Finally Taupo delivers the perfect conditions for race day, clear blue sky, a light breeze and nice and sunny for the run! I had a great build up and was excited to hit the start line.
Swim – 51:35
The morning was perfect and the warm glassy conditions of Lake Taupo invited some fast swim times, the pace was insane from the start, the lead group exploded away and I just missed the feet of Cam Brown and Courtney Ogden. I had some company for the outward leg, Gina Crawford and Keegan Williams staying on my feet till the turn buoys, the pace at this stage felt a bit too comfortable. I picked it up a bit on the way back and was happy to set my own pace and swim alone, exiting in 6th place and about 30sec up on the 3rd group with a personal best swim split by nearly 2 mins!
Bike – 5:01
Out onto the bike and the first 90km flew by, pacing with Keegan and Scott Defilipis, we pushed the tempo pretty hard and were making some inroad into the guys ahead. I think it flew by a little too quick tho, as my nutrition plan wasn’t keeping up! At around 120km my energy levels took a dive and my power output was feeling non-existent. I had gone way too far into calorie deficit to come right but managed to spin my way back to T2. I had lost over 10mins in the last 30kms to the guys I was comfortably riding with earlier.
Run – 3:18
What can I say about the run, starting a marathon in the heat of the day after 180km on the bike is hard enough… let alone after not eating enough and being severely dehydrated! I went out at my goal pace for the first few kms but it didn’t take long to realise that this was not going to last. My legs felt fine but the energy levels wouldn’t allow the pace to rise over 4:40/km.. So in the end that’s all I could hold and did just that. Was really happy with my run for the way I was feeling though and even managed to pick off a couple of the other Pro men and climb back up into the top 10.
Total time – 9:17 (10th place)
Overall I was pleased with my day, a personal best swim, solid for most of the bike and could have quite easily just pulled the pin on the run. But I stuck it out and chugged on to the finish. It’s my 10th Ironman finish in my 4 years of racing. The body is feeling pretty good, now its a couple of easy weeks before the build up for Ironman Cairns starts!
Check out some cool footage from out on the bike : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WppfpOBlxn8