Lake Waikaremoana Race 2012

Richard Ussher / 11.12.2012

It’s fair to say I headed to the revamped Waikaremoana race this year very unsure what to expect from the body. After a hugely disappointing Xterra I was still feeling low on energy and despite basically 2 weeks with the feet up the energy had failed to return. Racing can sometimes do funny things to you though and the competitive spirit was still burning brightly enough to front up on the start line for 5^th straight year.

Unfortunately that is where the drama’s really started for my weekend, with 30 seconds to go Elina noticed her tyre was going flat, after a bit of a panic I just couldn’t get it sorted and the race left without us.

2 minutes later we were both on our way but not really feeling very stoked with missing the front of the race.

I was quickly climbing through the tail of the field and surprisingly after about 10 minutes I could see Trevor Voyce not far ahead, when I finally managed to reel him in it was great to have someone to share the work into the wind and we soon picked up a 3^rd member.

Not long after we were reduced back to 2 as Trev’s massive year of racing had also taken a major toll on his energy, not to mention probably the arrival not long ago of his first kid.

Lapping it out like a 2up time trial I finally made it in to the kayak TA to see what the damage was, Dougal and one other team were around 5 minutes up but thankfully I could still see them and set about reducing the gap.

2 against 1 was still not a great scenario – especially after a hard ride but gradually the distance began to shrink.

What I was really hoping for was a team paddler to catch me up, with Dan Busch and Mike Walker both in the field my best chance of reducing the gap was on their wash.

Unfortunately the first I saw of Dan was about 500m from the finish but he was flying and jumping on his wash I was able to draft up to within about a minute of the front of the race.

The crux of the day was still ahead though and heading off on the run it was a major unknown as to how the legs would be feeling. I hadn’t had much of a chance to think about it on the ride and no comparison to make on the effort but as soon as the run started to head uphill I knew there still wasn’t much spark in the legs.

I kept hoping I’d catch a glimpse of Dougal Allan on some of the longer straights but when I finally caught a glimpse of someone it turned out to be one of the runners from the run only event.

The hills were reducing me to not much more than a shuffle with the same sensation as in Maui seemingly crippling my legs.

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