Challenge Roth is the second biggest race in the world behind the Hawaii Ironman World Championships with around 4500 athletes competing either as individuals or as part of a team. This years women’s field was very strong with four women from the top 10 in Hawaii for 2007 competing as well as Yvonne Van Vlerken the previous years winner who nearly broke the world record in her first ever ironman distance race last year, and who has not yet competed in Hawaii. Going into this race I really wanted to race these girls to see how far off the mark I was compared to them before I race in Hawaii. I had a goal of going under 9 hours in this race as it is a very fast course, however I thought to do this I would need perfect conditions, which for me means warm weather!
The last four weeks I have been training in France at the Triathlon New Zealand base in the Pyrenees. Training had been perfect there especially for the biking and the weather had been brilliant with some days reaching highs of around 37 degrees. It was very easy to train well as I had no other commitments and could focus solely on my training as everything is set up to enable us to do that and I feel very lucky and thankful that I had the opportunity to use this facility.
Everyone that knows me knows how much I suffer in the cold conditions. I sometimes feel I am solar powered. When the sun shines it gives me energy, when it does not I feel drained with absolutely no power in my legs. I have never before been successful in cold conditions so for me to be successful in Roth in the conditions that we had made me very happy.
I didn’t start the day off too well however. I had not such a good swim. My swimming has been going extremely well in training but I simply did not warm up enough on race day. I have learnt that I need quite a big warm up to get my body ready for the sprint start but we were allowed in the water only 10 minutes before the start and then we swam about 50 metres to the start and then waited. I had a bad start and then got in with a big pack and just couldn’t get away. It was very frustrating as the pace felt really slow for me in the second half, but when you have athletes on your hips it is very difficult at that point to get away from them. So in the end I came out with Belinda Granger and Rebekah Keat who I knew to be exceptional cyclists, and so I had hoped I could get a bit of space between us before the cycling leg. My swim time was around the 48 minute mark.
The only reason I survived the bike leg was because my coach Greg Fraine had told me to put some newspaper down my top for insulation. I put on some arm warmers but decided to forgo the cycling vest I had in my bag, a decision I definitely regretted later on in the ride. The first 20km were fine as I wasn’t too cold. I managed to pass everyone and even took the lead for a time but then I felt that power go from the muscles in my legs as they became really cold. The weather was around 12 degrees and with rain for the entire bike ride. It didn’t let up at all and in some patches was really heavy. I became so cold that I was shaking uncontrollably on the down hill sections. I had to deal with a lot of negative thoughts as I really didn’t want to be there and was very miserable. Usually in an ironman it is like a roller coaster ride with swings from positive to negative. The bike ride for me was so difficult as the whole experience was very negative and I was really wondering if I could get through it. However, apart from the cold I actually felt quite good and the most improvement I have made in my biking from previous races was my bike endurance. Usually there is a great contrast in my speed from the first to the second part of the bike ride. In Roth my speed was constant over the entire journey so I am very happy with this. The other thing I was really happy with was the way my Ceepo bike handled all the corners. I have never been technically competent around corners and on downhill sections and on my previous bike really struggled and felt out of control. With the rain the roads were very slippery but I felt confident on the Ceepo bike and I seemed to be cornering much better than some other people who were really finding it difficult.
My goal for the bike ride was to do around the 5 hour mark, but I didn’t think that I would do that in those bad conditions so when I finally got to the end of the bike and saw 5.01 I was very happy indeed and I certainly was very happy to get off and start running.
I felt good for the entire marathon and really loved the course. The rain had stopped as soon as I got off the bike, and the majority of the run is on fine gravel which is much easier on the legs. I could feel I was running much faster than in previous races and felt I had a much better rhythm. I usually always have a bad spell from 20 to 30km but luckily not on this day. I had come off the bike in 4th position and I was 12 minutes behind Belinda Granger. I very slowly ate away at that time difference and at 4km to go I finally caught her. I was sure that when I reached her she would start to sprint so I tried to save my energy for this point and then just as I reached her I gave it everything for the last 4km. It was really hard the last part and my hamstrings were really starting to hurt but I didn’t stop trying until the last 100m when I saw my time was less than 9 hours and that I had secured third position. I never race with a watch so I supposed I would be around 9.10. When I saw the clock with 8.57 I was ecstatic, and now I have the fastest time for any New Zealand women in history. I was most happy with my run time of 3.03 and I am getting closer and closer to my run goal time of 3 hours. The two girls ahead of me Yvonne Van Vlerken and Erica Csomor both had exceptional races and both went under the world record which hasn’t been broken since 1994 also on the Roth Course.
