New Zealand Ironman Race Report - Better Late Than Never.

Rules, Rules, Rules.

The new rules made for interesting racing this year at the New Zealand Ironman race.  The new 10 metre rule was well talked about.  I was to discover some rules were still being changed the afternoon before the race.

Due to Achilles issues and 8 weeks of no running, I knew I was never going to be able to run the full marathon.  Next best option - film my race.  I scanned the rules, couldn't find any rule against filming and even asked.  So, with my new GoPro and emails from Ironman NZ and Tri NZ saying there was no rule against it, I was set to go.  However,  Friday afternoon JUST after I had racked my bike I received a phone call informing me that the Ironman corporation had made a decision that no cameras were allowed. Silly rule really!

Beautiful start to the day!

RACE DAY  

After many years of bad weather, today made up for all of them! Lake Taupo was flat, warm, calm and extremely clear.  I started slow, got into a good rhythm and was even managing to swim pretty straight.  I was actually enjoying the swim until some plonker, who had all the room in the world, decided to grab my wrist and pull me down.  He was wearing a yellow cap, 40-44 age group?

Where in the rules does it say you are allowed to do that?  It certainly rattled me and I guess that was his intention.  I was happy to finally reach the shore and see the clock say 59 minutes.  That is a personal best for me.

The run to T1 was a long one but with the crowd 3-4 deep the time flew by.  T1 was uneventful.

Biking along the foreshore, I could see a bunch just ahead of me and was torn between chasing them down or starting slow.  I chose to start slow and ease my way up the hill, as it turned out everyone else had the same idea.  As I was approaching the main road to Reperoa, still going up hill leaving Taupo, I saw someone get busted for blocking (he was riding beside or just behind another competitor and made no effort to pass).  It was reassuring to see the rules being followed through.  From that point on I made a conscious decision to ride on my own.  I thoroughly enjoyed the ride out and back, the first 90km was my fastest including my Half Ironman times.  

End of Lap One, All Going Well

End of Lap Two, Finally!!!

 The second lap wasn't so pretty, I missed a gel and struggled to key off anyone as very few athletes were in sight.  It wasn't until I reached an aid station where I got a bottle of coke that things came right.

It was a relief to finally reach T2.  Biking on my own meant I had too much time to assess things like my head over heating in my aero helmet.  It was such a great feeling to finally take it off.  I took my time through T2 and eased my way onto the run course. 

Start of the marathon

Easy to smile at the beginning

Again, I wanted to start slow and saw a bunch about 50 metres up the road.  I was wondering, do I chase and run with them or stick to my plan?  Interestingly, the gap stayed the same for quite some time.  During the early stages my main focus was to keep my body temperature down by grabbing as much ice as I could from the aid stations.  I was able to run for 33km, then my legs locked up.  It was an enjoyable walk home, the crowds could see my arm bands and appreciated I didn't have far to go.  The highlight of the whole race was the crowds cheering in the last km.

 

  Walking down the finishing straight was amazing; I only wish I had my camera to record it.

Later on that night Danielle and I went back to cheer home the athletes finishing in the last hour.  It was great to see Bevan Docherty mixing with the crowd.

Here is a short video of the last athlete to finish under the 17hr time cut off and become an Ironman.

Crazyman Race Report -Chasing My Own Shadow

I had a few issues with my new toy (Gopro 2 Outdoors).  As they say, never try anything new on race day, guess the same applies to digital gear as well :)  Hopefully have the fogging issue sorted now so looking forward to the next race.  I can't imagine the Wellington Marathon will be as exciting though.

Race Report

I grew up reading about Steve Gurney and how he was willing to try new things during multisport races, so when the new course was announced for the 2012 Crazyman, I’d thought I’d push the boundaries.  To cover myself, on the Thursday before the race, I emailed Michael Jacques (the Race Organiser) asking if I could switch bikes, he was very supportive of my idea.  He replied, “No rule against it Ed... Yet  :-)  I like races that leave things open to a bit of tactical manoeuvring...”

Hmmm, wonder what I can do next year?

I knew I didn’t have the leg speed on my mountain bike to stay with the front bunch as they raced up the Hutt River Trail, so I decided to start on my cyclocross bike and switch bikes at the start of the hill climb.  There was no point in using the cyclocross bike for the entire race as my mountain bike would be both faster and more ENJOYABLE on the downhills.

