Saddle up

It gets very tough to keep writing a blog on how yet another race did not go as planned! This has been my story for the past year or so now. Instead of dwelling on the race I’m going to go over the positives and why I’m keeping on going.
The trip to New Zealand was a big venture for Lindsay and I. Leaving home and our core group of people we work with was going to be a risk, but a risk we were very keen to take on. I wanted to see if I could put in the training required for Ironman and have my then buggered up knee able to handle the load. Lindsay, she just needed some good old R&R for personal reasons.

Positives:

• Training went perfect! No pain after bigger run volume and more run frequency.
• Established a huge aerobic pace that will serve me well for the year.
• Swam with one of the best swim coaches I have every had. Coach Roly Crichton. My lane mates Dylan McNeise, Tom Davidson, and Julia Grant were awesome.
• Fantastic training grounds in Christchurch.
• Catching up family and friends.
• Driving a sweet beat up Honda Civic.

• Reon Nolan
• Getting to meet and talk with legendary triathlete, Scot Molina.
• Know I don’t have to retire because of my knee.
• Even though the IM was cancelled, probably a small blessing for knee and not having to recover for 2 weeks.
• Getting the Polar RCX5. The RCX5 is the bomb.

• Riding Gorges and Old West Coast at least twice a week .
• All my data suggests I’m in fantastic shape.
• I’m swimming well.
• If it was an Ironman I would have gotten top 3. HAHA I’m allowed to say this because the race never happened.
• Lindsay and I are both in a good place.

Thanks to K-Swiss, Quintana Roo, Profile Design, Base Performance, LeadDog, Polar, and Em’s Power Cookies for all you help and support during my time in New Zealand. Even though it wasn’t what I was hoping for, I’m very motivated and fired up for 2012.

RACE REPORT
Very cold morning race morning with a good amount of chop on the lake. Went to water 15 min before start and did the normal warm up before heading to start line.

I always get so nervous in the water because you just don’t know how violent/fast the start is going to be while trying to set up for a top spot in the first 200-400 meters. I decided to go a little further left of the main pack and was with Marko Albert and Terenzo Bozzone. The gun went off and so did we! The pace was on and Marko was off and put in a little gap between T and I. I decided to go for it and bridged up to Marko with T on my feet. The main pack merged with us and somebody cut into T’s spot behind my feet. 200m later I looked back and Marko and I had a gap. It really opened up. They guy who cut in front of T lost my feet and allowed the gap to open. I was feeling fantastic, but then I lost focus because of the chopper that kept hovering over Marko and I. I have maybe 10 off strokes and Marko had the gap. I was dissapointed but didn’t panic. I swam my own race and the main chase didn’t make up anytime on me. At this point in the race the confidence was sky high. Second out of the water in Quintana Roo Superfull wetsuit (more people need to be in this suit. Amazing).
My race report comes to halt after 5km on the bike. The legs did not show up at all. I was not able to hang during the climb up Highway 5.

But hey, at least the run felt easy on the knee.

The End