Saturday to swim with the faster fishes! I quickly realised that the swim session was going to be a lesson about pure survival - hanging on to the back of the lane to achieve faster send off times per set with shorter rest periods - pushing myself in this way should make me stronger from an endurance point of view for the swim at Kona.

I'm now gearing myself up for what will be the key big solid weeks of my build up. I learnt on Saturday that there will be no more easy weeks like this one between now and Kona - the easy week per block will be replaced with a steady week instead!

Next week is solid hard week with an Auckland based training camp at the weekend which features a long swim, bike, run session on Saturday and then two races on Sunday - the Auckland City Tri Club standard distance Duathlon (10km run, 40km cycle, 5km run) followed by a 2 hour cycle time trial on a V8 super car race track (hopefully without a V8 super car in sight!!).

Just about to set the alarm clock for 0340 Monday morning - bring on the hard weeks and farewell to the last of the easy weeks!

3.30am is the new 4.15am!

The last week has been the hardest week of training that has appeared so far in my build up to Kona. Tipping the scales at just over the 25 hour mark it has not only been big in terms of volume but also intensity. My physical limits were pushed from the get go having finished the previous week of solid training with the concrete monster Waitakere run on Sunday I had to fire my running legs back into action at 4.30am the next morning – a pure battle of will power!

My cycling power output ranges have increased this week and my run interval target times have also been tightened up which have made my key bike and run sessions much harder. I hit a bit of a low mid week with a cold but continued to be able to get through the sessions thanks to the equivalent of pharmacy worth of drugs and cold relief potions!

I have managed to somehow fit 3 sessions into a day around my working week which has seen my alarm clock sound out for the first time well before the stroke of 4am – previously unseen territory but I have a feeling that it will soon become much more familiar over the next 6 weeks as I continue to juggle work around my training schedule between now and my departure for Kona.

I am now on a weekly weigh in schedule with my nutritionist to ensure that I don’t lose any muscle mass over the next 11 weeks as my training volume increases further. I am now lighter and leaner than I have ever raced at before having lost a total of 6kgs since April. The goal between now and Kona is to gain muscle mass and keep my body fat percentage sitting between 10-11%. The last 3 weeks have seen a slight drop in my muscle mass setting the alarm bells ringing that my fuel system has elected to burn muscle for energy rather than fat. This is the body’s natural response to hold onto fat if it feels under the threat of starvation. To correct this imbalance my nutritionist increased my calories to well over 4000 per day and gave me a target daily protein consumption of 150grams. Unfortunately this didn’t mean I could go out and consume the equivalent of my body weight in carrot cake….I still need to stick to a strict high protein, low fat and minimal carbohydrate diet ratio. Yesterday at my weigh in I had managed to lose 700grams of fat but gain 500grams of muscle mass in a week so I have managed to successfully kick my body out of a muscle eating state and gain some more muscle mass which will help with strength and injury prevention. The 700gram fat loss equated to a deficit of 800 calories daily last week, hard to believe when I’ve spent almost every waking hour of the day consuming some kind of high protein food!

Next week is my easy week of training, I roughly get one of these about every 5-6 weeks so I am really looking forward to more sleep and having a few more hours in the day to catch up with friends and life!

40km Cycle Time Trial

Saturday 25th July 2009

40km Time Trial - Squad Session

Power File Attached :-)

Today was a 40km cycle time trial and my key test set for the week. The time trial was part of a squad training session and set up on indoor cycle trainers. The indoor cycle trainer time trials are pretty brutal. The trainer effectively removes the effects of outdoor elements and is a test of pure strength, speed and power. You have no idea how fast anyone else is going so the focus is solely on you and the speedo.

I decided to time trial on my race bike so I needed to change my back wheel over so that I had power data available to me. The powermeter on my training wheel provides information on speed, power, cadence and heart rate so that I recieve constant feedback on effort and cycling efficiency. I had a clear idea in my own mind what I wanted to achieve today in terms of speed, time and power output. I was a little unsettled by a sore throat and cold that I had picked up midweek but I woke up feeling considerably better than I had in days.

After a 10 minute warm up we got the signal from Tony to start and a room full of cycle trainers whirred into action. During the warm up my legs felt sluggish but I put this down to my over sensitivity to the task ahead. However, as I attempted to gradually build my speed up to a target average of 42-44km/hr I couldn't get past 35-36km/hr. My power output and heart rate were off the scale and my legs didn't seem able to rise to the challenge.

