Ironman NZ 2011
Where do I start?? For those of you who don’t know I raced Ironman NZ on Saturday, I use the term “raced” loosely as for me and many other competitors it turned out to be a test of survival not a race!! So I woke on Saturday morning to horrendous rain. I was so pumped up and ready to race that I wasn’t too worried as I felt nothing was going to stop me putting all the months of hard work to use. I went about the normal pre race rituals and the race started like any other. My swim went well and although I was little off where I ideally wanted to be I wasn’t concerned as I know once on the bike I would quickly get back to where I needed to be which was with Cameron Brown and Terenzo Bozzone. So I jumped on my bike and went about chasing the guys down but the problem was the rain was still pouring down, the wind was up and it was cold, real cold. For those of you who don’t know I really, really struggle in cold weather I always have and probably always will, ask anyone who trains with me and they would say I am the first to turn purple!! So I am on the bike and not even 20mins has gone by in to a 4hr40min ride (approx) and I was shivering uncontrollably, my body was covered in goose bumps and my muscles were so stiff. At this stage I was on my own but I knew Cameron and Terenzo weren’t too far ahead so I just tried to block out the cold and ride up to them which I managed to do, catching them at the 65km mark of the 180km ride. So at this point I thought “right let’s just stay with these guys until the end of the ride and try and run well and hope the body warms up during the run”. Unfortunately because my pace slowed once I caught them my body became even colder. We stayed together until about the 130km mark but I was frozen to my bones with my body doing strange things and it was this point Cameron (I believe) sensed both Terenzo and myself were suffering and he pushed on and rode away. It wasn’t much longer until I lost the plot completely and lost touch with everyone and had to ride the last 45km on my own. Somehow I made it back to transition 2 with the hope that running would warm me up but this was not to be, the rain still poured and my run was worse than my bike. So in summary the race was a disaster the weather was horrible and my body didn’t handle it at all. One of the positives to come out of this weekend was that I realised it is just not in me to quit something I have begun so I will pick myself up from this disappointment and come back stronger for it. I strongly believe my run of bad luck is over and I am very excited about the future ahead.
Lastly I just want to say thank you so much for all the support it is truly amazing and the reason I feel so disappointed when I don’t deliver. I will be taking some time off now to let the body recover.
Regards
James
