KONA Qualification

My road to KONA began on the 7th March 2009. I was on the start line of Ironman New Zealand awaiting the second blast of the cannon to signal the start of the age group race. I had spent many months preparing myself for this race, both physically and emotionally. My goal was to race the best Ironman that I could and win myself a Kona slot. I felt faster and fitter but probably more significantly I was mentally tougher. As the starting blast sounded across the lake I thought 'game on' as 1400 athletes punched, kicked and surged ahead.

I swam, cycled and ran my way to a 10 hour 48 minute finish, collecting a KONA slot at the roll down meeting the following day. Waiting to hear if I had a KONA slot felt like the longest day of my life! Now that I have it I'm out to prove I have earnt the right to own it!

I hope you enjoy following my progress over the next 12 weeks as prepare to line up on the start line alongside the best Ironman athletes in the world.

Thanks for your support, interest and encouragement!

Friday, October 9, 2009

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
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1 comments:

  1. Well done on the 11 hours time and finish place. We watched via the tracker and were p..d off that TV could not do a thing to show you off!! Terrenzo Bozzoni got a whole one line, and that was the Ironman coverage...thank god for Internet ironman.

    Your effort was awesome. The bike time was absolutely fabulous!!!! I am just so proud of you to finish let alone finish in a stylish time. Have to say we were worried when we read your run splits online - until we realised it was miles and not kilometres ha ha. Momentarily thought you were running at my pace and that would be a worry!!!

    Have a good sleep and celebration soon.
    Love Cherie
    PS. Mitch off oxygen 24 hours 7 days tonight. Sprinting to catch you!!!

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