I played around with my gearing for a few more kms attempting to find a gear that felt more comfortable but no gear seemed to relieve the load on my legs. I began to run through all the possible reasons for my poor performance wondering if I had under estimated the effect of my cold on my body or if the early drop in my body fat to race weight proportions so far out from Kona had resulted in a large loss of strength. I found it hard to believe that either of these factors could effect my performance so significantly but as the kms ticked by at a much slower than anticipated rate I became more and more engrossed in the reasons for my shortfall which must of course in my mind lay with myself. At the 13km mark I signalled to Tony that I was in trouble, my heart rate was not settling and my power output was far too high for the relatively low speed that I was pushing out.

Tony came across glanced at my speed and asked if I had actually started! He then noticed that my power output was off the scale and immediately moved to the rear of my bike. In one swift motion my speed leapt up to 44km/hr, my legs were spinning easily and my power settled within target range. Tony reappeared at the front of my bike and told me that it helped if my rear bake wasn't locked on the wheel......effectively for 13km of the time trial I had been cycling with my back brake on full lock. He then said 'that would mess with your head' and walked away! I immediately realised that when I had changed my rear wheel over I hadn't adjusted the brake to compensate for the deeper wheel rim.

The rest of the time trial progressed as planned with an average speed of 42km/hr. I was none too impressed with my own stupidity and although I came in at a respectable and solid 1hr flat I knew that I could have done much better and come in well under this. I felt that I made a good recovery given the energy sapping start but learnt a valuable lesson to look both outwards and inwards!

I've attached the power file for the time trial, the blue line represents my speed. After a little warm up (2 squares) you can see the time trial begin and the release of my brake in square 7 when the blue line jumps noticeably!!

The Concrete Monster - Squad Run

Sunday 19th July 2009
Waitakere Ranges, Auckland – Squad Run 30km Run
Legend of Arthur Lydiard Training Route

Route profile attached :-)

The Legend is one of the great training routes of Arthur Lydiard – used to train his elite prodigies such as Peter Snell and Sir Murray Halberg. It is ‘fondly’ referred to amongst our squad as the concrete monster and gets most of us shaking in our trainers when it appears in a training block. It is a gruelling route but one that is equally inspiring as you imagine the journey of some of New Zealand’s elite runners that have gone before you.

We normally run this as a squad a couple of times before New Zealand Ironman and it doesn’t usually feature in our winter training blocks. However, as there are a number of athletes in the squad going to the long distance World Champs and me going to Kona Tony has decided that we should be running this route together at least once every 3-4 weeks – great idea coach! So my main focus was to firstly survive my first winter squad visit to the concrete monster and secondly to set a baseline for the next couple of monster dates.

We set off from Titirangi and the conditions were much better than we anticipated- the odd bit of drizzle and a cool breeze but not the forecasted heavy rainfalls – hooray! Immediately the pace was set at the front by Kelly who tore off into the distance. I decided to keep pace with Tony who was giving chase, aiming to try and get to the base of the concrete monster with him or at least with him in sight. An hour into the run we managed to catch Kelly and we ran as a 3 to the base of the climb – from that point on it was each man for himself.

Tony powered up the hill and I managed to stay with him for half the ascent – beyond that he gradually started to increase the effort and I decided it was time to run it at my own pace to ensure that I made it to the top. Once settled in my own stride I began to relax in the calm and tranquillity of the ranges - there is something about the concrete monster that allows you to empty your mind of life’s clutter and leave it there - offering you a rare moment of perfect clarity. Usually this comes as you emerge at the top and is greeted by a truly magnificent view.

My descent was relatively fast paced and despite a few gnarly hills I made it home in 2 hours 17 minutes, greeted by a few expletives from my coach who declared that it was me who ‘put the acid on’ at the start! I on the other hand maintain it was him!

So all in all a very good result and tough baseline to beat! Today my moment of clarity affirmed that no matter how hard the path to Kona is there is no other place right now that I would rather be.

Race Report - Run Auckland 10km

Sunday 12th July
Takapuna, Auckland – 10km Run Auckland Race
1st Age Group, 3rd Overall female

And so I find myself again lining up at the start of a race out of my comfort zone for a hard hit out. My coach is keen to mix up my training a little in the build up to Kona, throwing in the odd short sharp nasty to give my muscles a solid blast.

My entire sporting background before triathlon is running, yet as I’m stood on the start line I feel like an alien in unfamiliar territory. It feels strange to be stood on a start line in running shorts rather than a wetsuit, to be surrounded by runners talking split times and goal finish times. It is freezing cold and the wind is howling so I attempt to bury myself in the middle of the start line trying to steal some warmth! I spot a few fellow triathletes from squad and feel relieved to know that I’m not on my own!

