Timaru Triathlon

Packed up my wee car with bike and gear etc as well as Geoff and Pete who were racing as a team and headed off to Timaru on Saturday afternoon. Stopped on the way thru Timaru to register for the morning, I'm a bit intrigued about the race t-shirts looking very Wellingtonian in colour! All quite flash tho since it is one of the Contact Energy races this year, you get a rather nifty sheet of stickers with a sticker for just about everything including one for your supporter to wear so everyone knows who they are supporting! A little unimpressed about having to put a sticker on my bike, at least it only had to go on the seat pillar tho! Headed off to the camping ground where we discovered that our kitchen cabin was the tiniest thing ever and the six of us got to sleep in bunks for the night, that brings back memories of school camp! Drove off to check over the cycle course for those who hadn't raced it before, it was interesting to see Geoff go a little pale when he realised just how tough that cycle course is! I never said it was easy! It is a toughie thats for sure!! Checked out the run course and run to transition from the swim as well so Jazz knew where things were at for the morning.

Race day was pretty nice weather wise, was good to get to transition and start getting ready. Was funny that I hardly felt nervous whereas last year I just felt ill at the thought of how far I was going to have to swim and how long I was going to be racing.

Swim was a beach start with a short run into the water which is a little different to a lot of races I have done. Swim was 2 laps (1500m), the guys had started 5mins before us and the quick ones passed me when I was about 3/4 of the way thru my first lap! They were flying! I had a pretty good swim and came out feeling ok. That run up the beach to transition is huge, its about 400-500m, never mind, plenty of time to get of your wetsuit when you have to run that far!

T1 went pretty well, headed off on the bike feeling ok. My legs were kinda achey tho and had been the day before as well (maybe I went a bit too hard in that 5km run the other night?), the cycle leg seemed harder than last year for some reason. It didn't seem to matter what gear I picked it either felt too easy or too hard so I felt like I wasn't going as well as I could have. Silly speedo stopped going after about 3kms so that was kinda frustrating cos I had no idea how far thru the cycle leg I was.

T2 again was pretty smooth, headed off on the run feeling not too bad but not great either. Plodded along nicely to the first hill and then walked the hill, hills hurt and it was stinking hot! So decided to go with last years plan of attack and walk the up-hills and run everything else. Nadia caught up with me about 2/3 of the way thru the first lap and walked along beside me and then we just kinda stuck together doing my plan of walking the up-hills. Was kinda nice to have company and made me feel a bit better about walking parts, although I'm sure she was just humouring me by staying with me. Was funny at the finish, we sprinted in together which was kinda cool.

I went a bit quicker than last year so that is awesome, I have a nice tri-suit tanline all over again as well!

Times:

Swim + T1 - 35.20, Cycle - 1.27.44, Run + T2 - 1.02.06 - Overall Time: 3.05.10

Compared to last years times:

Swim + T1 - 42.33, Cycle - 1.29.16, Run + T2 - 1.06.12 - Overall Time: 3.18.03

Oh and big news for the day was that I won a major spot prize of a very very flash BBQ!!! Nice eh! Its worth about $1500 from Placemakers Timaru. Hmmm bit of a challenge to figure out how to get it home, they were going to freight it up to me but Andrew Moon kindly offered to put it in his van and drive it home for me so that was pretty cool! There will be lots of BBQ's for awhile I think!!

Quote for the Day:

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)