Auckland Half Ironman Race Report

I have done this race once as a individual in 2010, DNF'd in 2007 after rolling my ankle and faceplanting halfway through the run and not being able to carry on with my ankle which had swollen up like a mofo, and as the team runner in 2009, so I know the course pretty well.  The stretch from Maraetai to Clevedon is very common ground to us and from Clevedon onwards is a reasonably familiar road.  So I knew what I was in for.
The results haven't come out yet (!) so not sure about my times for any of it.

SWIM

There was a little bit of a chop on the water, which is usually dead calm, but nothing like Wanaka or any of the Kohi swims.  It's a 2 lap course where you have to get out of the water and run on the sand for about 20m and then flop back in. 

Getting ready to flop back in

 I really have no idea how well I swam until I see some results but don't think I had the break through moment like at Taupo.  I had people to swim with most of the way so only went off course a couple of times.  I hoped to be close to my friend Two-Piece who has been persevering with the 6-7km swim program and does appear to be paying off as she was 2nd/3rd out of the water! I was about 20sec behind her at Taupo so it will be interesting (or depressing) to see the results.

Still some people behind - whew

 Had a pretty average T1 - I really struggle to get my Giro Advantage helmet on and get the straps in the right place when I'm in a race, I think it is mostly due to having a ponytail to organise as well.  Not sure if I am the only one who has this problem but people with short/no hair have it a lot easier.  I'm not about to cut off all my hair to improve my T1 by 20sec so may need to look for other solutions.

BIKE

This is a hard bike course.  Very undulating, rough roads, very spread out field and that fricken headwind coming back from the turn around.
I started out ok, passed a few in the first 10km and had a battle with a woman who would pass me and then slow down so I would have to pass her, etc until I finally got rid of her. 
Got to Kawakawa Bay (30km) slightly under my goal time of 55mins, power was a little bit high but I figured it would settle down a bit.  I caught a few people going up the first big hill but got dropped big time on the downhill which was the story of all the other hills on the course. 

This headwind sucks

Heading out to the turnaround I saw the lead 3 men in a tight little group, a big gap then Jared with Dickie Speer on his wheel, a few solo riders including Coach Poo who seemed to be tootling along.  The leading lady was Belinda Harper who was towing a group of men - my fellow podiatrist buddy Bobby D was behind her keeping a good distance but it made me so mad to see the rest of the group so far up each others arses - some of whom I recognised which made it even worse.  Apart from a few bunches there really is no need for draft busters on this course so these people can get away with it which really sucks and there was such a headwind on the way back so riding in a bunch would have made it so much easier.  It was very disappointing to see the eventual winner Britta Martin glued to a man's behind - I realise it was just a shapshot in time but it does concur with other people's sightings on the course.
Anyhoo there was certainly no drafting in my little bunch of one. 

No drafting here

I was a bit concerned that I was doing 35-40kph easy with the turnaround approaching meaning that I had quite a tailwind.  I counted 7 girls in front of me - I expected to be in about 6th so started to feel a bit despondant.  My friends Two-Piece and Beable were not too far ahead so I thought that maybe I could catch them but I never made it.
The last 30km were very hard into the wind and a few nasty uphills.
I hoped to bike around 2hrs50 but ended up with 2.56ish (I think) and my WKO file shows my poor pacing which is really dumb - the whole point of a powermeter is to measure your effort so I really stuffed that one up. 
I wasn't so keen on running but didn't have a good enough reason not to.

Muppet man having a muppet moment

RUN

I was hoping to hold 4.30's to get me 95mins - the first few km's went ok, it's a 3 lap out and run course with the last maybe 1.5km of the out part being mostly uphill so I expected to be a bit slower on that part.  It is a good course to see where other people are and keep an eye on competition. 

Meh

 I got very excited to see J-Rad in 4th place and quite a way back was Captain Pudding who was threatening that he was going to catch me which he never did - WHEW. 

