Saturday, March 01, 2008

4th at Ironman NewZeland

Well I ended up 4th, again! I am getting a bit fed up with finishing 4th all the time, but I promise you I am doing my very best to make it better than 4th and 4th is better than 5th so it’s not so bad.

It is the day after the race here in Taupo a beutiful place for an Ironman, and the weather in the days leading up to the race was beautiful and sunny, but race day decided to be overcast windy and wet:) It was fairly warm though!

My swim went ok, I didn’t quite manage to stay with the 3 leaders so came out with a group 2min 30sec down, I felt ok on the bike and we gradually caught 2nd and 3rd with the lone leader, Kieren Doe, doing a good job working hard alone up front.

At the end of the first lap, of 2, I had to work hard on a decent to stay with the group of; Bell, Brown and Van Lierde, and we hit a small uphill and I rolled to close behind and heard a whistle and was told I had a 4min drafting penalty, bugger! Oh well, I had to just accept it and stand at the side of the road and wait for 4mins.

So I ended up riding the last half of the bike all alone and was 7mins down on Brown and Van Lierde at the end of the bike and only a min behind Bell, as he also got a drafting penalty during the bike.

Onto the run and I was in 5th but quickly passed Bell, and tried to run as fast as I could to catch any of the 3 in front, in the end Brown and VanLierde ran well and I couldn’t catch either I was gaining fast on Doe but didn’t quite have enough in the legs to make up the 3mins 30sec I needed to get 3rd, which I would have been very happy with rather than another 4th.

Anyhow I am happy with my performance, I gave it what I had on the day. As always room for improvement.

So onwwards and upwards.
Stephen