I am ready to fly back to Europe to get ready for a big season!!! Coincidentally this Half Ironman event was going on 2 days before my flight and I thought it would be perfect time for a test to guage my fitness. It was a small field but the elites included Duathlon World Champ Paul Amey and local kiwi, Jamie White. I tagged along on the swim no problem just stroking it out on Amey’s feet. The three of us headed out on the bike together but the pace was too much for me right off the bat.. I just couldn’t get going… and found myself 3 minutes off the pace already at the 30km mark. I started to worry and doubt then I swtiched on some mental discipline techniques that I have been working on. I find that I am worrying too much what is going on in a race and it takes away my concentration for what i need to be doing in the moment. Eventually I found my rhythm on the bike and caught Amey at about 44km as he had eventually been dropped by Jamie (who was having a ripper of a ride) and eventually dropped him as well. by 70 km the gap was still only 3 minutes so I was holding him. Onto the run I was 3:30 and had about 3 minutes on Amey as well.
So it was a 3 lap and here is how the splits went.
End of lap one: 2min 20 behind Jamie, and 2minutes ahead of Amey (gaining slowly but being gained on)
end of lap two: 1min 40 behind Jami and 40sec ahead of Amey. (still gaining time but losing to Amey rapidly)
At this point it was time to hurt… I could win, or I could end up in 3rd which was most likely unless I could really pick it up. I dropped the pace and it felt ok.. I gained 20 more seconds on Jamie in the next km and stopped looking back for Amey. I figured if he is going to catch me he is going to have to work for it, but I am going to catch the leader whatever happens.. I took the lead with 2.5 km to go and didn’t look back.. Amey had stopped gaining and I cruised in with a comfy 1 min lead!!
What a great feeling. I knew that I wasn’t really ready to really rip but that I would be strong the whole way. The training is definately on the right track and it was nice to get that kind of result and look forward to building from here and to hit my best races in June and July!!
aucklandhalf2009.pdf
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