Even though the weather was bad and the spectator numbers were much less than that of previous years the amount of support was really overwhelming. Going up the Solarberg climb in the bike there are spectators everywhere shouting, leaving only enough room to go in single file and on parts of the run it was amazing. The best part was the finish line. There are crowds for the last 1km and at the end you run around a U shaped stand full of people it was really a great experience that I will never forget.
Finally I would like to thank the Scheibel family who have been my home stay here in Germany. They went out of their way to help me all throughout the race week, and on the race day their support was fantastic. I am now heading back to New Zealand for a couple of weeks and then I will be training in Queensland, Australia for the following 6 weeks before competing in my next race the Singapore Ironman 70.3. This race I know will definitely be warm and very good practice for Hawaii. Thanks for all the messages of support I have received, I try to reply to everyone, Take care, Gina.

This race was so much fun and so much different to any other race I have done. There is no other race in the world like it. It consists of around a 2km swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco, a hilly 30km ride and a 12km mostly off-road run. The weather here was absolutely perfect and I now resemble a tomato after coming from a much colder than usual Christchurch winter.
The race was incredibly well organized and everything went according to plan. The transition was down at the marina and we dropped our bikes off early and then were bused to the boat that would take us to Alcatraz. We were all put on the boat according to our division and the race started in waves. The pro’s started first and we were all lined up along the boat and when the horn sounded we dived in. Well I was supposed to dive but I chickened out at the last minute and jumped in. As expected the water was extremely cold. 56 degrees Fahrenheit they told us which I think is just slightly under 14 Celsius. It was a bit of a shock but wasn’t bad once I started swimming. At first the current was strongly pushing us in the direction we wanted to go. The middle section of the swim however, was a little bit rougher with rolling waves and chop. We swam across to a beach and then ran up the stairs. My feet were so numb from the cold I was finding it hard to walk. We then had a mini transition where we took off our wetsuits and put on our shoes for a 1km run to the transition (as the ground was a little rough). Some chose to run barefoot.
The bike ride is undulating throughout, just the kind of bike ride I like. I started well and caught several girls on the up hill sections but later I lost time on the down hill sections and they over took me. Throughout the race I felt like I was going in easier gears than I usually would. I had practiced the course the day before and had done the whole thing in the big chain ring but instead I had to go into the small chain ring on the front cog. After the race I found that my back brake was on and the wheel was hardly spinning at all. I had checked this more than once before the race so I am unsure as to how this happened, but at least I got a good workout I suppose!
The run section was my favorite part of the course. The first 3 km or so was flat and I had a really bad start and lost a lot of time here I think. I only came right after we headed up a few flights of stairs, through a tunnel then up a longish hill. I then found my rhythm and started to feel much better. We carried onto the beach until the turn around and heading back was much easier as it was now a tail wind. The next section was the sand ladder up 400 steps up a sand dune. I had anticipated this to be absolute agony but actually it was very easy and I was able to pass several people up that section. Once at the top we retraced the course and I had a strong finish.
So in the end I finished in 9th place in a strong field and am happy at what I now need to work on in the next few weeks. I am now off to France to train at the Triathlon New Zealand base in the Pyrenees. I am looking forward to doing a lot of cycling there and my next race will be in just over a month’s time at Challenge Roth, Germany.

Since Ironman New Zealand I have had a break from training to refresh myself for the rest of the year. I have never really had a break from training since I started three years ago so it was a bit of a struggle for me more so mentally than physically. The first 2 weeks I did pretty much nothing at all and then the last 3 weeks I did some unstructured training consisting of a bit of mountain biking, and some swimming so that I wouldn’t be totally unfit when I turned up to race Xterra NZ. Luckily I have had a fair amount of violin playing work these last few weeks to keep me occupied.