The 2012 course was switched to the other side of the Hutt Valley.  It started in Petone and returned through the hills of the Belmont Regional Park.  The bike leg started with everyone spread out across a soccer field which soon narrowed to a gap under a bridge.  A great way to start a race and it must have looked impressive for the spectators.

I don’t know about everyone else but my heart was red lining right from the start.  I managed to slowly work my way up to the back of the front bunch just in time for the first major obstacle, a sty.  There were a few of these, on one hand they were frustrating as they allowed the bunches to split, on the other they gave us a chance to catch our breath.  These little stops worked out perfectly for me because it gave me a chance to get my heart rate down.

At the bottom of the Dry Creek climb, Greg was waiting with my mountain bike and ready to attach my new camera to my helmet.  It was a smooth transition and the last chance to catch my breath before the most challenging climb of the day.

While climbing up Dry Creek to Boulder Hill the weather was stunning!!!  The views were fantastic and the downhills were superb.  I spent most of the ride chasing my shadow.  Sadly the ride had to come to an end and it finished with a fast descent then a short ride beside a creek to transition. 

As I neared transition, runners were going the other way.  A few people that I didn’t recognise shot past.  Then I heard those spine chilling words in an American accent, “Go Ed!”  Bugger! Matt was in front and he was looking strong.  How far was transition?  How long would it take to get my running shoes on?  How long would it take to run back to this spot?  These were all questions that were running through my head which was crazy.  Matt and Jeff were a team and were a sure bet to beat me, yet I still hoped Matt’s, ‘lack of fitness’ would slow him down.  It didn’t, we ended up running similar times.  Next year boys!!!

The run started off by going down the same track that I had just biked up.  It was a nice warm-up before we had to start running up the Belmont Trig Track.  Luckily it only went for 1km, the whole time I was thinking, don’t walk.

Once we turned left, we were running along a narrow walking track, mainly downhill to Korokoro Dam.  It was a fantastic track to run on, beautiful forest and lots of small creek crossings.  From the dam I thought we just had to run out Mills Stream Track (a track the follows Mills Stream until it almost reaches the harbour).  Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that a detour had been included.  It meant that about ¼ of the way out, we took a right and had to scramble up a hill face.  It was a fun detour, one I hope no one else was able to run as I found it difficult.  The descent was great, a fast open track with slightly wider stream crossings.  We popped back out on Mills Stream Track and it was a case of holding my position.  There was one person in front of me that I tried to run down but we seemed to be going the same speed. The gap remained the same until the finish line which was on Petone Beach.

Porirua Grand Traverse Multisport Race Report

 This race has to be one of Wellington’s best kept secrets for both its stunning scenery and relaxed atmosphere.  I chose to do the duathlon option - mountain bike then a mountain run.



Riders decending after the first little climb



The start was at Battle Hill Farm Forest Park just north of Porirua.  At 8am we assembled in a paddock for the race start.  We funnelled onto a gravel road, which led us over a little hill, followed by the first of the two hill climbs and this is where the racing really began. 



34km mountain bike course



The first climb seemed to go on and on.  I was hanging onto the back of a bunch going up.  On the downhill I was able to ride away from this bunch and catch the next.  We crossed the main road at Haywards and headed up Belmont Road in single file.  Unfortunately this bunch was able to climb faster than me. 

I continued to climb to the top alone.  The mist rolled in hiding both the riders in front and behind.  It was an amazing feeling.  I was glad to have raced this course before so I knew where I was going and what to expect.

Unlike Battle Hill which was dry, dusty and covered in pine trees, Belmont Regional Park was mainly wet grass due to fog.  This made the descent rather tricky.  It’s easy to go fast on dry grass, but to go fast and make tight corners on wet grass is slightly more challenging.  Low visibility was an added extra.

My running gear



Towards the end of the descent, my old friend ‘Cramp’ showed up.  I tried to walk it off but he wanted to stick around.  As I got to the single track which led to transition, three of us formed a bunch and we rode out together.

Transition was at Whitireia Polytechnic where you ride straight to where your support crew is waiting.  Danielle and her parents had all my gear laid out perfectly for a quick transition, unfortunately I was in no hurry to start running as my cramp was lingering.



22km off road run

 I jogged the best I could to the start of Colonial Knob where I hoped to walk off the cramp.  Turns out it was a great excuse not to run up all the steps!


