Kona 2014 - 100 Days and the countdown is on

Today my Countdown to Kona timer is showing 100 days - last day in the triple digits!

With that I'm into the first week of the Kona training program and my semi-recovery from Cairns is well and truly behind me.  It's been a great recovery and St Pete and I have enjoyed the extra time available to us, knowing that the blinkers will now be on for the next 100 days and it will be all about Team Irongirl.

With all that time on our hands, though, we did manage to get up to some mischief.

5.30am in the garage

Minds out the gutter people!  In the space of 4 weeks we managed to finalise the sale of our property in Christchurch and buy an apartment in Cronulla - the triathlon mecca of Sydney!  Lesson to be learnt from this?  Don't give me too much empty time on my hands!  And, after no doubt spending hours devising my "cunning plan", Coach Dave got handed a compulsory mid-program break to include in the schedule.  Of course he took it in his stride and commented that we had timed the move perfectly.  Thanks D :)

So, mid-winter and training is back on.  And with it, lots of windtrainer sets.  Because even in Sydney riding in the winter is not a lot of fun.  But then again, long sessions on the wind trainer aren't a lot of fun either.  But that's OK because keeping me going on those sets are the tales of Ironmans past.  I've started downloading from YouTube the Kona coverage from previous years and this morning selected 2004 to keep me company.

These programs are great for maintaining the motivation and remembering that there's always someone out there doing it harder than you.  For instance in 2004:

• Tracey Richardson from New Zealand featured.  She's the ordinary (formerly morbidly obese) kiwi mum who got off the couch and did ironman to make her kids proud and to raise awareness and funds for cystic fibrosis, a nasty disease that had hit two of her four children.  Tracey wrote a book about her road to Kona (Tracey Richardson: Going the Distance) and it was one of the many inspirational stories I read long before I even considered embarking on this journey myself.  
• Then there was Sarah Reinertsen who had one leg amputated above the knee when she was 7 because of a bone growth disorder.  It was heart wrenching to listen to her talk about her school coach not letting her do soccer drills with the other kids but made her kick the ball against a wall by herself.  And, as the narrator pointed out, recounting the story of having her leg amputated didn't bring her to tears, but the story about her soccer coach did.  Yep, I also hope there's a soccer coach out there who watched that story.
• Finally, the guy who was walking his bike to transition.  He got hit by a motorbike and his rear wheel was totally smashed up.  With 7 miles to go he was told he was allowed to walk it in and that he had time.  So he put the bike on his shoulder and started walking.  And made it into T2 with just minutes to spare before the bike cut off.

Towards the end of the coverage we saw Sarah come in off the bike.  She had missed the bike cutoff by 15 minutes.  And knowing, and seeing, how devastating that was brought tears to my eyes and added to my own resolve.  Sarah would come back in 2005 and nail it - and that, in my eyes, is what this is all about.  Using those obstacles to become stronger and finishing what you set out to do.

100 days and counting.

Ironman Cairns 2014 - Since when was the tropical north supposed to be so cold?

You'd think that with seven ironman finishes under my belt, at only two different locations, that I'd have all the bases covered.  No surprises left, it should be nice and predictable by now and, dare I say it - boring?

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Cairns, that tropical paradise in Far North Queensland in Australia, decided to throw us a curveball on Sunday, in the form of rain.

17 hours of it in fact.

We started in the rain.  We finished in the rain.  In between there was rain, mud, puddles.  Oh, and some more rain just for good measure.

Did I mention it rained?

OK, enough of the rain - onto the day!

I had had a pretty low key build up and, as mentioned in a previous post, this race was all about practising strategies for Kona.  The Cairns climate has been likened to Kona conditions and so keeping it in the schedule meant I could try out Coach Dave's plan to ensure I survive the lava fields in good enough shape to soak up the experience.

That message obviously didn't get through to Mother Nature.

The day before, Lisa, Mel and I rode the bikes out to Palm Cove where the swim start and T1 would be located for the first time.  (Tip for anyone reading this and thinking about doing IM or IM70.3 Cairns - don't worry about the stress of having your bike transported out to T1 at Palm Cove. It's an easy 60 minute ride on bike lanes following the main road north out of Cairns.). It was here we got our first look at the new swim course.