I really enjoy racing in the Xterra race and somehow I had managed to win it the last 2 years, although I always felt that my mountain biking skills or lack of really didn’t warrant me to the title. Rotorua where the race is held is an amazing place for mountain biking. The race is staged at the Blue Lake and the mountain biking takes place in the Whakarewarewa Forest. We came up a couple of days before the race to train on the course and every time I do this I am in awe of the tracks. There are so many of them and they are graded from level 2 through to level 5. The hardest we had to do was a level 4 which was pretty scary for me as I hate going down hill and over obstacles but I got through it without incident. Those 2 days on my mountain bike I could feel myself getting stronger and stronger on the bike and it is no wonder that some of the best mountain bikers in the country come from around the Rotorua region and train in that forest.
This year the course we road was different and I was not able to hang on to that Xterra NZ title. The course in previous years had been 33km with the first half being mainly single track and the latter being 4wd tracks. I always lost a lot of time in this first half and then gained some time back on the second part which required no skills but strength and endurance. I remember last year at the half way mark I was 7 minutes back in about 7th place but by the end I was in 2nd only about 3 minutes down. This year the course was only 26km and I was not able to claw any time back that I lost in the technical descents. I came off the bike in 8th place over 7 minutes behind and was only able to run my way into 4th position. I was quite happy with my race on an individual level however. I ran about 2 minutes faster than in previous years with no running training, I felt strong all day and I feel refreshed from my break. It is funny how in some races you can have a pretty good race and finish down the order and in other races you can have a bad day and still win. That is why it is important to not judge yourself on places alone.
So tomorrow I am back into training again. I have 8 weeks training here in Christchurch until I head over to Europe. On the way I will stop in at San Francisco and will race Escape from Alcatraz. This race has intrigued me since I started triathlon 3 years ago and I am very excited that I will now have the opportunity to race in it myself. I will then have 4 weeks of hard training at the Triathlon New Zealand base in the South of France before I head over to Germany to race in Challenge Roth. I am looking forward to doing lots of hard work over the next 3 months and getting myself back into the best shape possible. Thanks again to all my great supporters. It was great having my fiancée Brett racing along side me in his first ever race this weekend and thanks again to my sponsors Ceepo, Asics, Orca, Blue Seventy and High5.

This was my third ironman in less than three months and I was hoping it would be my best performance, however it showed me that I can cope quite well with two ironman races in quick succession but that three is pushing it.
After competing at the Challenge Wanaka ironman I felt that I made a quick recovery, however my blood tests did show otherwise. I knew my immune system was struggling to cope and I knew I would have to be very careful the next five weeks until my next race. I got an infected toe after racing in Wanaka which I hoped would clear up by itself but after 2 weeks I was forced to go on antibiotics. I then headed back to Wanaka to do some altitude training at Snow farm which is at 1500m altitude. Looking back now I see it wasn’t probably the best decision I have made as living at altitude doesn’t allow your body to recover quite as quickly as at sea level and after being there for only five days I developed a cold. This was two weeks before Ironman New Zealand so I decided to return to Christchurch to try and recover fully before the race. I took a few days off training and started to feel a bit better but then I stupidly combined three days of training into two and my cold returned again. So this wasn’t ideal being sick so close to my most important race but I was able to do all my sessions although I did lay off on the intensity a lot. I told myself that once the race started everything would fall into place. However just two days before the race I came down with a stomach bug so I knew on race morning that the race was going to be a bit of a challenge for me. Here is how the race turned out.
I had quite a strange swim. I found myself in no man’s land yet again. Not quick enough for the top group and there was just the two of us for the first part of the race. I drafted a guy until just before the turn buoy at which point he pulled over wanting me to do some work which I did. I made it to the turn buoy and then turned around for the return journey home and found myself completely disorientated. I could no longer see anyone in front of me and everything was orange. Two rows of orange buoys and I think two rows of kayakers wearing orange vests. The one second I had to glance up and look was not long enough to tell what was the buoys and what was kayaks so I started aiming for what I thought was a buoy but I then heard a shout as I was about to swim into a kayaker who then pointed out the buoy which was about 50m to the left so I had to swim back and the guy I was with was now about 50m in front. I tired to focus on the buoys again but this time I drifted out to the left to some more kayakers who I thought were buoys again and then I saw that about 50m to my right a big group of people. So I swam over to them and joined them to the end of the swim and I estimate I probably lost about 1 minute due to my terrible navigation. A bit disappointing as I am usually pretty good at the navigation part but I still managed a swim split just under the 50 minute mark.