Run J-Rad run

Two-Piece was moving through the field and moved up to 4th place but quite a way back from 3rd.  I was gaining on the 5th-7th girls but not quickly enough.  I had moments of feeling great but lots of moments where I couldn't really be bothered.  My feet were a bit sore and my legs were tired but not sore so I didn't even really have an excuse.
So I crossed the line in 8th place in maybe around 5hrs15, so much for my top 5 and sub-5hr goal...

Where are my coke and chippies

I was pretty disappointed in general, I guess once I can compare my times to the other girls it will give me a better idea of things.
I just felt like a was a bit of a mess the whole time - like I was really fumbling my way through.  I think part of the problem is with it being at home it doesn't seem like as much of a big deal race - not having to leave Auckland, stay in a motel, etc it ends up feeling like a bit more of a training day.  So maybe I wasn't in a very good mental space to begin with.
Jared had a great race and held his 4th place and was making up time to 3rd but fell a bit short.
Our dear friend Neilio was our saviour providing us with sexy new tri kit, chauffeuring us back to Maraetai to get Jared's car and then me all the way back home while I bleated on about how much I sucked, and provided us with coke and chippies to help us recover.  We love you Neilio, you are such a dear :)

Now to sound like a typical triathlete I am starting a run focus to try and get my running back to where it was in 2009 before I broke myself.

Big Jo training March 5 - March 18

SWIM

My swimming continues to go up and down, I felt like I was swimming awesomely at the last Stroke and Stride but when I stood up and looked at my watch I felt like banging my head against a wall.  So it is quite frustrating.  The Kohi swims are over for the year and overall I think I showed a bit of improvement against last years times but the conditions are always quite difficult so it is hard to tell.  The best test will be this weekend at the Auckland Half

Doing my best to look about 80yeras old at Stroke and Stride

BIKE

A couple of slack-ish weeks on the bike, the weather in Auckland has been absolute poo so I have had to use my windtrainer more than just my (recent) usual 1 times per week.  I came down with a cold last week which was still hanging around by the weekend so I made the big call to do no training at all on Saturday as attempt to get rid of it a bit quicker.  It seemed to work and I now have only the dregs which will hopefully be gone by Saturday.  It was quite novel not training at all but did make me wonder how people fill in their days without biking and running?!

RUN

Only 2 runs last week due to my illness but a good week the week before of 4 runs totaling a bit over 40km.  I have probably done more long runs in preparation for this Hlaf than any others I have done so it will be interesting to see the result.  It will also be nice to go into a race with more than about 2-4weeks of run training which seems to have been the case for the last few races.

Winning the sprint for 8th place

 SURROUNDED BY WINNERS!!

Jess Lawson - Stoke and Stride Race 7 WINNER!

Jared Bowden - People's Tri Maraetai WINNER

Exciting plans for later on in the year currently under construction but include a long trip on a big plane and a triathlon in France involving a very large mountain.

Big Jo training Feb 20 - March 2

SWIM

A small breakthough in the pool last week with a mini set of 4 x 100m on a time not too far off my best of a few years ago - woo hoo! I won't say what the times were because I'm embarrassed but it was certainly a step up from where I've been in the last year.
Last week was a Kohi swim which was the super fun 4 lap course but wasn't quite so super fun with lots of people swimming over and into me and lots of salt water going down my throat.  You people who can swim fast have not idea what it is like to swim where I do and get beaten up all the time.

BIKE

Not as much riding in the last two weeks due to Kezzle finishing his Ironman training and no longer needing his hand held, plus I was in QUeenstown over the weekend so missed my Sunday ride.  I haven't even downloaded any bike info from last week yet, oops! BUt the most exciting news is the RooRoo's hanger FINALLY arrived so I got to go aero again in the weekend.  We were in the middle of the 'weather bomb' which disrupted IMNZ but it wasn't too bad in Auckand so RooRoo and I headed out to the waterfront for some fairly average efforts in some fairly average weather but it was good to be back on my TT bike in time for some Auckland Half training.