Of course all the marketing shots show a gorgeous palm fringed beach with crystal blue, calm water. What we actually got was murky brown surf crashing onto shore with the palm trees blowing in the wind…  Surf session anyone?

Surveying the surf … not quite like the brochures...

It didn't make for confidence, especially when even now the swim remains my biggest psychological challenge with these events.  As a result our quiet, relaxed night-before-race-day became a wonderful breeding ground for doubts and nerves to show their ugly faces and it took all my secret boxes of tricks to deal with them.  Bad thoughts!

If only I could get excited about the swim like I do the bike...

Thanks Specialized!

Anyway, race morning arrived and I had slept really well and was in a good head space to go and have a great day. Raincoats on, we walked down to the buses that would take us out to Palm Cove.  Once there I went into T1 to do the usual pre-check on Black Beauty. Garmin Edge 810 set, electrolyte drink in bottle between the aero bars, water in the bladder and fuel cell loaded with food.  And a nice surprise waiting at some of our bikes - seat covers on the Specialized bikes, from Specialized, wishing us luck.  A nice touch which brought a smile to the face.  Tyres pumped up I made my way out tof the soggy transition area to find Pete. 

While I had been mucking around in T1 he had found a dry spot for us - the Pullman Hotel was just down the road and had opened its foyer to us, and so this is where around 100 athletes gathered to stay dry and as warm as possible.

Eventually it was time to go down to the start and I was hoping like anything that the sea would have calmed down since the previous afternoon.  Thankfully it had and, while it was still pretty lumpy, it was nowhere as bad as I feared it would be.  

The pros went off and finally it was our turn - the music was pumping and I got into my happy place - dancing on the beach! Let's do this!

The gun goes off and 1600 athletes make their way into the water and out through the break.  It felt like a couple of minutes before I could start swimming properly amongst the crowds but eventually we got going.  The new course is a big rectangle and we would swim two laps, exiting at the opposite end of the rectangle to the starting point.  As with Taupo this year, I seemed to be on the receiving end of a lot of contact, although I didn't seem to get as short of breath at the beginning as I usually do.

A really interesting aspect to this swim was that I had no time on me.  Because of the different race plan, I was going to use the Garmin Edge 810 on the bike so I could watch my heart rate and cadence and then put the Garmin 910xt on for the run.  That meant I had nothing for the swim and so my usual halfway time check didn't happen.  That meant I was able to just settle in and swim, find feet and think happy thoughts.

And that I did.  There was a bit of chop out there - enough to prevent getting into a proper rhythm and enough to get tossed against other swimmers (and vice versa) but not enough to really restrict progress. Even so I was a happy camper to land on the beach (or actually "get dumped on the beach"!) and make my way up through the showers and through into transition.  There was no clock on the beach and so I didn't have a clue how long I'd been in the water however there were a good number of women in transition with me so I took that as a good sign!

I took a bit of time in transition to make sure as much sand as possible was off my feet and made my way out to Black Beauty.  So much for thinking my feet were clean though - as we walked/ran out of the tent we walked/ran straight into a muddy quagmire.  I grabbed Black Beauty and tried rolling her to the exit but the mud was so deep I ended up picking her up and carrying her the 100m to the other end of transition.

Yuk!

On the bike finally, I saw St Pete as I got going and gave him a wave.  As I rolled by he called out that I had done a 1:28 swim.  Was that good, I asked myself?  I had been so disinterested in time splits this time round that I had done none of my usual reviews of past results and so spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out if it was an OK time.  I eventually gave up on that idea and decided that anything under 90 minutes was AWESOME (haha) and left it behind with the mud in transition.

Afterall I had 6 hours on the bike to deal with…

(My official swim time was 1:28:47, almost 5 minutes faster than IM Cairns the previous year.)

I've raved about this before in previous IM Cairns race reports so I won't go on much here, other to say that normally the bike course is one of the most gorgeous and scenic in the world.  Unfortunately we missed the best of it with the rain but the bonus of the day was that the wind we have had in the previous two years managed to stay away for the bulk of the leg.

It still meant for a cold, wet ride, however, and I suffered big time.