I headed out onto the bike in first place but Jo Lawn was only 20 seconds behind me and I was hoping for 1.5 to 2 minutes lead. She caught me at 20k and I stayed with her and a couple of guys for the next 20 km or so interchanging the lead with her but sticking my 7m distance. The pace was then upped and I just couldn’t stay with them. At the 90k mark I was 2.5 min behind her and I was right on target for the pace I wanted to do. The rain then started and I headed into the head wind and I got very cold. I have always struggled in the cold and I love hot conditions and I felt all the power drain from my legs as I became colder and colder. I got caught by a big group at 120km which contained all the women who got 2nd, 3rd and 4th. I enjoy competing in races where the professionals get a 15min head start (such as Wisconsin and Western Australia) as this means slower women swimmers can’t draft off age group men. I believe in that kind of race these girls wouldn’t have caught me. I tried to stay 7m off the back of the pack and did so until the turn around at 135km at which point I slowed to pick up my arm band and lost the group as they sprinted off. This is not the style of racing I like to do. I enjoy being by myself all day and pushing my own limits not trying to follow others. I don’t enjoy surges in pace and like to control my own race. In the future I will try to stick to races which enable me to race this way. So I came off the bike in 5th position about 8 min down from 1st and with a bike split of 5.16. I was very pleased with this. My target time was 5.15 and I had thought that if I came off the bike less than 10mins down I could be in the hunt to contend the win. This was if I ran my normal pace. I felt confident that on this course I could run a 3.05 and that would have put me in contention at least.
However it was not to be. Coming onto the run after doing only about 1km I felt the effects for the first time in this race of that stomach bug. The race then for me became a matter of survival running from toilet to toilet. At the 21km mark heading past the transition area it took all my will power to not just run in and call it a day. I was so cold and feeling really, really bad but I knew I could not live with myself the next day if I was a quitter. The crowd was so supportive and it was them that kept me going and the thought that so many people would be racing until midnight, many with much worse problems than me and none of them would quit. So I just thought to myself I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and I can keep stopping at all the toilets and I have about 7 hours to finish. So I did that. I ran around the 3.20 mark which is pretty slow for me but not too bad considering and I was able to stay in 5th position and did a 9.33, which was probably around 15 minutes slower than what I could have done. The positives were that I did about 40mins quicker than I did last year at this race in my first ironman.
So it was a really big learning experience for me. I learnt that I can’t expect to turn up to a race where everyone else is fresh and foot it with them. And after analyzing my past year I can now see that the races I did my best in and felt good were the ones where I was well rested. So my race schedule will now be a little different. I was planning on doing another 2 ironman races before the world champs but that will now be reduced to only one. I hope that with the reduction of races I will be able to race at my potential and that means not putting such stress on my body that I get sick before a big race. The major down side is that without any major financial backing from any sponsor I am reliant solely on prize winnings to support myself, and often that is not enough to even cover the costs of getting to the event. So it will again be a very financially stressful year for me but hopefully it will pay off in the long run.
I would like to thank my family and sponsors for their support. It was great being able to race in front of them and I am sorry I couldn’t put on a better show.

I have just got home after spending a week in Wanaka where I raced Challenge Wanaka and I can say that it was the best event I’ve ever taken part in. Wanaka is the perfect place for an iron distance event in my opinion. The scenery is spectacular, the course challenging and honest, and it has probably the best weather in the country at this time of year. People were able to take part either as an individual or as a team which is a fantastic way of getting more people involved in ironman distance racing.
My major race of the season is ironman New Zealand, however there was no way I wanted to miss this race as living in the South Island of New Zealand, this is the closest to racing at home I’m ever going to get. This meant I had to race without a taper and I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be, but I was ready to find out.
We arrived in Wanaka 4 days before the race. I travelled with my fiancée Brett and my two dogs, and we camped at a camping ground on the run course. It was a beautiful setting and I enjoyed my 4 days training on the course, especially swimming in the crystal clear Lake Wanaka. It’s not often you get to swim along, turn you head and see mountains in the background! I knew I wouldn’t be seeing much in the race so I tried to soak up as much as I could while training.
