Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Racing in Vegas

Once again the Rotorua Half Ironman delivered on its promise of being one of the toughest half’s around. I woke up at 5am on race day to hear the wind howling outside, I looked out the window and could see white caps on the Blue Lake....gulp....it’s going to be a tough day at the office.

The swim was tough, but mainly because I am crap at open water navigation; and lost a fair amount of time as I zig-zagged all over the course. However, I was pretty pleased with myself when I exited the water in about 15th place, but to be fair I was already about 6min down the eventual winner – Guy Crawford of Blue Seventy. I swam in my new Blue Seventy Helix wetsuit, and man I could seriously tell the difference in flexibility over my old wetsuit. The shoulders in the Helix feel like that are completely free from the suit, and the thickness though the legs and arse make it very buoyant. If you are thinking that you need (or want) a new wetsuit, you should seriously look at the Helix.

The ride was always going to be tough, as I haven’t done much long riding over the last couple months, but I seemed to be going ok until about 70km. The ride is very a picturesque out & back course; I got to the turnaround in 10th place, but sadly, the way back was into the previously mentioned wind. I started to struggle with about 20km to go and was caught couple of riders. As you can see from the map and profile below it’s not an easy bike course.

The run actually went better than I expected, I have done so little training. I thought that I would be in the hurt box off the bike, but I ended up running a 1:22 half (somehow the results had me at 1:28). I managed to run myself into 5th place, only one place worse than last year....so not too bad.

Swim 32:02

Ride 2:41 (incls both transition times)

Run 1:22

Next up is the Tauranga Half Ironman on the 9th Jan 2010... I better start training J

World Wide Web and beyond

When I created this blog it was done on a bit of whim, and I really didn't know how I'd use it....and I am probably still a little unsure.

Anyway, at that point I loaded a stat counter that I saw on someone else's blog. I thought it would be pretty cool to see where people who read my dribble are from; well you are mostly from NZ, Australia, and the USA, but there have been visits from Thailand, Hungary, India, Netherlands, Italy and the moon!

I was only joking about the moon, but seriously who lives in the middle of Australia ?

Rotorua Half Ironman - 18 Dec 09

Should I be nervous? I'm not sure, but I am. Probably cause I am seriously not ready. I have struggled to get on the bike since Kona, and I picked up a shoulder injury at swimming last week.

This race is going to hurt.

Luckily for me the Rotorua Half Ironman is arguably one of the best courses for a tri in New Zealand. The swim is the in the pristine waters of the Blue Lake.

The bike is pretty tough but very picturesque as about 40km of it skirts the edge of the Lakes Roto Iti, and Lake Rotoma.

The run is as equally challenging as it start of with a trail loop around the Blue Lake, up the stairs to nowhere and then down a large hill towards Lake Tawarea. It does a couple short(ish) loops, and goes back up the large hill and finishes with another punishing lap around the Blue Lake.

It is a good thing Hooksie provides every finisher with a cold beer (or 3).

Rotorua Half Ironman - 18th December 2009