We started about 15mins late for some reason I was on the right side and got in a good position quickly for an anti clockwise swim (1 km per lap). I could see a couple getting a flier and well beyond me, then a second group formed... I ended up just hanging onto the third group for the first lap. At the end of lap 1 exited the water close to the right and ran along the beach further... this got the heart rate up but also gave me the opportunity to get back into the 3rd group. I swam very hard for the second lap and stayed with this group just loosing touch over the last 300m leg to the beach... A sub 28min swim this is a record for me by heaps. No-one thought the swim was short either! Top 20 swim. Ave HR 155 this was 4bpm higher than Tauranga. A top swim for me!
A sub 1 minute transition got me onto the bike quickly and catching people fast... Was having a few problems though, was not able to drink without it coming back up... yuk!By the time I hit Cleavedon I was in 2nd place... Greg then caught me and I sat on his wheel (legal of course) until the top of snake hill where we got our first split to first (3mins)... The left leg was feeling a bit sore and I was not able to push that hard so was sitting in. Once we got closer to the flat sections at about 50Km I took the lead again and started pushing the pace in the hope of closing the gap. At the turnaround (60K) the gap was only down to about 2 mins, Greg still with me, so I upped the pace again to see If I could drop Greg and reduce the gap to first... Coming back was hard... the three hills and gradual up hill really does hurt the legs. The road is quite rough too that makes it very slow going. Just coming into transition I got past by Mr Strong (first team) and then got a split to first - at least 5mins... Bugger! He must have pushed the pace more seeing how close we were at the turnaround too! 2h27m I think. A good ride in the end but felt really hard and did not drink/eat enough.
Anyhow another quick transition (again under 1 min) got me out onto the run course and fired up to see if I could close the gap... Started fast. Was feeling like a bit of cramp could strike at any moment so took some salt tabets and water on the legs - seems to help. The run course is a three lap out and back so is really good for splits... after 3.5Km the gap was up to 6mins even though I ran it in 13m30s!. Third was about 2mins back. After 7km it was nearly 7mins! Oh well, he was running extremely fast - sub 1hr 20m pace I think.... I was on target for 1h 24m but lost a bit of time on the out leg for the third time... Had to really dig deep last 3k and manage to hold off Greg for second extending to about 4mins.
Ended up with a 1h25m very pleased Total time was 4h22m this is less than 4mins slower than the Tauranga Half so a respectable time I think.... even allowing for a possible short swim - possibly 100m.
Turns out our winner was a German pro, Konstantin , over for some training before their season begins... I think he will do well.
The podium... me, Konstantin, and Greg.