Race day was absolutely perfect, best conditions I have ever raced in. I had a great swim keeping up with the top guys from the beginning. After about 1km I took over the lead for about 1200m, I actually tried to make a break and thought it had worked, but before long I felt the hands tapping on my feet again so I decided to let some of the guys do the work and in the end we came out a group of 4 or 5 of us in 50 mins. I was very pleased as I didn’t have a good swim in my last ironman race and so have been doing a bit of work to get it back up to scratch.
I already had a handy lead by the end of the swim and I would stay in the lead for the rest of the day. It is not my favourite way of racing. I quite enjoy the thrill of the chase on the run, and as the bike course was a single lap with one spot at 160km where you could see the competition I had to race with no knowledge of what was happening behind. I was very pleased with the way I was able to remain focused for nearly the entire ride. In the past I have struggled with remaining focused and my mind often drifts off, but I have improved in this area a lot. The bike was an undulating course and I really enjoyed it. It was also my first ironman race on my new Ceepo bike and it really made a difference. There was none of the suffering from poor bike position as I had experienced at ironman Western Australia and I believe I came off the bike much fresher than usual. At the 160km mark I estimated I had about a 10 min gap on second but after looking at the splits it turns out I had a fifteen minute gap after the bike section.
So coming onto the run I knew I didn’t have to run too hard to win, however I was feeling pretty good and wanted to break the race record. So I ran the first lap pretty strongly in a 1.32 and then saw I only needed to run the second lap in a 1.42 to break the record, and as I had such a big lead I decided to go pretty easy the second loop so I would have a faster recovery for my ironman NZ build-up. The run was my favourite marathon run I have done. It was 50% off road around the lake and the river and then the other 50% was on undulating roads, some of the hills were pretty unrelenting but I really enjoyed the challenge. It was a 2 lap course so it meant I got to run through the crowd at 21k and get a bit of an energy boost from them. It was apparently 34 degrees during the run but I never felt hot just thirstier than usual. I have been looking for a hot race to see how I handle the heat and I was pleased that I coped so well with it. I was very happy to run a 3.09 marathon on a tough course, without having to push myself in the second half of the run.
So in the end I finished the race in 1st place, breaking Belinda Granger’s course record from the previous year by 5 minutes and winning by 38 minutes. It was a wise decision to back off on the 2nd lap of the run as I am actually not sore at all. I am having a pretty easy week though and then it will be back into the hard work to prepare myself for ironman NZ. I am also looking forward to returning to Wanaka in only 3 weeks to participate in a Tri NZ high altitude training camp. I am very lucky to have this opportunity and would like to thank Tri NZ and SPARC for this.
So, I will be looking forward to returning next year to race this race again and am looking forward to seeing this event grow and grow over the next few years. I would like to thank the team at evenz for putting on such a great race, and for Felix for bringing the Challenge series to Wanaka and NZ. I will be taking part in the Challenge Roth later this year and am much looking forward to it.

I have just placed second in Ironman Western Australia. I had two reasons for doing this race. The first was to improve my biking on a flat course. I have always been drawn to tough, hilly courses and have never really excelled on the flat. However, I want to be an all round cyclist and this requires me to race courses which I wouldn’t otherwise favour. The second was to do a race in the heat. I wanted to race in conditions of over 30 degrees in preparation for Hawaii. Unfortunately for me however, race day temperature was only around 20 degrees.
Busselton, (about 2.5 hr south of Perth) is a perfect place for a race. With its white sand beaches and friendly atmosphere it is a great place to visit. The race started with a swim around the jetty, out and back. We had a 15min head start on the age group field. I had a really bad swim. I’m not sure why, other than I haven’t done a lot of swimming recently as I have been focusing on the bike and the run. I had a bad start, made it to the back of the first group which then split. On the return, I took a bad line, I swam in close to the jetty which was pretty choppy, and only later decided to swim further out where I found the sea to be much calmer. You learn something new from every race, and I will have to do some work now on my swim to get it back up to standard. So I ended up third female out of the swim, but around 4 min back from the lead. I am used to winning the swim, so it was a bit disappointing, but I just told myself I would have to work harder on the bike.