While I passed a lot of people (non-aggressively, this was just a training ride!) in the first half of the ride, I never managed to get the legs warmed up properly and so maintaining Coach Dave's desired 95+ cadence just wasn't on the cards.  I focused instead on getting my heart rate down after the swim and then riding conservatively enough to keep it as close as possible to 135 bpm (the second part of the race plan).  I did find myself thinking though that if I let my heart rate stay higher then I would also stay a bit warmer.  So I ended up with an average heart rate of 140bpm which, in the conditions, I was pretty happy with afterwards.

The weather also impacted on my nutrition and that would come back to bite me later on in the evening.  Because I was taking in rain water, and was cold, I didn't get the thirst that I normally come to expect.  That meant it was extra important to remember to take in fluids and so I focused on drinking my electrolyte drink throughout the ride.  Even so, over the 180km I found I had only taken in one bottle of water and one bottle of electrolyte - and while it felt fine at the time, as you'll see at the end I've come to the conclusion that I likely didn't take in quite enough.

Solid food was the other important strategy and for the second time I dispensed completely with gels and had "real" food only in the form of handmade balls and bars of dates, nuts, cacao, coconut and chia seeds.  They sat in my fuel cell on the bike and in my back pockets, individually wrapped in glad wrap.  They were really easy to take out, unwrap and eat and the glad wrap was simple to stuff into the back pocket of my tri suit.  The only slight problem with the nutrition plan was the schedule of taking a banana at each aid station.  For the first three aid stations (60km) it worked a treat.

And then they ran out.

Yep, by the time I got half way through the course there were no bananas available to hand out to us….who mucked up that calculation?!!!!!  Guess what feedback I'll be giving IM when their post-event survey comes out…

And then as if the weather wasn't causing enough challenges I started facing my second major challenge of the day.

My gut.

As I was heading to Port Douglas for the first time I started feeling really gassy, uncomfortable and bloated.  A portaloo stop was needed … and taken.  And straight afterwards I posted my fastest average  split on the bike leg!  Time obviously well spent :)

Posting a fast bike split within the leg wasn't to be sneezed at either.  Again the rain put a dampener on the party with caution having to be taken on the descents and roundabouts.  Where normally I'd put the hammer down on descents and power through roundabouts at 100%, the rain plus my slick racing tyres meant that I was approaching these sections much more cautiously.

But that's OK - I'm supposed to be riding conservatively anyway…

And I did, and all was well until one of the last bridges heading into Cairns.  I was probably only around 5km from the end and powering along the bridge when I come to the other end and realise I'm about to plow into a huge pothole.  It was full of water and so basically invisible until I was on top of it.   I had just enough time to stand on the pedals and start hoping for the best when I crashed through it, came out the other side (still on the bike thankfully - gotta love those old mountainbike skills!) but hearing a big thud down the road behind me.  I looked down and the fuel cell had jumped out and was bouncing down the road.  A couple of micro seconds were spent deciding whether to go back for it - but I decided it was actually worth stopping for and so hauled on the brakes and ran the bike back 50m to where it and half its contents were strewn across the bike lane.  The fuel cell was in two pieces, but thankfully they were the two pieces it was manufactured as, so I was able to put them back together, slot it back onto the frame and get back on the road without too much delay.

Reading all this you're probably thinking I had a miserable ride.  Well, no, actually it was awesome!  And maybe that's what makes us so passionate about this sport.  I spent over 6 hours dealing with all these issues on the bike but rolled into T2 wet, cold, but in one piece and really happy.  Even better I had suffered no punctures and was free of any aches and pains and ready for a bit of a run.  It had been planned as a conservative ride and I felt as though it had been a good conservative effort.  Awesome!

(A 6hr 18min split for the bike was 21 minutes slower than last year but still 34 minutes faster than the year before and so, for a training day, I was more than happy with that effort.)

I gratefully handed Black Beauty over to a volunteer in T2, grabbed my run bag and headed into the change tent.  Again, spent a few extra seconds making sure my feet were dry before putting my socks and running shoes on and, again, wondered why I bothered.

As I ran out of the tent I ran straight into yet another muddy quagmire and literally had to tiptoe my way onto the run course.  Not the way I had planned to start!

The plan for the run was to again take it conservatively.  Aim to walk each aid station and run the rest.  Ultimately, though, I didn't want to hammer the legs as we need to get them recovered as soon as possible so we can start the Kona buildup.