One of the small hills that 'got me'



The run is simply awesome!  Once at the top of Colonial Knob you head west towards the coast, running down two huge grass hills and then crawling up the other side only to run down again until you hit the coast.



Mana Island in the distance



 Once on the coast you head north, either along a tiny sheep track or over rocks.  As it was high tide, I stuck to the sheep track like most other people.  At this point I noticed my quads were gone, any little rise and I was reduced to walking.  There were a few competitors around me who I kept yo-yoing with, I would pass them on the flat and they’d pass me on the hills.  Luckily, the race finished with a 3km run along the water front to Whitireia Polytechnic.

Another glorious Wellington day made for another memorable Porirua Grand Traverse.

Wellington Contact Triathlon Race Report

It’s Funny How Things Work Out!



The Great Arthur Lydiard



I spent the best part of a year training for the NZ Ironman, focusing on a slow and consistent pace which incidentally led to my fastest Olympic Distance Triathlon and landed me a spot on the New Zealand Triathlon team.  Maybe that ‘Kiwi’ guy, Arthur Lydiard was on to something.

The big question for me was, ‘How do I recover from a half ironman in 5 days???’  I came up with, CCCD - (Chocolate – AKA Easter Eggs, Coca Cola, Compression tights and lots of Deep Heat), rest was a given.

I had a very easy week and didn’t start easing into exercise until Thursday morning which consisted of a 5 x 100m swim followed by 100m of aqua jogging.  In the afternoon I went for an easy 45min spin on my road bike.  Friday, repeated Thursday’s pool session and in the afternoon a 15min spin followed by a 15min jog.

Saturday morning (race day), the weather Gods decided to come to the party and everyone woke to a still calm day, the harbour could have been mistaken for a mirror.  It’s true what they say, “nothing beats Wellington on a good day!”

 

I arrived at the transition nice and early, racked my bike and headed back to my car to ‘suit up.’  As the competitors were putting their wetsuits on, the announcer informed us that the water was a fresh 13 degrees.  I don’t know where they took their reading but thankfully the sea felt a lot warmer than that.

Age groups went off in 5 min intervals. As usual, I was on the FAR right.  I don’t know what happened in the bunch, but I had a clean swim and made sure I was aiming for the correct buoys.  Dear I say it, I was actually enjoying the swim until about 100m from the finish when someone’s heel collided with my eye.  Luckily my goggles took the impact and stayed on.

Transition was smooth with no one in my way.  On the bike, it was business as usual, to make up for lost time during the swim.  There were two guys willing to push the pace with me until we caught our age group’s front bunch.  It seemed people were happy to sit on BUT not let anyone ride away.  The bike ride felt like a PNP road race.  A few of us even caught the lead bunch from the age group that started 5 minutes before us which had Luke in it.  Luke and I prefer cycling to running and the last thing we wanted was for a big bunch to arrive at T2 together because we knew it would then come down to a running race and no one wants that!  

The bunch got whittled down to about 10 of us from 4 different age groups (25 – 29, 30-34, 35-39 & 40 – 44) as we rolled into T2.  Putting on tight socks was a mistake as I was easily the last person out of transition.

On the run, I was feeling good and knew I had to limit how many people in my age group passed me.  There seemed to be quite a few and unfortunately, I had no control over how fast they could run.  At the 7.5km mark, Luke shouted out some words of encouragement and something went off in my head.  I knew I could run faster than I had been and survive the last 2.5km so I went for it.  The finish line couldn’t come soon enough! Only one other guy in my age group passed me on the way back (he ran 36min)!

The big question was, was I still in contention of qualifying to make the worlds team?

At the finishing area it was great talking to people from all over New Zealand and hearing how their races went.  One guy did mention how rough the roads were around the bays – you mean there are roads out there that don’t have potholes every couple of hundred metres?



Since I had a few hours to kill, I went home, packed away my TT bike and dusted off the mountain bike which I’ll need for the Porirua Grand Traverse in a few weeks.

4 o’clock finally rolled round and it was time to see if I made the team.  There, in the last slot for my age group was my name. 



Arthur Lydiard and Peter Snell

In the finish, it was my run that got me there, 10km in 40.16.  I don’t really understand the science of how I was able to run that fast (fast for me and by far a P.B) without doing any speed work, but I will certainly be spending some more time researching Arthur Lydiard’s training principles, they work!!!!