I aimed to do 5 hr on the bike, and the first 120km were going exactly to plan. I have made a lot of changes to my bike set up and have lowered the front of my bike. This has made me a lot more aero dynamic, but the 3 weeks I had to train with the changes, weren’t probably quite enough for my body to adjust. So, the last 60km on the bike were spent in complete agony. My left arm just decided it didn’t want to take any more weight and so I was forced to bike with one arm on the aero bars and one arm dangling at my side. So I lost a bit of time here, and ended up with a bike split of 5 hr 7 min (including transition) and in 5th place.
Going onto the run I felt pretty good and made my way up into second position about 4 min behind the leader. I was confident I could still win, but went through a bad patch from around 23 km until around 32 km, and my pace dropped. I was happy with my last 10km however, and I think I finished pretty strongly, and was pleased with my run split of 3 hr 8 min, and my overall time of 9 hr and 8 min, making me exactly 1 hr faster than my first ironman, 9 months ago in march at Ironman New Zealand.
So we have 2 days in this beautiful part of the world and we will be down at the beach. I’d like to thank my sponsors for their continued support. Blue seventy, Asics, Orca Apparel, and High 5 nutrition, and I’d like to welcome my new bike sponsor for 2008, Ceepo (www.ceepo.com). I am very excited about riding my new Ceepo bike in my next race (Tauranga Half Ironman). I think it will make a lot of difference.

Wow what an awesome race Ironman Wisconsin was. I came into the race wanting to win and wanting a Kona slot for next year and I did it. Below is my race report.
The swim was a non wetsuit swim for the professionals. When I found this out I went straight to the blue seventy crew and they fixed me up with the pointzero3 which was awesome to race in. We had a 10 minute head start on the rest of the field and I had a nice clean swim leading the chase group. The second lap we passed what felt like millions of people on their first lap and it was crazy to say the least weaving in and out of bodies. I came out first female and 2nd overall.
I have been working really hard on my biking the last few months and I was keen to see how much I had improved, but I never thought I would lead this race from start to finish. The first few km’s were quite technical with a lot of bumps and turns and I took this section quite cautiously. Once I got through this section I started to push the pace. I felt like I was going a comfortable speed and not too hard but I was amazed that I was pretty much keeping up with the pro men. The whole course is very hilly and I like the hills. Every time we headed up I got out of the saddle and sprinted. There was a motorbike zipping back and forth telling everyone their splits. After only about 15k I already had over a 2 minute lead, and then at 40k a 4 minute lead and at around 65k I had over a 7minute lead. The guys on the motorbike said “how are you doing this, who the hell are you?” After this point I didn’t know my splits until the end of the bike. Half way through the bike the wind picked up quite a bit and I started to fade a bit but I told myself to just hang in there and I would soon be on the run. My pace did drop a bit from 35.5k/hr to 33.7k/hr but I still managed to extend my lead to about 12 minutes by the end of the bike.
Heading out onto the run course there were heaps of people all cheering me on, it was pretty amazing. Immediately I felt my left calf was really sore. I wondered why this was as I’ve never had this problem before. After a few miles I realised it was because I had done my timing chip too tight and had cut the circulation in my leg. I stopped and loosened it up and within a few miles I was feeling fine. I enjoyed the run course immensely. The support was brilliant not just from all the people lining the streets but all the other competitors were cheering me on as well. I told myself not to make the mistake of celebrating too early, until I crossed that line anything could happen. I went through a few bad patches on the run. I had dropped all my gel in the first km and so had to rely on aid stations and often people couldn’t understand my accent, so I kept missing out on gel. I started to feel a little weak and dizzy at around 18 miles and so started drinking coke and eating bananas and soon started feeling great again.
Crossing the line in first place was such an amazing experience that I will remember forever. My first iron man victory. I thought I could win, but I never dreamed I would smash the course record by about 10 minutes and win by 24 mins. I finished the day with the fastest swim, bike and run splits which just proves to me how much the hard work I’ve done on the bike has paid off.
I’d like to thank Chris and Ron Hamacher for having Brett and myself stay in their house for the week. We had a fantastic time. I’d also like to thank my coach Greg for all his hard work he’s done with me over the past few months I really appreciate it.
So it feels great to be the first female to qualify for Kona 2008 (I think that is the case anyway). I leave for New Zealand today and am looking forward to being back home.

