Taupo Half Ironman

A week and a half ago we went to Taupo and did the Taupo Half Ironman which will next year be the Taupo 70.3.
The week before we went to Tauranga for the 1st birthday celebration for Frank Lawson and did the Tinman Tauranga as a team with J-Rad swim biking and me running.  It wasn't a very good effort from either of us but we still won the mixed team division and was the third team overall - not really helped by the cheating of the first place team who started with the individual men who left 4 mins before the teams. Hmmmmm.
The weather has been a bit average but Taupo turned out a pretty good day for us which was lucky because the next day was solid rain from about 5.30am which would have been very schizer to race in.
It was pretty cold on the bike and my gamble of not wearing any extra clothes didn't really pay off because by 30km I was shivering uncontrollably and had the death grip on on my aerobars.  I saw Rob and Kellee on the way out and was having dreams of them being at the turnaround so I could get into their warm car.  Lucky they weren't there and I was forced to continue and by about 60km the sun must have come out and I warmed up so that I wasn't shivering anymore.  My feet did stay frozen until about 3km into the run though.

Starting to turn blue

Hands stuck on aerobars, can't move...

Most of my bike my thoughts were preoccupied about how cold I was and the song from Breaking Benjamin was going through my head on repeat but other than that I had a pretty good bike and passed #supermum Jess at about 70km which I wasn't expecting to happen.  But as she was having a baby cut out of her tummy a year to the day we will excuse her for not being as fit as she used to be.
I started out the run in 7th place and passed a couple of girls in the first 5km.  I then had a fully grown man from the Hawke's Bay Tri Club decide I was a good person to run with and he sat on my feet for the next 7km - imagine that, a fully grown man pacing off a small girl like me.  I got the call that I was 2.5 minutes down on 3rd and 4th just after the turnaround so kept running with a purpose and dropped the annoying sitter on my feet and caught them both with about 5km to go.
I managed to hold my pace and surprised myself and everyone by coming in as the 3rd girl.  I got interviewed at the finish and had my photo taken with the 1st and 2nd girls where I did my best impression of a stunned mullet.

Women on a mission

Shame on you for drafting off me. No wonder I ran faster, his feet aren't even off the ground

Did I just come 3rd?!

It was a pretty exciting race for me because A) I held an even pace through the whole run and didn't die in the last 7km like a usually do and B) for once I actually felt like I was in the race and was able to make up for my swimming inadequacies with a good run.  I am not fooling myself though and do realize it was a very weak field this year with no real Pro's in the women's race.  But still full credit to Ashleigh Williams who took out the race in her first Half Ironman at only 21 years old.

Feeling a bit stunned

J Hyphen Razzle had his first decent race in a while coming 10th, #supermun had a pretty impressive comeback race to come 6th women and Nick had a solid race overall.
Now for a couple of easy weeks and some Christmas festivities before some serious IMNZ training will start.