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.

With the gun going at 6.30 for our race I knew Luke would try to push the pace and spread the field a little. I came into transition about 10 seconds behind Luke with all the others.

Once on the bike I had the issue of pushing hard to stay with Ollie who was pulling away or do I let him go and ride my own ride. I let him go and decided to ride my own ride. This didn’t really work in the end as I ended up dragging the others behind me and I also lost time to Ollie.

Being about 4 minutes down at the start of the run was not a good place to be and I thought I may be able to hunt him down. I ran the first 12k with Luke Whitmore and we were in 2/3 most of the way until Luke started to gap me and I really didn’t have the next gear to go with him. After this gap got out a bit I started to struggle then I found myself back in fourth by the end of the run. Luke ran very well and came in second place.

At this stage I’m having a break until the New Year, then I’ll be back into it getting ready to hopefully head overseas again and there may be an Ironman on the cards too!