Well after last weekend I went straight into trying to find myself another ironman. So i’m pleased to say I will now be racing Ironman Wisconsin on sept 9th on my way back home to NZ. I am looking forward to the opportunity to race again as I have been working hard and I would like to see how much I have improved and what I still need to work on. Wisconsin looks quite similar to ironman UK with a lot of rolling hills so it should suit me, but hopefully it will be a bit warmer. This time I will be carrying two spare tyres (with long enough valve extenders), two co2 canisters and most importantly a simple bike pump so there should be no repeats of what happened last weekend. So it’s straight back into another 2 weeks of hard training for me.

This was to be my race. This was the race that I trained hardest for and set myself the highest goal. I wanted to win it and to gain back the slot for Hawaii that I turned down in my first ever ironman. Unfortunately things did not go according to plan.
The weather here has been pretty shocking. Luckily we didn’t race on Saturday with the heavy rain. Sunday was very cold (the high was about 13 degrees I guess but wind chill was colder) but at least there were only brief showers to contend with. We started the race at 6am and it was a deep water start in the lake at Sherborne Castle. There were 2 yellow buoys which we were to line up behind. As they kept us waiting everyone just kept creeping further forward, so the guys in kayaks kept telling us to get back but no one was budging. I’m certainly not going to let my competitors have a 2m lead. So they kept us waiting in the freezing water for about 20 min apparently. I was getting very very cold and was getting quite angry with the kayakers. We were in a perfectly straight line but just happened to be a couple of metres before the buoys, I didn’t really see the problem to be honest. Finally they let us go and I was grateful to move my body and try and gain some warmth. The swim start wasn’t too bad for me, I got a little knocked around but nothing too major, the craziness didn’t go on for too long and I was able to find some clear water and get into a rhythm. I had a pretty easy swim. I just sat at the back of the first group chasing Bryan Rhodes who had a good swim by himself. I exited the water first women in 47 min just over a minute clear of Hillary Biscay in second.
I took a bit of time in transition to put on some extra clothes that I wouldn’t usually wear as I know I get cold really easily, so Hillary beat me out of transition but I caught her up running to my bike and we started the bike together. I was looking very forward to this bike as it was a tough course with rolling hills throughout and no flat at all. I started well and got away from Hillary and was settling into a good rhythm. My hard training over the last few weeks had got me into the best cycling form of my life so far, and I know I had made massive improvements and was keen to show everyone, but at only 20k into the bike my vision came to an end.
The heavy rains had swept hundreds of small sharp stones and thorns onto the road and claimed me as a victim. I was not the only one that was for sure but I was unable to fix my problem even though I had planned 4 different back up options. Over the last week or so I knew this could be a problem as I got a puncture in training and I haven’t had a puncture in over a year. A fellow competitor showed me some tires they had just put on and after only 1 week they were just covered in holes from these sharp stones. So before the race I followed the advice from tri uk in using this new product which you put into your tires before the race, if you puncture the latex type substance moves to the hole and blocks it so you can continue riding without stopping. Tri uk kept telling me how they had this tyre pumped up and they had made 20 holes and it was still as hard as a rock, I guess the puncture I got though was bigger than those holes. So as I heard the air coming out of my back tyre I just kept telling myself to keep riding and it would reseal itself. I rode for about 1k but by then all the air was out of my tyre and I had to pull over. So out came option no 2. A can of similar stuff which you pump into the valve and it will reseal any holes and pump up your tyre at the same time. This did not work at all, it wouldn’t go into my valve (it could have been blocked by the other product) and I couldn’t even seem to get anything to come out of the can at all. So out came option no 3 and 4. I changed my tubular without hassle but then both the co2 cartridges I had would not work. One went off in my hand but the other didn’t go off at all. I kept trying for about 30min but to no avail. I realized afterwards that the problem was my extender valve was too short. I had taken the one spare tubular I have with the shorter valve by mistake. If I had punctured my front tyre there would have been no problem as the rim dish is shorter.
It is hard to describe the devastation I felt on the side of that road. All that hard work and then to be forced out of the race because of a stone. As I saw the other athletes biking by I felt like stealing their bikes so I could finish my race. If I could have fixed it I would have continued even though I would have lost about 30min but I ran out of options and in the end I don’t think there was anything I could have done.