RUN

Went for a delicious long run in Queenstown in the weekend all the way from town to Kelvin Heights on the Frankton path while all my friends were hungover and sleeping the morning after a wedding, they don't know what they're missing!

Made an appearance back at the O'Hagan's 5km which was less then impressive but more impressive than it has been and also good enough to win the girls division (!) while J-Rad ran a PB and his first overall win.  So we are now stocked up on wine for a while - pity neither of us drink it at home.

The bride and groom and some creepy photo crasher in the background

Party at the Castle

My sexy MINI coat makes it's first outing

Big Jo training Feb 6 -Feb 19

SWIM


I *may* have made a breakthrough in my swimming.  I think I can feel when I drop my elbow which causes my stroke to turn to poo so I am focussing on that at the moment.  I have always heard people say about reaching over the barrel when you swim and it never really made much sense to me but think I may have finally got it.  Now awaiting a breakthough in my speed....  I am back at the gym and pumping some iron after a small hiatus around Wanaka time so hopefully my new bulging shoulder muscles will start catching some water.

BIKE


Oh my goodness - 14 hours on the bike these last 2 weeks and around 400km holy bejesus!  Because Jared hyphen Razzle and I are so nice to our friend Ketzel Wetzel we have done his long Ironman bike rides with him for the last 3 weeks (well only really 2 weeks for me after the derailleur mishap on the first long ride).  So last week was 155km and this week was 165km - not on particularly easy courses either - whoever decided to ride the Waitaks at the END of a 5.5hr ride needs their head read although in saying that the Waitaks hurt no matter how much riding you have done so it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  This last weekend we did the Coast ride which goes through Hunua to Kaiaua, Kawakawa Bay and back to Clevedon then home so I had a bit of a reccie for Auckland Half which I will be doing at the end of March as this uses the Kaiaua - Kawakawa Bay section that we did.  If only I could get Kezzle to sit in front of me at his Ironman for the Half - it would make it so much easier...
I have become very dedicated to Greatness and have decided to do one windtrainer session for efforts instead of doing them outside to improve my quality of training.  It's not fun but I can definately see how my efforts are so much more consistent than outside with so many other things going on.  And I get to have some quality Seinfeld watching time while I am doing it, although usually I am so much in the hurtbox that I can't watch it anyway.

Murfalfel keep a hand on things

 RUN

I have built up my long runs to be around the 1hr15-20 mark and will build up a wee bit more for Auckland Half.  I attempted the O'Hagan's 5km the other day with a terrible result but will hopefully get my fast legs back soon.  Funny thing is that my normal training pace is a bit quicker than what it was a couple of years ago but I am way slower for anything speed related.  Meh.
I am slowly making friends with the ASICS but it is a very delicate relationship and I even had to resort to socks the other day which is just unheard of. 

Big Jo Training Jan 23 - Feb 5

SWIM

What to do about swimming... I have decided to ditch my super long swims since I have not made any kind of breakthrough and swimming for 6km+ could only be fun if it is guaranteed to make you faster.  So I am revisiting the technique side of things and trying hard to get a feel for the water as well as adding an extra swim or two in the week but it is more like more swimming practice rather than more volume.
Any secret/magical tips would be much appreciated.

BIKE

Took the first week after Wanaka pretty easy and became reaquainted with my Serottica.  I find it sad that every Ironman I do takes away some of the feeling of achievement of doing an Ironman and once the soreness disappears after a couple of days I feel like I can resume as normal, where as the first couple of Ironmans I did it was such a big deal and I reveled in my achievement for the next few weeks.  Having said that perhaps it would be different if I had a good performance which was worthy of reveling.