The run course at Cairns is now a 3 lap course entirely around the Esplanade.  The first 14km (first lap) went pretty much to plan with me ticking off the kilometres and taking in electrolyte at each aid station.

All was good with the world until I started getting the same gut problems as I had on the bike.  What's going on there?!  The second lap, then (after a toilet stop) became a low point and at one pass I remember telling St Pete to settle in for a long evening.  At several points I was debating with myself whether it would be better just to walk the remaining distance.  The pros for that being it wouldn't upset my gut any further and wouldn't stress the legs so much, after all this was just a training day.  On the downside, the more I walked the colder I was getting.

And that wasn't a good thing.

At a couple of aid stations, while I was pausing to pick up lollies, people would be stopping and asking for emergency blankets.  Silver-wrapped bodies became more prevalent as the night wore on and I
really didn't want to be one of them.

I persevered through the second lap and gratefully accepted my third wristband which signified that I was on that glorious last lap.  Not too much further along I caught up to another girl in my age group and we started walking/running together.  Sandi was also a bit of an ironman veteran like me and we found ourselves chatting away as we encouraged each other through the final lap.  She was struggling with toenails and I was struggling with the cold and gut issues, but we had enough conversation in us to take our minds off things for most of that lap.

Finally we were at the final turnaround and there was just a 4km stretch left back to the finish.  How good did that feel, except 3km out and my gut decides it needs another toilet stop.  Now!  I therefore tell Sandi to carry on and that I'll try and catch her or see her at the end.

I get running again and start picking off people looking to see if I can catch Sandi.  I can sense the finish line and am feeling strong and catch her with about a kilometre to go.  For about 100m I run with her and then I feel her dropping back and before I know it she's urging me to carry on.  By this stage I'm really starting to feel the cold quite badly and so we agree to find each other at the food tent and with that I put in a bit of a burst and have a strong and happy finish across the line in 13:56:04.

(For a conservative training day, this finish time was only 2min 30sec slower than Cairns last year. My run split ended up being 5:55:23, almost 15 minutes faster than last year.  Super stoked with that!)

After I crossed the finish line things felt great and the volunteer who walked me around to the recovery area deemed me OK to carry on and left me to have my finish photo taken and then find some food.  I walked through, got my T-Shirt and then started feeling not too flash.

This was a new experience.

I went and sat down for a few minutes and thought I'd try and walk over and collect my T1 bag.  Walked over there and had to sit down again.  I was suddenly feeling nauseous and faint, so took myself back to medical and they sat me down with an emergency blanket and some bottled water to sip on for 10 minutes.  Wow, those blankets really do keep the cold out!

After about 10 minutes I felt good enough to leave under my own steam and headed out to find a very happy St Pete and we slowly made our way back to the apartment and a very welcome hot bath!

All in all, then, a great day out, and the following pointers for next time:

• As a training day it went perfectly.  I raced conservatively and didn't feel too smashed the next day.  
• As a training day for Kona it wasn't that good - but you can't do much about the weather!
• Pack a polypro top for the run bag, even for tropical Cairns!  While the conditions were identical to my first ironman in Taupo, in 2011, there was a big difference in that this time I didn't have an additional 17kg of "insulation" to keep me warm.  Made a big difference...
• The visit to medical we've put down to my nutrition getting behind on the bike.  I possibly fell behind on the electrolytes and bananas and then didn't manage to recoup it on the run, resulting in being just a bit out of balance by the time I finished.
• The gut issues?  I've concluded that this was caused by the pasta we had at the welcome dinner.  I no longer have pasta as part of my normal diet and seem to react to it the few times I have had it over the last year or so.  Given this was the only thing I ate that was out of the ordinary, I therefore think it was just too much of a carb load for my gut to handle.  As a result I have added a very important reminder to the welcome party entry on the Kona itinerary:

STAY AWAY FROM THE PASTA!

What Motivates You?

When it comes to incorporating exercise into your life, one of the key ingredients for success is finding out what motivates you.  Figuring that out gives you a reason to exercise and achieve all the benefits that go with it.

