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)!

The morning of the race I woke up feeling more relaxed than I expected and even though it had been pouring down since the previous night I was very excited about the prospect of starting my first ever ironman. We all made our way down to transition and set up our bikes, nutrition and special needs bags. After watching the locals perform the Huka on the beach, the cannon went off for the Pro’s to start. I had always pictured race morning to drag on and be very nerve racking but now it was only 15 minutes before it was our turn to tackle the 3.8km out and back swim course. I said my farewells to Elise and made my way down to the water with D’wayne and wished him all the best as he made his way to the front of the 1300 athletes at the mass wave start while I went straight towards the back half to avoid being swamped by quicker swimmers.

The swim conditions were perfect as the lake was crystal clear and totally calm. Before I knew it we were off and after what seemed like an eternity I was at the turn around buoy and started heading back towards the swim exit. I managed to come accross a pack of four others that were swimming around the same pace as me that I stuck with on the way back which helped conserve some energy for the rest of the race. I come into swim chute in a time of 1hr 10 mins which I was quite content with, soon realizing I had to slow down my heart rate as it was climbing as due to the masses of people cheering and I had to prepare for what I needed to do as I grabbed my transition bag and headed out on the bike.

The bike course was fairly hilly, particularly in the first couple of km’s heading out of town and we were going into a slight head wind. The rain was persistent and there were plenty of people stopped on the road with punctures and even a few ambulances went past which influenced me to take the corners easy, (especially when I was using Luke’s disc wheel that he lent me). My main aim was to hold a comfortable pace and focus on getting my nutrition right. I managed to see Cam on his way back with the first lot of age groupers and Cadeyrn wasn’t more than a minute behind. Both Dean and D’wayne held a fair gap ahead of me and I knew I probably wouldn’t see them until the run. I was very happy how my ride was going apart from making a wrong turn heading back into town on my first lap as I followed the bunch in front of me, luckily it was only a few hundred metres before I realised they already had their yellow bands they had picked up in town and I turned back around. At the 135km mark I was starting to feel it in the legs and the rain was at its heaviest, so I decided to start taking what was the first of many caffeine gels, which soon picked me back up and I managed to push that last 45km with a slight tail wind, back into town at a solid pace.

This is where I made my second rookie mistake. I was too focused on taking my feet out of my bike shoes and although I managed to take my gels and salt tablets with me off the bike I left my Garmin HRM behind on the bike. I had used this for every training run this year and I relied on it to keep my pacing right, but today I would have to go just by feel. I had to make sure I didn’t get worked up over this mistake and made sure I took my time in transition and head out at a comfortable pace. Matty, Hayden, Elise, Kristen, Paula and the girls were all there cheering when we all started the 42.2km marathon, which was great support and at that point I knew that no matter what happened I would be finishing the race. I felt a little sluggish in the first few km’s which I expected but I was glad I wasn’t experiencing my knee problems I had at Shepparton. After the first of the two laps I still hadn’t seen Dwayne, which made me think my pace was a little slower than what I’d hoped for and at that point (21kms). I also started getting very tight in the hips, as I thought to myself “this is what everyone meant by the ir

onman starts on the second lap of the run” . I tried to keep a steady pace but the constant toilet breaks was making it hard to try and keep under my aim of 5’30min/kms. I caught D’wayne just before the last turn around and for the remaining 11kms he was great motivation to keep pushing myself and I was that piece of bait in front that kept him pushing to the line.

The last kilometre was very emotional and I just made sure I took it all in as I ran passed all the Eltham crew, and when I saw Elise standing in the pouring rain on the side waiting for me to cross the finish line it was difficult to hold back the tears. Then what came next I had been dreaming about since I started triathlons, Mike Riley called me home in 11hrs 27mins with his famous words ‘You are an ironman’! Before I even made it into the support tent D’wayne had come up the chute about a minute later, which was great to have him there to share the moment with.

After a much needed massage and bowl of soup I caught up with Cadeyrn to find out he had a cracker of a race, finishing his first ironman in an amazing time of 9hrs56. Unfortunately for Cam he had to pull out with 20kms to go due to a re-occurring foot injury. This was very hard to see someone come so close to finishing after putting in so many hours of training through the summer, but he is a great triathlete and I’m sure he will bounce straight back and have a very successful triathlon season.

I would like to thank Luke for t

he great ironman program he set out for me and his support along with my fiancée Elise for putting up with me and my long periods of time I was out on the road training while she was washing my training clothes and cleaning my drink bottles, with many other things. It was a also a great effort by everyone that stood out in the pouring rain all day and night to watch us come home.

New Zealand was a great place for the event and the race volunteers and crew did a fantastic job with everything on the day considering the appalling conditions and I am sure there will be a contingency of Eltham members heading over there to tackle the ironman course in 2012.

Chris Cahill

Results

Cadeyrn DOUGLAS 9.56.35

Dean BURSTON 10.25.44

Chris CAHILL 11.27.55

D’wayne HOGAN 11.29.08