During this process I felt myself getting very cold. An official told me that I would have to wait until 4.30pm to get picked up. At that stage I guess it was about 8am and very cold. There was no way I was going to wait on the side of the road for over 8 hours so I told him I would walk the 20k back to the start. So off I went. The wind was strong and cold and I got colder and colder and started shaking and shivering uncontrollably. I got about 6k and then reached an aid station where they made me get in a car and then I got a ride back to the start in an ambulance. Not the way I wanted to finish my race.
Later that day I tried to watch some of the race and went down to the finish but I found it much too upsetting to see everyone else finishing their race and could only stay for about 5 min. I found this race to be much different from the other 2 ironman races I have been to. The other two races were packed with people cheering on the competitors. This race was not publicized much at all and not many people I talked to seemed to know anything about it. The competitor’s compeleted their marathon in near empty streets with any support few and far between, maybe it was the weather that kept supporters away I don’t know. Not a race I would recommend to anyone that likes to compete in races with a big atmosphere but I still wished I was out there in the cold completing my 3rd ironman.
So a horrible result for me, but at least I am still fit and healthy and there is always another race around the corner I guess. A big thank-you goes to all the support I had out their today, not so much on the course (as I didn’t get to do much) but after my race ended and I was very upset. Special thanks go to my partner and my sister, who were waiting for me to complete my first bike lap and were wondering what on earth had happened to me. I now have only a few weeks left of my trip. I am very much looking forward to coming back to NZ.

i’ve just finished the long distance world champs in lorient and here is my race report. the distances for this race were 3k swim, 80k bike and 20k run, so it is pretty much like a half ironman, not what i would call long distance. it has changed from previous years distances of 4k swim, 120k bike, and 30k run and it will be returning to that distance next year which i think is a good idea.
i was happy with my swim. i was swimming in a bunch of 6 girls at the back, at around 2000m i realised that the 2 girls in front of me had lost the feet of the other 3 girls, i think they picked up the pace. so i sprinted past them but was not able to catch back up. so i came out around 20sec down i think.
this week i made some changes to my bike. i dropped the seat a little which has helped a lot and i am now feeling a lot more powerful and able to feel my legs pulling up as well as pushing down. i had a really good start to the bike. i passed 2 girls and a guy (this is actually the first time i’ve ever passed anyone on the bike i think and it felt pretty good). i came within 10 m of leanda cave at one point but we headed into a hill and she got away a little. the bike course was quite undulating which i liked with no real big climbs or descents. at the end of the first lap i was only 10 sec behind leanda, who then picked up the pace and got away from me. at this stage i started worrying whether i had put my wetsuit in my box, which sounds pretty silly but a couple of days before in a french grand prix race that i watched, javier gomez was disqualified for not doing this so i kept worrying that i would be disqualified so i lost a bit of time as i lost my focus. i stayed in second however until around 3k from the end when 2 girls caught me so i stayed 10m behind them until the end of the bike, and another few girls caught me in the transition area. in transition i saw that my wetsuit was in my box unlike a lot of other people’s, so i shouldn’t have worried about it.
heading on to the run i felt really bad. my first lap was not more than a jog and i lost around 1.30 to the girls in front of me. i tend to stuggle with knowing exactly what to eat on the bike. i think i eat too much and don’t drink enough water and then i suffer from stomach cramps on the run. after the race i realised i had not even finished half of my bottle of carbo drink. in the future i will bring water and force myself to drink it. at around the halfway point i began to feel a bit better and could pick up the pace a bit. 2 girls past me though in the last half and they were absolutely flying. i can’t run that fast. they sprint the whole 20k. i feel like i can just keep going my speed for ever but i just can’t run any faster. so at least i know that ironman is the distance for me.
so in the end i came in 6th place. i would have liked to get a podium today but i know i gave it everything and all i could manage was 6th. the girls in front of me all seemed to be half ironman specialists where as i hope to be an ironman specialist in the future.
i will now be taking a week off from all training and then will be building up for my next ironman on august 19th, ironman uk. i am really excited about this race, can’t wait to improve on my last ironman.
thanks again for my sponsors, asics footwear, orca apparel, high5 nutrition and blue seventy.