I dusted off RooRoo and joined Kezzle and J-Rad for a fun ride around the Coast on Sunday.  We were an hour and a half into it and almost at the top of the Hunua Gorge when BOOM! SNAP! What the hell?! I had basically come to a standstill and something was seriously wrong with my chain/derailleur/wheel.  Closer inspection revealed that the rear derailleur bolt had snapped and the derailleur was trying to wrap itself around my wheel which was less than ideal. 

Too much power?

 Luckily Mum and my step-Dad were not doing anything at 8am on a Sunday morning so they were able to come to my rescue.  And what does an emo person with a broken bike do when they are not about to ride their TT bike and are sad about missing out on a good ride? They jump on their road bike and intercept their riding party on their way home of course! So all was not lost.  Although now I have to deal with the problem of the munted hanger and half a bolt in my derailleur.  The last time I rode RooRoo was at Wanaka so I guess I was very lucky that it didn't happen then.

Surrendered gear from Kezzle in return for fancy BMW kit - the world will be a much better place without these in them

 RUN

I waited a week after Wanaka until I ran again and am in the process of switching to ASICS from my beloved adidas Supernova's which is turning into a pain in the bum.  Because of my midget feet I have to wear kids shoes which aren't as good as adult shoes and may be contributing to my string of injuries.  ASICS probably do the best kids shoe but we are just not really made for each other, I am in between sizes but they don't do half sizes so I am having a dilemma about how to overcome this as well dealing with some pretty nasty blisters I suspect as a result of them not fitting quite right. 
But we shall overcome.

Challenge Wanaka Race Report

Just reading through my last post on Challenge Wanaka eve I asked for a calm lake and a tail wind home - it now seems like someone up there was taking the piss out of me...
We got down to the lake at about 5.45 to a reasonable breeze which was blowing straight onto the lake causing a fair amount of chop.  And it was slightly chilly.
The good part about doing a race with only 450 individuals is that we got a park right outside the marquee with only 45mins until race start, and the other good part is that I didn't have to wait for a portaloo all morning.
Another good thing about doing a race with only 450 individuals is that the Pro's just get a 10m headstart instead of a 15minute head start which is not good for people who can't swim.

SWIM
The swim was a 2 lap rectangle course and was choppy the whole way round with a slight reprieve for the shortest leg where the chop was behind us.  It was pretty easy to stay on course as it was well marked and I tried to choose feet who kept a good pace.
As I came around towards the end of the second lap I saw the Half people bobbing around about to start.  This gave me great excitement as I thought they were starting at 7.30am which meant that my swim time would be just over an hour - OMG! Turns out the Half actually started at 7.38 so guess what? Another sucky swim. Although looking at other peoples times it seems that the faster people were a couple of minutes off normal and harder conditions slow the slow down down even more which perhaps bring my time to around the 65min mark which I would be happy with.
Had a major muppet moment running into T1 and missing my bike bag - I'll blame it on the numbness spreading throughout my body coupled with the disappointment of learning from another swimmer that we actually swam 68mins not the 62 that I had thought.

Opps, got it.

T1 was very slow due to my numb hands and fingers and a bad choice of arm warmers which while nice and warm, were a little too tight to get on in a hurry while wet and frozen.
Onto RooRoo I went.

BIKE
I shivered my way through the first 30km and then started to warm up a bit.  The first section of the bike was was pretty undulating and a bit more interesting with Half people sharing the road with us.  Once we split at Luggate at 70km us full people were on our own.

I had heard all the warnings about prevailing headwinds on the way back and the lonely roads so was preparing myself for the way back from Cromwell.  I made the turn and headed back every now and then passing someone who had passed me earlier but also having lots of "am I going the right way" moments as the roads were very empty.  I didn't get passed by a single individual athlete from about the 90km (only 2 team riders) onwards and came across many people who had passed me earlier who had obviously blown their foofoo valves on the first half.

