I just finished my first race of the season. Ironman 70.3
Florida in Haines City. The race venue used to be at Orlando Disney World but
has moved down here the past couple years and while I would have been exciting
to race with Mickey Mouse the venue down here was pretty awesome.
Training the past 5 weeks has gone well. My fitness and
strength has come up nicely and I was looking forward to seeing how my body
would step up in my first race. The course was not your typical Florida pancake
flat race. The bike was undulating throughout and the rolling hills were good
little power climbs. Dirk Bockel was an absolute axe on the bike today and did
most of the pushing out front. With the hot pace the 6 guys that had formed the
front bunch slowly started dropping off and by the time we got to the last
20miles it was Dirk, Kevin Collington (who is a new name on the scene but is
performing really well in his past couple races) and myself. Dirk and I managed
to get a little 1minute buffer on Collington going into Transition.
Again, the run was the furthest thing from what you would
expect for a race in Florida. A 3 lap course with a couple good climbs that you
really felt on the 2nd and 3rd lap. Dirk and I started at
a pretty relaxed pace and when we got to mile 4 and saw Collington closing in I
had to pick up the pace. Soon I was running solo up front counting down the
miles to the finish.
I ended up crossing the finish line over 1minute up and am
really please with how the day unfolded and where my fitness is at. I feel that
I have strong base to grow on through the season and am looking forward to seeing
what the rest of the year has in store.
Next stop for me is going to be the ITU long course World
Championships that are in Belfort France, up near the Swiss boarder. This is a
new distance for me but I thought that the 4km swim, 120km bike and 30km run
will be a good stepping-stone between the Half and Full Ironman distances. Mark
Allen used to kill it over this distance before he started winning Kona so
hopefully I can learn a bit more about my body over the longer distances.
If you are interested here is the link to coverage from
Nutri-Grain Ironman NZ -
and below is a little interview about what has been going on
and what’s next.
