Hi guys,
Yesterday was the first 70.3 (Half Ironman) of the season for me here in New Orleans. It was my first time visiting the big Easy and I will leave with nothing but good memories of the City.
I arrived on Wednesday evening after a long trip from New Zealand, actually it was more like Thursday morning, but who’s counting days. I managed to get a few good nights sleep thanks to my friends Imovan and Melatonin, but I still struggled to get out of bed at 4am on race morning. Luckily I set 3 alarms!
The pro field was world class and included Chris “Macca” McCormack, Andy Potts, Paul Amey & Dirk Bockel just to name a few. I arrived in Transition at 6 to find out my new Lazer helmet, that came in from Europe didn’t have the correct US safety sticker and I wasn’t allowed to use it. Thankfully Will, a kind age grouper gave up his aero helmet for me.
We kicked off the swim in the rough conditions with fellow New Zealander Graeme O’Gradey pushing the pace in the chase pack behind the leader, Potts. Sighting the buoys was pretty tough but we managed to navigate through the 1900m swim losing 1minute 30seconds. This was not a good deficit to have on Potts but I wasn’t going to wreck my race by chasing him the first half of the bike. I tried to ride steady and strong for the first 45km/ 28miles then decided it was time to work on catching up as there no way of challenging for the victory from so far back.
I timed my chase perfectly and caught Potts within the last mile. This was going to make for an interesting race. I sped through transition gaining a small lead while he was putting his socks on… I think he has delicate feet (shhhhh, don’t tell him I said that though). My lead was quickly eaten up and he came past me like a man possessed. I felt pretty good, the legs were turning over well but I just couldn’t change gears to go with him. I was stuck in my own rhythm with no deeper to dig.
The 21km/ 13mile from Lake Ponchatrain to downtown New Orleans went by reasonably quick and soon I was running through the French Quarter in second place. It had been a good day and although 1st place would have topped off my experience of New Orleans I was contempt to settle for second… this time around. Potts is a class athlete and I just wish he wouldn’t have made the victory look that easy.
Paul Amey rounded off this top 3, and fellow Kiwi, Sam Warriner took out the girls race.
A quick thanks to a local kid – Sam Leblanc who helped me out all week with food, training and transport. Would have struggled without his local knowledge.
Next stop, Galveston, Texas for the US national 70.3 championships next weekend.
Regards
T