The gun goes and we are off. I have seen one of the Olympic Distance triathletes from squad on the start line so I decide to try and keep pace with her initially. As we scramble up the embankment from the beach onto the road I tuck myself in on her shoulder and begin to wonder how long it will be before she drops me. We are less than 2kms in to the race and my legs are feeling surprisingly good, if not a little frustrated with the pace. I’m cautious that it is still early days but I decide to pass my pacer who gives me a curious glance as I power past.

I spot another squaddie, Deno, ahead and decide to try and close the gap between us. My legs seem to be relishing the pace and effort so I decide to carry on past Deno and to try and hold the pace for as long as I can. At the 7km mark we hit the beach and spend the next km running along the sand – my brain had skimmed over this detail when reviewing the route the night before so it is a little shock to both the brain and the body.

Once off the beach it is up a hill - only to run back down it and to find myself on the beach once again for the final km of the race! By now my legs have got the wobbles and have suddenly gone from relishing the fast paced challenge to screaming for mercy. Deno whizzes past me and I attempt to stay on his shoulder but his legs make short work of the sand and I drop off the back. The finish line is in sight so I put my head down and ignore the screaming muscles – instead focusing on the pink top of the girl just in front of me!

As I cross the finish I get a round of applause and learn that the owner of the pink top had just finished 2nd which put me as the third overall female and first in my age group. No time to hang around for prize giving though – it was straight home to start my long ride!

Race Report - Cairns Olympic Distance Triathlon

Sunday 21st June 2009
Cairns, Australia – Olympic Distance Triathlon
1.5km Swim, 40km Cycle, 10km Run
2nd Age Group, 5th Overall Female

The majority of you will know that lining up on the start line of an Olympic Distance Triathlon is not somewhere that I would ordinarily find myself! I had stumbled across this event when I had contacted the Cairns Triathlon Club about doing some training whilst out there on a work conference. Not only did they say I could join in there squad sessions but that they would put my name down to compete in what would be the last race of the Australian age group Olympic Distance Race Series before the winter break!

As an endurance triathlete nothing fills me with more fear that the words Olympic Distance Triathlon! At well under half my usual distances this race to my body is a flat out sprint and requires the activation of the fast twitch muscle fibres buried deep in the layers of my endurance slow twitch fibres! It pushes me well and truly out of my comfort zone and into the icky world of sprinting! However, irrespective of the distance, the race would provide an opportunity to swim in the open water and also race a triathlon, which due to the New Zealand winter I would not have the opportunity to do again before Kona.

I arrived in Cairns two days before the race, leaving New Zealand in minus 1 temperatures and being greeted in Cairns by a sunny 27 degrees! Immediate thoughts were naturally that I was going to melt on race day!

Registration was a hive of activity and excitement. I quickly realised that this event was the Australians last opportunity to race Olympic Distance before the Age Group Olympic Distance World Championships in September – consequently the entire Olympic Distance Australian World championship team were lining up to register. Several deep breaths and a few frantic texts later I managed to regain my composure, set my gear up and get ready to race!

The race was due to kick off at 8am but there was a delay on the start line of around 30 minutes. The temperature was already up at 25 degrees so I was conscious that the greater the delay the hotter the day would get. Eventually we were allowed to enter the water and take our places.

The swim was the usual frenzy of kicks and punches as everyone headed for the first turning buoy. Visibility was poor as we were swimming in the Estuary inlet which was muddy and murky. As it was an unfamiliar course I was conscious of the fact I needed to hold a good line and stay on course. I managed to find a pack of similar paced swimmers so tucked myself into the group, opting to take the odd body blow and punch rather than risk losing a few minutes from straying off the course. We made good time and I exited the water with a mud beard and moustache!

The bike course was mostly flat and extremely windy. I knew that I would have a fair bit of ground to make up after the swim so set about grinding it out in the biggest gear I could push into the wind. The winds kept the temperature at a tolerable level however in the few sheltered spots on the course I felt like I was cycling in a furnace! I came off the bike 4th female overall but knew I was literally only seconds ahead of a couple of girls that I had passed in the final 5km of the course.

My transition was a little sloppy, partly from lack of practice over the winter but mostly from the relief and excitement of seeing two familiar faces cheering me on. This was my first glimpse of my support crew of 2, Nic and Michelle from work, who despite arriving late the night before had come down to cheer me on!

The heat hit me hard on the run and my endurance composition struggled to find fast running legs in the first few kms. I managed to hold on to my placing for the first loop of the run but as I headed back up the board walk I was passed by a female with a long floaty running stride that put me and my endurance legs firmly in my place! I managed to hold off any further passes and came home as 5th overall female and 2nd in my age group. Definitely pleased with that result but certainly no plans to switch to Olympic Distance racing any time soon!!

Great race, great support crew and a good solid hit out!