For me, my motivation is having a big audacious goal.  Ironman tends to fit that quite nicely and in the past few months Kona has been foremost in my mind at 4.00am getting ready for yet another train trip down to Kurnell for a ride or jumping into the pool, in the wind and the rain, for a swim.

Today, however, neither Kona or ironman was sufficient motivation.

And here it was I found that motivations can change.  Because today the only thing that got me through this morning's ride was ... banana bread.  Yep, you read right.  Banana bread.

I was due to do an 80km ride at Kurnell - 4 laps at a steady pace.  Showers were forecast but I wasn't too concerned.  The rain radar didn't show any major rain coming and so at 5.09am I was on the train heading for Cronulla. By 6.30am I was starting my first lap.

All was good, and pretty quiet on the roads.  However as I started the second lap the rain rolled in and started to make life pretty miserable.  By the time I reached 40km and the halfway point I was debating the virtues of pulling the pin on the day.  I was soaked and while not too cold, all too aware that I had an hour long train ride back home and wouldn't have an opportunity to dry off or warm up on the trip back home.  And a week out from Ironman Cairns, it would be just my luck to get sick.

So I continued arguing with myself, at one point actually turning and starting to ride back towards Cronulla to call it a day. That lasted about 100m before I figured I may as well carry on - I was already wet and I could look forward to a hot takeaway coffee and toasted banana bread to have on the train going home.

And that was enough to keep me going all through the third lap.  I was still considering pulling the pin at the end of the third lap - conditions were shocking, another cyclist had come off on the slippery road and had broken his collarbone and the road to Kurnell is essentially built on sand dunes, so wet weather tends to not only result in the bike (and me) getting wet but getting covered in sand as well.

However every time I thought about pulling the pin I would also think that a 60km ride wasn't enough to justify the banana loaf.  To earn it and really enjoy it I had to do the full 80km, or 3hrs of riding.

So today it wasn't about Cairns or Kona.  It was the thought of hot toasted banana bread that got me through the fourth and final lap.  

And it tasted great!

P.S. Black Beauty (and Irongirl) felt like they had actually been mountain biking by the time they got home.  Black Beauty suffered the new name of "Dirtiest. Bike. Ever." However that all changed after 2 hours of washing sand out of every crevice and surface.  

Irongirl calls that the Worst. Job. Ever.

Ironman Cairns - Will I or Won't I?

Today we have reached the 4 week countdown to Ironman Cairns.

As I was writing this, 4 weeks today I should be starting the run leg and will have hopefully executed a pretty good bike leg strategy in preparation for Kona.

Kona!  

Yep, the fact that St Pete and I are going is still a bit of a "pinch me" moment although, to be honest, a lot of the excitement has now been replaced by the reality of planning, saving and preparing for the day of my life.

A lot has happened in the last couple of months, primarily around planning for Kona.  The first question that people started asking was would I still do Ironman Cairns?  And then the first question Coach Dave asked (after we had collectively returned to earth!) was what my goal was for Kona.

Ironman Cairns was a tricky one.  On one hand I didn't need to do it anymore.  The primary focus of that race had been to serve as my 2nd IM of each year as part of my long term goal of getting 12 IM finishes and a Kona Legacy Lottery slot.  With a Loyalty Lottery slot that long term goal was now kicked out of the ballpark.  If I didn't do it we would save some dollars (which could be redirected towards the Kona trip) and annual leave (which could also be redirected towards the Kona trip!). On the other hand I wouldn't get back a lot of the entry fee for Cairns, so would lose out there.  There was also the question of recovery from Cairns - could I do the race and recover in time to then do a decent build up for Kona?

While we were busy tossing around Cairns pros and cons Coach Dave was busy tossing around a new training plan.  I had been able to give him some good guidance on my goals for the day - I won't be at the pointy end of the field and I know how tough the Kona conditions are likely to be.  People (including pros) are known to blow up and suffer big time in the heat and wind and it's a non-wetsuit swim, making my weakest discipline that much more challenging.  So with that knowledge in mind my whole objective is to not have any time expectation but rather focus on finishing (before midnight!), soaking in the atmosphere and appreciating the experience and opportunity I have been given to race at the Mecca of ironman.

The Kona Finish Line

On that basis Coach Dave figured that I could keep Cairns in the schedule.  He believed I would have enough time to recover, provided we use it as a training day only and a practice run for his Kona race day strategy for me. No ego allowed on the bike, no chasing of a PB...!