2012 Ironman Race Report

It all came down to a few seconds …

	Overall Time	Swim	T1	Bike	T2	Run	1st 5km avg	2nd 5kms avg	3rd 5kms avg	Last 6km avg	Overall Run avg
Andy	4:41:09	35:25	7:38	2:32:44	1:32	1:23:50	4:11	3:58	4:04	3:43	3:58
Susie	4:41:33	33:18	4:06	2:25:23	1:09	1:37:37	4:41	4:36	4:52	4:22	4:37
Ed	4:41:40	34:04	5:20	2:23:36	2:29	1:36:11	4:48	4:35	4:39	4:15	4:33

Where to start?

I could easily write a blog entry about the weather – a ‘weather bomb’ cancelled the full Ironman race on Saturday and the organisers held a half Ironman on Sunday.

I could also easily write about the emotions I went through, from the highs of going through registration and getting my number on Thursday to the lows of hearing the race was cancelled.  Sunday morning I woke and just wanted the weekend to be over as all my eggs had been in the ‘long slow distance’ basket and having to race a half didn’t excite me, very similar to one Mr Cameron Brown!

The key difference between this half, and other halves in NZ, is that this one was offering Kona tickets!!!!!

On race morning I went through the motions, got ready and racked my bike then headed down to the lake. 

The Swim – I don’t know what to say, I used to pride my self on my navigation skills, well not any more! I have been on the start line of the swim 9 times (5 halves and 4 Ironman races) and I have never ever been so disorientated.

I swam 1km out with the bunch on my left, turned at the two buoys and was swimming back to the start line when BANG, my bunch collided with a bunch of women swimming the other way!!!  To put that into perspective, there was a 70 gap of ‘no mans land’ so I can only assume that since the women had a kayaker guiding them, we swam 70m off course. 

Mental note; next time, follow the buoys and not the bunch.

The Bike – I’ll be honest, the ride was chaos too, as we all knew it would be. The organisers had even pleaded with the 1600 athletes not to ride in bunches, YEAH RIGHT!

Once on my bike, I figured, it’s only 90km so I’d go pretty hard right from the start.  Going out was fine, a guy was following me, then we teamed up and we began jumping bunches until one bunch wouldn’t let us go.  The strange thing was, people wanted to be at the front but they had no urgency to keep making up places or catching bunches up the road.  On the way back our group got whittled down to about 10.  A few times the marshals pulled up beside us and warned us to keep our 7m distance which I thought was the correct thing to do.

It’s really hard to keep the 7m gap in a large bunch because once the leader slows down, everyone bunches up.  At about the 60km mark, a guy in our bunch was pinged for drafting   He was 2^nd in line while I was 7m directly behind him.  Admittedly, he was wheel hugging going up a slight rise, but what would have really upset the guy was all the MASSIVE bunches going the other way riding two abreast!  CRAZY!

I rolled into town with a few of the leaders from our bunch, had a pretty quick T2 for me and set off on the run. 

The Run – energy wise I felt great and I ran the first kilometre in 4mins!!! I had trained for 5min kms so I thought it wise to back off a little.  I caught a guy from our bunch and started talking to him.  Turns out he was Deano Gaskin, one of, if not the best Ironman athlete in my age group and he is from Wellington.  It must have looked funny as we were running along chatting as if we were on a training run.  He was recovering from a calf injury (runs a sub 3hr Ironman marathon) while I was happy to be in the company of such a great athlete with every 2^nd spectator cheering him on.  What it must feel like to be a famous athlete?

I stayed with him until just over half way when a mate of his ran passed so he carried on with him.  Shortly after the 15km turn around,  Andy and I caught sight of each other and smiled, as we both knew he had just over 5kms to catch me.  I dug deep and even got cheered on by a few athletes I passed.  In the end,  Andy passed me with about 500m to go, all I could do was wish him well.

In the medical tent, Andy was sitting down with an ice pack on his head. Turns out he got stung in the head by a bee as he was running down the finishing chute. Unfortunately, Andy is allergic to bee stings, some may say it was karma for passing me so close to the end, I say it was just bad luck.  Were the 31 seconds worth it Andy?  ;)

After he got stretchered off, an old friend Susie crossed the line and collapsed in the arms of two people.   That's how champions race. Turns out I got ‘CHICKED’ by 7 seconds!!!

Overall, I can walk away from this race happy and confident that the operation and all the physio work has been well worth it.  My 1.36hr half marathon was a great confidence booster.
Dear I say it, bring on next year!!!