After departing from
Wanaka, it was time to get some R&R in between the two races. With 14 days between two IRONMANs, I was
going to be asking a lot from my body.
This is the second time that I have done something crazy in terms of
racing IMs close together. The last time
was back in 2013 when I raced Kona, 14 days later 70.3 Austin, and 6 days later
IMFL, you can read about that HERE.
Needless to say, I
thought there was a chance that this could go well. I had some good training while in California
and then a good 70.3 in Dubai. I
thought that Challenge Wanaka full could give me another boost in fitness and I
could show up to Taupo hopefully somewhat recovered from Wanaka and have a good
race. I spent the 14 days in between
taking it pretty easy and just enjoying the sites of New Zealand with my
wife. We spent some time in a van, down
by the river, and then after 2 nights of that upgraded to an AirBnB in Taupo.
When I originally
planned this trip and race schedule I thought there was a chance both Wanaka
and Taupo would have fairly small fields, but then IM Melbourne was canceled,
which had people changing up their race schedules and a big field assembled for
IMNZ (Taupo). Since the trip was already
planned and the tickets were booked I just rolled the dice and figured we would
see what happened.
I woke up on race
morning feeling pretty good and ready to race.
I slept a lot in the previous 14 days and really took care of trying to
recover from Wanaka. I just didn't know
how the body would react until the gun went off.
Swim- 53:12
I really started to
believe that my swim was coming along and I was confident in how I had been
swimming given how Dubai and Wanaka went.
I lined up near Matt Hanson hoping that I would be able to swim with
him. I got out to a good start and found
some feet to stay on. After about
200-300m I had gotten popped off of the tail end of the first pack, I was
"that guy" that let the gap open.
Around 400-500m the women started coming by us in ones and twos. First was Lauren Brandon and then MBK, and
then a small pack of 3. Matt Hanson and
I were able to get onto those girls' feet and swim with them for a while. I got popped off of that group at the half
way point, and shortly after joined another small group of women who were towing
a few other men along. One of the guys
ended up being Joe Skipper. I exited the
water in the second main pack of guys and was happy with where I was at.
Bike- 4:47
Coming out of the
water better than I normally do meant that the possibility of getting passed by
more people. This is something that
typically doesn't happen due to my poor swim and somewhat strong cycling
ability. However, with the improved swim
I was now facing guys behind me being strong bikers. So one by one a few guys came by, with the
likes of Matt Russell, Joe Skipper, and then Dougal Allan (who had just won
Wanaka). I couldn't quite hold pace with
any of those guys so they went by pretty quick.
I rode a pretty solid first 90 km and then literally at 90 km, my power
dropped from 260 W to 230 W. There was
nothing I could do, not really sure what happened, but I would like to think
that something about that race 14 days ago happened to hit my legs. From that point on, I was pretty much stuck
at 230 W and couldn't seem to put out more power consistently.
Run- 3:45
I came off the bike
pretty much out of the race, but I wanted to see what I had in my run legs so
off I went. I settled into a good pace
and was feeling good. I went through 21
km in around 1:32 which is where I was hoping to run for the whole marathon, a
low 3 hour marathon. I continued to push
on and then around 30 km, the legs just didn't want to cooperate. The body was drained and I was mentally
checked out. Meredith Kessler had caught
me around that point and she went on to win the race leaving me in her dust
after running with her for about 1 mile.
I ran, jogged, trotted and walked the last 12 km and finally got across
the line. It was a rough day to say the
least.
Swim - 53:12 / Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/509574460
Bike- 4:47:47 / Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/508790003
Training Peaks: http://tpks.ws/oY1R
Training Peaks: http://tpks.ws/oY1R
Run- 3:32:07 / Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/509574583
Training Peaks: http://tpks.ws/vuUfg
Training Peaks: http://tpks.ws/vuUfg
Total- 9:32:59 / 20th Pro
(Results
Link: http://ap.ironman.com/triathlon/coverage/athlete-tracker.aspx?race=newzealand&y=2016#axzz46Ipnw3F6 )
Like every race, I
consider it a success as long as you learn something. Lesson learned here is that I currently am
not capable of backing up 2 IMs within 14 days of each other. So chalk it up as a learning experience and a
long 9+ hours spent Swimming, Biking and Running to see the great town of
Taupo.
Even though the
racing did not go as planned down under, it was still an amazing
experience. I had never been to
Australia or New Zealand and Hila had never been to New Zealand. We were able to get some amazing sight seeing
in and see a part of the world that I had never seen.
Here are some
pictures from the trip:
1 comment:
It's nice when you can settle into a progressive, smooth pace.
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