So Cairns here we come.  It'll be a flying visit, literally.  Pared to the bones, to minimize cost and annual leave, we'll be flying in on Thursday for a Sunday race and returning to Sydney the day after - afterall it's all about Kona!  And the funniest thing of all?  I've been guilty of that typical mad triathlete statement of describing my next half iron distance race to non-triathlete friends as "just a training day" and receiving their gobsmacked reactions.  Imagine the response when I start describing IM Cairns as "just a training day".

Maybe I'll just keep that little detail to myself...

Bootcamp DOMS - It's gotta be good for you...

This morning we bootcamp crew made Rich, our trainer, a very happy guy.

As we started to congregate at this morning's session in Bradfield Park, just before 6.00am, there was a common theme coming through the conversation.

DOMS (or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) was the cause of everyone's complaints this early Friday morning.

And I, fresh from Ironman New Zealand, was suffering like everyone else.

Wednesday had been my first day back to bootcamp.  I was glad to be returning to the fold after 5 weeks away but was also under strict instructions from Coach Dave to temper my activity.  I'm still in recovery mode and so had to make sure I eased my way back rather than go gangbusters.

And so I did.

We did a whole stack of backwards running up stairs, running backwards up hills, lunges and squats.  About halfway through my injured knee started twinging  a little so I stopped with the deep knee work and moved onto cobras, tricep dips and push ups while everyone else did backward step ups.

All good and everyone was happy ... until Wednesday night when virtually every muscle in my body started seizing up.  By Thursday morning I was walking around like an old woman and feeling very achy and sore.  And more than once I was thinking to myself that I wasn't this sore after ironman this year.  

What the?!

I certainly didn't think I had gone hard out but could only imagine that my 5 weeks away from Bootcamp was punishing me big time.  This morning, and due for another hell session, I seriously questioned whether I'd get through it and quietly tossed up whether I should be going.  But I decided to suck it up, and glad I did.

Because as I was standing in the plaza with my fellow bootcampers it soon became clear that my 5 weeks away wasn't the problem.  Instead Rich had managed to come up with a cunning routine that had challenged muscles that we hadn't activated for a while. And that's a good thing.

And so while we were all suffering, he was a very happy trainer.

Oh, and apparently it proves that 50 minutes of bootcamp is tougher than 13 hours of ironman....  In which case I'm looking forward to seeing them all on the start line of ironman next year!

Pass me a walking frame.

Ironman New Zealand 2014: The Run

7 hours, 45 minutes and 10 seconds after the starting cannon had gone off that morning I was handing Black Beauty over to one of the fab volunteers in Transition 2.  Despite the puncture she had done me proud and I was ready to head out for a "little" run…

As with T1, the volunteers were in a party mood and had my transition bag ready to hand me as I ran through their lines.  While we were all out riding they were busy adding our names to the transition bags and so by the time we got back they were not just handing our bags to us, they were also yelling out "Go Toni!" as I laughed and did a whoop of joy while heading through and into the tent.  Another amazing volunteer was inside waiting just for me (well it seemed like it!) and emptied out my bag ready to help put on socks, running shoes and put away my helmet and bike shoes.

A big thank you to her and I was out the other end, pausing again for another application of sunscreen and a quick toilet stop - my first one since the swim.

I jogged out of T2 feeling pretty good and got my head ready for the next/final 5-6 hours.

The run is a 3 lap course, out and back through Taupo's lakeside residential area.  The atmosphere in this final stretch is phenomenal with street parties and cheering spectators all the way.  Even so, I knew this leg was going to be all about the head.  It was going to be my mind that would get me through this and I was as ready as I had ever been to get the job done.

The plan was to start out slow and steady and aim to walk the aid stations only.  I had managed this for the first time for the Port of Tauranga Half in January and if I could manage this in Taupo then I should gain a decent chunk of time over previous years.

Lap 1 went to plan.  I was tired and felt slow, but was ticking the legs over and only focusing on the next aid station and trying not to think about the distance to go or the time.  It was too far out to figure out if I was on track for a PB (and I was rapidly getting too tired to care!) and too complicated to keep track of how long it was taking to do the lap.   It was pretty uneventful with the main highlight seeing Dave, dad and Leigh at the end of the lap just before I did the u-turn to do it all again.

