Five Eltham Tri members headed across to New Zealand to compete in the Ironman held on the North Island in Lake Taupo. There was plenty of support with the Hogan family, Kristen, Elise, Matty, Louise and Hayden also making the trip across. The buzz around town was amazing and the place was packed with triathletes busy exploring the local cafe’s and the ironman expo. Having the experienced ironman athletes Cam Simon and D’wayne Hogan with us was great in helping us first timers in understanding the process during race week in regards to bike check in, registration, transition bags, carbo party etc.

The weather during the week was perfect and enabled us to train on the course and fine tune everything before the big race on the Saturday, although the clouds were closing in and it was predicted that 100-150mm of rain would fall over the weekend (and they weren’t wrong)!

I was disappointed that the swim was cancelled as I have been making some great improvement in the pool in recent times. I had my best ever swim six weeks earlier in Port Macquarie, followed by a shocker in Shepparton and was hoping to re-deem myself after a good four weeks in the pool in Canberra. This wasn’t to be and I now had to use the opportunity of having a run in place of the swim to capitalise on my strengths and get myself in a good position coming out of T1. I was first out on the bike course and had a 10 sec gap enough to ensure a smooth transition get my shoes on and some nutrition in before Ollie Whistler come thundering past. I tried to stay in touch early but he was laying down the gauntlet and my power was well above what I knew I could hold.

My last race for the year has come and gone already. I seem to say it every year but this year has gone quick!

With a few members from the Eltham Tri Club, we headed north to Canberra for what was to be the last Half Ironman for the year. Unfortunately it was not quiet the race that we had planned on racing. With the bad weather in the last few weeks Lake Burley Griffin seemed to be in pretty bad shape. We could see whole trees floating everywhere in the lake, so the organizers made the decision on Friday to replace the swim with a 4k run.

Then on the Saturday when Luke and I were riding the course we discovered that one of the bridges was covered with water and trees and it was impossible to cross. This resulted in the ride course being changed to a 5x17k lap course.