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