Tailwind and fun times

Got to 120km and felt pretty good, figured I could average 30kph for the last 60km to come in just over 5hrs40 - considering I had averaged 32+ up to this point it seemed pretty achievable.  Hung a left hand turn just before the 140km and BOOM! Headwind! Sidewind! WIND! What a slog for the next 40km, I actually laughed at the 30kph average plan as I powered along at 23kph... Lucky there was a bit of downhill for the last 5km but I was already pooped and had been on the bike way longer than I ever thought I would.

RUN
The run course at Wanaka in about 75% offroad, about 20km of bush trails and a few nasty uphills, ie. not easy.  I started out aiming to hold 5min km's and this worked for a while but my speed slipped a bit through the bush section.  It's pretty isolated with aid stations every 3km and not many people around through the offroad sections and more than once I wondered how long it would take someone to find me if I keeled over and died.  I was also aware of the very fast moving river alongside some of the tracks which could carry my lifeless body about a km in two minutes.  Do other people have these thoughts during ironman?

Overenthusiastic supporters making things a bit more bearable

It was pretty windy but also hot in the sheltered sections.  My support crew popped up a few times and kept me amused and gave me updates on what else was happening in front and behind me.
I passed another pro girl after about 15km so I knew that I just had to finish to get some prize money, it's amazing how money can motivate you.
The second lap was very slow but amazingly I was passing people who were actually running slower than me.

Sammy the Seal - one person I was running faster than. I am sure it won't be long till he gets me though

 The good thing about doing a race where a lot of run is through the bush means that there are toilet opportunities everywhere.
My feet hurt from the gravel and stones underneath them and my legs hurt from my lack of run traning, it wasn't as painful as Ironman NZ where I had hip bursitis pain from the 8km mark, but it was still painful and I was oh so glad to finally reach the end.

Thank god that's over

The race director Victoria Murray-Orr was at the finish to welcome me with a hug - not just a polite little tapping on the back hug, but a real cuddle hug which was so nice and just highlights what the Challenge family are all about.

My finish time was 11hrs26 and I was 9th female overall (9th Pro), I was aiming for between 10.30 and 11hours so I was well out.
I really need to stop doing Ironmans off the back of an injury with only the minimum (or not even that) amount of time to train because it is really not working for me and I am getting slower.  I am embarrassed by the time I did and I don't want to do Ironman again until I can go faster.

So time to take stock, do some proper planning and training and get fast.  You are only as good as your last race so things can only improve from here.

*sigh*

Challenge Wanaka eve...

Oh my goodness how slack am I... Oops.
The last few weeks have been mostly biking and running, a bit of swimming, some work and a lot of pissing around.

Hen's games

The Hen in all her glory

 The weather in Auckland had been a bit iffy so I did a couple of long rides in some not so nice weather and I did my longest run for Wanaka down in Tauranga while watching the Port of Tauranga bunch riding champs, I mean Half Ironman...
Wanaka training has gone pretty well, I haven't had as much time to build up my running as I would like so my 25km run long will hopefully get me through.
Swimming was going well until I got abducted by the aliens at Pilot Bay as a team swimmer for Tauranga Half so now I am really unsure how the swim at Wanaka will go.

Guess what word starting with F is coming out of my mouth...

So I have now been in Wanaka for 3 days and had 2 days in Queenstown on the way through where I learnt how to play frisbee golf.  It has gotten pretty windy down here and yesterday morning I had genuine concerns for my life while I was swimming in the lake but fortunately it has settled down a bit.  The forecast for tomorrow is ok - a bit of a chilly start but should end up being fine and maybe a bit breezy.  I am being uber cautious about not getting cold on the bike (as is my trademark) so will be taking a bit of time in T1 to put a few extra items on.

J-rad's new office

We have a little crew down here with Sammy the Seal doing the full and Jess the Hammer doing the Half, J-Rad and Nick will be heading the support crew after Nick made the tough decision to DNS after an unpleasant last couple of days making friends with the toilet.

So now the bags are all packed and RooRoo is ready to go.  Fingers crossed for a calm lake and a tailwind home...