Lap 2 was the character-building moment.  It's definitely the worst lap of the three - you are only approaching the halfway mark and you know there is still a lap to go, so it just seems like an endless run with no end in sight.  It was during that lap that I had my lowest moments and found myself walking (and not caring) up a couple of the hills.  It's where a lot of self-talk comes in and I was talking myself through a number of sections.  Halfway back towards the end of the lap (does that even make sense?!) - around 25km I think, I decided to have a toilet stop.

While I was there I also noticed that one heel had rubbed raw as my sock had slipped down a bit and so I decided to take stock and get a plaster from the aid station.  Supposedly all the aid stations had been left with a first aid kit (and I thought a medic as well), but not this one!  Thankfully the guy at the aid station had a first aid kit in his ute and he dashed over to it, dug it out and found me a couple of plasters to put on my heel.  Again, what a star - nothing was too much for these guys.  Just amazing.

So a few minutes stopped there sorting myself out and it was enough to mentally refocus and get going again and finish off that second lap.

Turning at the end to start the final lap and it was a great feeling to be on the final stretch, so to speak.  I had seen dad and Leigh heading to the U-Turn and then as I started heading back down towards the Lake I went past Dave who yelled out "Keep the faith!"

So keep the faith I did.

I did a quick check of my watch and it was showing 11 hours something.  My brain was feeling pretty fried by then but all I could do was think, OK, it was taking me 2 hours to do a lap last year, if I go at that pace I'll finish with a time starting with 13.  And that will be a Taupo PB.  That very rough calculation was enough to motivate me to get going and put all my effort towards getting through the last 14km.

Keep the faith…you can do this.

The last lap did contain a couple of great highlights - on my last pass of the Sweat 7 aid station I came across Jacky who was standing on the sidelines.  There was no hesitation - I stopped and gave her a big hug, it was so good to see a friendly face at that end of the course, so good to be heading home, and so good to have the day almost over.

And as I was running along the lakefront I found myself glancing up at the sun.  Heading out on the last lap I started thinking "that sun is still quite a way up in the sky - I wonder if I'll get to the end before it gets dark".  And again along the waterfront in the other direction, with only 3km to go I was watching that big orange orb in the sky again - it was still just hovering above the hills in the distance.

The most amazing feeling, then, to run past the last aid station, about 500m from the end and see on the other side of the road the volunteers just starting to hand out glowsticks to those heading out for another lap.  Woohoo - I was getting in before the glowsticks!!!!!

I didn't need to look at my watch, or the clock above the finish line.  As I ran down the finish chute - without a glowstick - I knew I had a PB in the bag.  Mike Reilly was calling me in and boy did I enjoy that last 100m.  It doesn't matter how many Ironman finish chutes you see - they are without doubt the most amazing sight and make the entire day and the entire training program leading up to it, worthwhile.

I crossed the line with my hands in a heart shape, sending a virtual hug to St Pete who I knew would be watching live from Sydney.

As I crossed the finish line a familiar face came and gave me a big hug, wrapping my finishers towel around me and putting my medal around my neck.  Charmayne (another fellow ironman, from Auckland, who started on this mad ironman journey with me back in 2011) was volunteering at the finish line and jumped at the opportunity to be my catcher.  Such a great way to finish but there was only one thing to say, which she completely understood: "This shit doesn't get any easier!!!!!!"

Ironman New Zealand 2014.  Ironman #6.  13:10:33
52 minutes faster than IMNZ 2013 and 47 minutes faster than Ironman Cairns 2013.

Job.  Done.  (And a 12 hour finish in my sights!)

Ironman New Zealand 2014: The Bike

Transition 1 was a bit of a blur.  I held a steady jog along the green carpet then up the stairs and through the waiting volunteers who had my transition bag out ready for me to grab.  What a team!  Into the tent and another volunteer found me quickly and stripped off my wetsuit and grabbed my gear out of the bag.  Bike shoes on, spare chocolate brownies in my back pocket (thanks mum!) and sunglasses in hand, I ran out of the tent, accepted a rapid application of sunscreen from more volunteers and found Black Beauty.

