I was pretty nervous before I started but once I'd turned the arms over a few times I settled adown and just started swimming. I'm a bit disappointed with the swim, no real incidents I just wasn't that smart, one of the guys I swim with in squad and generally swim in front off came out of the water 2.5mins in front of me. I should have swum faster, don't think I put enough effort into the swim.

the sun was coming up as we were headig out to the first turn buoy. luckily by my wave they had put a big boat behind the buoy so we could sight off the boat as you could not see the buoy with the sun.
halfway out to that first turn buoy the jellys started accumulating. Not stingers just annoying slimy masses of clear jellyfish. it was horrible.

was very glad to get back to the beach

Swim faster, put more effort into racing in the swim and perhaps not be so blaze about swim training.

There was a long run up 53 steps to get to transitions, it was wet and muddy by the time I got there I managed to stack it going up the stairs. how embarassing.

had a bit of a moment to collect myself when I was back at my bike. so turned it into a bit of a slow transition, but I had my nutrition and helmets.

concentrate

this was tough! I'm very spoilt with Busselton smooth as a baby's bum roads. this road was rough as guts and I felt every bump. The roads were just so rough you could not get any momentum and had to fight the road the entire time.

I hated the first lap and really struggled to find any kind of pace. I just seemed to be out of sync or something. I finally settled down and got a good pace going on the second lap and by the third I seemed to have sped up and woken up.

I once again had horrible nutrition problems, I'd switched to gu's which worked in training but out on the bike I had the awesome projectile vomiting thing happening again unfortunately I coudln't time it this time to actually upchuck on all the cheating bloody drafters.

I knew the gu's weren't working for me but I did try another 2 on the bike to try and get a little nurtition into me. that didn't work so I stuck to just sucking down the heed and water.

One big big downside to this awesome race was the Blatant Cheats, drafting trains that kept flying past or sucking past. I got caught up with a group of girls who were blatantly drafting so much so that they all knew each others names and were calling each other out to take turns on the front.

they flew past me but suddenly stopped going up a hill, so I had dropped off the pack but when we got to the hill I had to pass them as they were going so slowly. unfortuantely they were 2 abreast and it was tough passing them without crossing the double white lines.

I managed to pass them and floored it for a bit to get free, but as they were drafting and owrking together about 10mins later they were back there and I got sucked up in their stupid cheating group again. I tried 3 or 4 breaks to get on the front and out of their zone, but s they were working together they kept catching back up.

I then tried to drop off the back and just let them go, which really isn't fair either, but tehy were a real surgy bunch with lots of speed changes I couldn't quite manage to drop off the back.

It was super frustrating and there was another guy caught in the same situation as me. I decided to give it one more go to pass them, I knew one of the big hills was coming up. so I floored it going up the hill. I also gave the ma big spray about cheats and drafting. I did managed to get past them and hold them off for quite a while. but just before the last 5ks into transition they past again, this time I did drop off the back and just hoped that the TO's would see them.

this race was just train after train of drafting and I only saw 2 to's on bikes. none of them seemed to do anything about the damn obvious drafting.

Not sure how I'd avoid the drafting but probably try and not get so annoyed at them. it was hard not to get frustrated as they were all over the road and just CHEATS!

More bike training! it was a tough course with undulating hills and dead rough roads,

Had a great transition, flew in chucked on the socks tied my laces, swapped the ride nutrition for run nutrition and off I trotted.

not much

I was so glad to get off the rattly bike roads and onto the run, I actually really enjoyed the run. I've never enjoyed a run before. I knew in the back of my mind I was running on undertrained legs but I trotted off and though just do the best you can.

I knew the gels were not working for me but thought I'd try one morej ust to make sure. sure enough a few mins later I revisited the gel and gave up on them for the rest of the race. decided coke had a lot of sugar and thought hey why not start coke a little earlier thne you'd planned to.

thank god the coke stayed down and I could get a little sugar, had heed for elctrolytes and knew I could get by with that.

I felt pretty comfortable running even though ti was very humid, it was a beautiful run and I could tell that there was actually a fair amount of people behimd me! which is not something that happens to me very often.

at the finish of my first lap I made teh mistake of looking at the finish line clock and being incredibly disappointed to see 5 hours looking back at me. It was only 3 k's later that it dawned on me that was the start gun time from the elite guys! duh, so I checked my own watch and realised that yes I woudl be able to comfortably break the 6 hour mark.

I started then to think about what time I would actually like for the race (probably something I should have done before the race started hehe!) I figured my last half Ironman time was 5.45 so if I beat that I would be happy.

I knew at the last turn around when I had 5k to go that I would break the time and I was damn happy with myself.

I think I even lifted the pace slightly on my way back to the finish line. when I crossed that finish line with 5hrs 21 on the clock I was damn happy!

Run pb time for me for 20ks! don't think I've ever broken the 6min/k mark over that distance!

More run training

I was a little lost at the finish, the rest of the group had already disappeared so I was just wandering a little aimlessly by myself. once i'd downed a few drinks and found myself I was happy enough wandering around looking at stuff. I packed up my gear and sat on the sidelines to wait for my friend, she'd had a shocker of a bike with a flat and her saddle wasn't put back together properly, so she came in wit hteh sag wagon. I sat down on the sidelines and watched/cheered folks on talking to the boy on the phone about the race.


doing an Ironman tearing my calf in dec, lack of proper training and getting a shocker of a gastro bug which knocked me out for 2 weeks.
all in all I think I did pretty well. this was tougher then the busso half even though its different distances i'm pretty happy with my time!



this is a qualifying race for the World Champs in Perth in Oct, I really want to qualify, I came 26th in my age group which would normalyl mean 5 points towards qualifying but it was Aust champs and a double points race. so I ahve 10 points. Now have to make the decision on whether I can afford/need to go to Murray Man in Adelaide or just do Busso Half to try to get more poitns.

Absolutely fabulous race! beautiful part of the country and such a well run event!