With the decision to sign up for Challenge Wanaka in January I thought I’d best see where things were at with my tri form at least once prior to lining up for the real thing. It’d had been almost 4 years since my last ironman and much longer since my only previous ½ IM so I really had very little expectation. Those expectations were dampened even further when the day before I heard Chris McDonald and Dylan McNeice were both racing. The course was pretty straight forward with a 1.9km swim in Lake Hood which wasn’t anywhere near as cold as I had been dreading, a 3 lap 90km bike ride which was very flat but with some of the deadest feeling road I’ve experienced and a 2 lap run course with more than ½ of it on gravel trails.

 

At the start of the swim Dylan took off and I tried to hold the feet (not literally) of as many people as I could as I slowly slipped off the lead couple of swimmers. I was feeling pretty good though and focused on maximizing my swim, and buoyed at the halfway point turn-a-round where I could see I hadn’t lost as much time as I had feared I might.

 

Out of the water and I heard a split of 2min 30 to Dylan and less to a couple of others in between, it was about as good a scenario as I could have thought about prior to the race. I wound it up on the bike and quickly picked off one rider and by the turn-a-round at the 15km mark I could see Dylan and U23 Elite Triathlete Mike Phillips riding together only a minute or so up the road. By the end of the first lap I was on the back of them and given both Dylan and Mike had plenty of experience of running very fast off the bike from ITU style racing I figured I needed to try and press on and try to make a break or at least take some of the sting out of their legs. The top team rider also soon joined us but short of going so hard that I’d be putting myself in the red I couldn’t get a break from them. Then heading back to wards the transition to complete the 2nd lap my front wheel suddenly locked up and I was forced off the side of the road. I soon found the culprit as a small bolt had been flicked up in to the gap between my front fork and the tyre and had jammed in there. It didn’t take long to sort but I was back to chasing again and before I managed to get back in contact the team rider went to the front of the pack and started winding up the pace. I kept chasing and slowly managed to claw my way back onto the pack. In the final 10km things finally started to split up and with the team rider off the front Mike and I managed to get a small gap on Dylan. It is always a nervous time heading into the run after a hard bike, wondering how the legs will respond. 

 

The most obvious issue I had when I started running was that my feet were numb from the cold and so made running feel very uncoordinated. I’d made a small break in the transition over Mike but he quickly paced his way up to me. Checking the speed splits we were still running at around 3:25 per km pace which was not hanging around. For the first 2 km Mike was glued to my shoulder then in an instant he was gone and I had only the lead cyclist to chase. Heading back along the short out and back section I saw Mike was already 100m behind and figured he must have stopped to fix a shoelace or something. Whatever it was though I wanted to keep pushing a good pace to see where things were at and settled into a good rhythm. Dylan was also not far behind and so I had plenty of motivation to keep pushing. 

 

At the end of the first lap I was still feeling good and still sitting around the 3:30 average pace, which was at the quicker end of what I thought I might be capable of at the time. The test would be how well I coped with the final 10.5 km and if anyone behind was making up ground. I eagerly awaited the out and back section and as I headed back took some rough splits to 2nd which was still Mike with Dylan now further back in 3rd. I now had over 2 minutes in hand and knew barring a major meltdown I’d get the win but I still wanted to finish strong and tried to keep the pace as consistent as possible. Heading into the finish I still felt surprisingly good and when I stopped the run split it was just over 1:14 for the ½ which I was very happy with. Mike came home for 2nd in his first outing in a ½ IM and Dylan rounded out the podium.

 

So it was mission accomplished for the first tri hit out of the season, it was great having my Dad there supporting and the course with the multiple laps was great for all the supporters being able to see their athletes at regular intervals and watch the race unfold The form is slightly ahead of where I thought it would be but there is still a lot of work to be done before Challenge Wanaka in January – especially in the swim and on the bike, of which hopefully the following week at the Southern Alps tour will have had appositive effect.