Time for the fun part of the day!

Onto the bike and into my stride.  The bike course can be broken down into four sections.  It's a two lap course, out to Reporoa and back.  There are a few hills around the Taupo end of the loop and then it is mainly flat, although slightly downhill overall out to Reporoa.

The first lap on the bike went to plan.  A solid pace, passing lots of people and feeling strong.  I was eating and drinking regularly and my biggest concern was staying out of trouble with the technical officials!  There were a lot of people around me (that I was mostly passing) and staying legal distance from the person in front was a bit of a challenge…  The best approach seemed to be making sure I was always moving through the "pack" whenever we were being watched and this approach seemed to work.

Either that or I was just lucky...

Towards the end of the first lap, as we were heading to the hills coming back to Taupo, I went past a girl who then came by not long after and called out as she passed, "I thought it was you!".  It was Leonie, a friend from Rotorua who I had met through Jacky when she came to do Ironman Cairns, her first full distance after the aborted IMNZ in 2012.

Leonie and I then proceeded to track each other through Taupo - I'd go past her on the downhills and flats and she'd catch up again on the hills.  I remember thinking to myself that it was going to be a great second lap if I could stay with her for the rest of the distance and then maybe get far enough ahead on the flat section of the course to hold her off on the final climbs back into Taupo.  (No, I'm not competitive…).

I went through the 88km mark in 2 hours 48 minutes - well inside my 3 hour goal for halfway.  But I knew there was an additional climb to negotiate on the second lap, plus I needed some breathing space for the inevitable headwind that we would encounter for the final section coming back into Taupo.  So I was happy with the split and confident I was on target for a 6 hour bike split.

On the second lap we deviate slightly and go onto a private road as we head out of town - which adds the extra hill.  This was all fine until about 500m from the end of the road when my back wheel starts going "thump, thump, thump".  I didn't want to think it possible, but it was the heart-sinking bump of the wheel rolling over the valve when the tyre is flat.  The road surface was quite rough so I took a minute freewheeling to see if it was really going flat or hopefully it was just my imagination.  But, no, finally I cruised to a stop, got off and, sure enough, the tyre was down.

Just as I stopped Leonie flashed past me.  That would be the last I saw of her…  crap.

Ah well.  Better get this tyre fixed.  Back wheel comes off, tube out, carefully run my fingers around the inside of the tyre to find whatever it was that caused the puncture.

Can't find it.

Run my fingers around the inside a second time.  If there's something there I need to find it, otherwise this is going to be a bit of a disaster.

Still can't find it.

Run my fingers around the inside a third time - and double-check the outside of the tyre.  Nope, nothing.

At this point I decide I need to take a punt and put the new tube in, hoping like anything that it doesn't go the way of its predecessor in 5 minutes time.  Inflate the tube, put everything back where it belongs and get going again.

The Garmin later shows that I was stopped for 7 minutes.  But it didn't ruin my day.  It had given me 7 minutes additional "rest" which surely can't be a bad thing, plus my main goal for the day was to put in a solid run, and if my 7 minutes "rest" was going to help that then I'd take it!

Thankfully the new tube was all good - sweet!  Only thing was, my knee was about to stop playing ball.

About 5km from the turnaround at Reporoa my injured knee started making its presence felt and so the last 50km was spent nursing it back to Transition.  That final, fourth section, also had the headwind arrive, and the slight overall climb back to Taupo which meant I took that last stretch reasonably conservatively.  Spinning the legs more and knowing that I still had a run to do and that this is where I was planning to make up the bulk of my overall time.

While I punctured and got a sore knee, though, it could have been a lot worse.

One section of road on Broadlands Road had been resealed just that week and so we had a section of road, about 400m long that was even rougher than the typically rough chip seal surface we were riding on.  And at least one guy went down on it and was being tended to by medics when I went past.  His food and bottles from the bike were still strewn across the road and.  I was pleased to have got through that section (and the whole bike leg, in fact) in one piece.

I rolled into T2 still happy with my efforts - an overall bike split of 6:13:59 which was still 17 minutes faster than my 2013 IMNZ bike split.  No puncture and injury-free knee means a 6 hour bike split is definitely within my sights on that course!

Just a little run to do :)