Brett Smythe, Paul Attard, Deanne Orton in Hawaii

Hello all,
This report is coming from our hotel room in LA. I sit here and look back over the last week and struggle to get my head around everything that has happened. I’ll keep it brief so you can stay awake.
Deanne & I spent the 5 days in Kona where all the Ironman stuff takes place. We realised pretty quickly that most people in town love the sport and it is their life. That was pretty cool to see but the downside was that they talk to you like you have never done a race before and come from somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine.

I can say that the weather is definitely different to Melbourne and I know we didn’t see it at its worst! After the little episode where I fainted I started to be pretty nervous about the race although I knew I would be OK if I paid attention to hydration. I went on a couple of runs as per my training and I was sweating heaps more than usual. This hit home that I need to stay well hydrated.
Saturday was Race day.  In preparation we headed up the coast about 40 mins by car to the race transition area at Hapuna Beach on the Thursday. Race morning, and we were up nice and early and I didn’t have far to travel as the swim was right near our hotel. The swim course was one big loop in the ocean. The conditions were fairly rough but not too daunting.
I felt I was sitting in a pretty good position most the way throughout the swim. I did notice my lack of open water swimming had me feeling slightly uncomfortable. I exited the water about 10 seconds behind Justin Granger. I don’t know exactly how well he swims so I wasn’t too sure where I was in the field but knew I would be at the back end.
There is a turn around at about the 6k mark of the bike and it was there that I saw I was just a few minutes down on Luke Bell and John Flanagan who can swim with some of the best swimmers in  the world! A couple of minutes back were the rest of the field. The positions didn’t really change for the whole length of the bike course. I didn’t want to ride out of my skin for fear of suffering too much in the run especially for my first race here. Although I lost a little time on the bike I felt that riding 2hr19m was pretty good. The ride course was never really flat with some pretty strong wind in parts.
When in transition I was getting updates on where everyone was. I was about one minute behind Flanagan and had a lead of a couple of minutes on Granger. As I set out on the run I felt great over the first half km and then suddenly I felt like dying! I really pegged the pace back and searched for a rhythm. I slowly felt better and by mile 2 I had caught the guy in front of me.
I couldn’t see anyone else so I kept concentrating taking in fluid and sugars. I was having Coke at every aid station but found my self oscillating very high then very low on energy levels even though there was only about 10 mins between stations.
Slowly things settled down and eventually I found the right pace.  By about the 8 mile mark I was running pretty close to my planned race pace and not going up and down on available energy.
From mile 8.5 through to mile 11 there is an out and back stretch of road which was talked up to be the hardest part of the run. Some people were calling this bit Death Road! I was pretty nervous about this part of the course but happy as its near to the end of the race. When on this road I felt that it was the fastest part of the course and most other Aussies agreed with me post race. On my way out there was some encouragement from Matt Lieto telling me I was two mins down on Tim Marr. I was happy with this as he had at least 5 mins on me at the start of the run. I was starting to run faster and thought I might just catch him and nip into 4th place before race end.  Then I hit what I thought was the Turn Around Point aid station and I hadn’t seen Tim on his way back? YES, he was crook and in the bushes! My pace went up again as I was now in 4th place and happy to have him out the way. The next two miles back into the finish chute were very enjoyable. I had a quick chat with Greg Welch and then into the drinks. 
I saw Tim Marr cross the line some mins later. I went over to see how he was and he told me I had missed a turn. “No way!” was my reply. “I thought you went to the toilet.” I told him, he must have run the wrong way. So we went to check with the race officials.
They didn’t have a record of my last turn around on Death Road. I said that is not possible, as I had picked up drinks from the aid station, ran around it then got more drinks on the other side.
They set off on a mission to double check that there were manual recordings of me at all turn around points, but came back with confirmation that I had missed the one at the end of Death Road. I was still swearing black and blue that I had run around the aid station and can’t have missed the check point.
At this point I decided to I leave it for a few hours and head to transition to pack up my stuff. While there I spent time with the other guys trying to work it out. I explained what had happened to them and then Matt Lieto told me in his American accent, "Dude, the Death Road turn around is about half a mile past that aid station!"
My reaction? “You got to be kidding me.  It didn’t even occur to me that it was down further”.
I can’t believe that the 20+ people on the aid station watched and cheered me as I turned around them and said nothing to put me straight!
Still it’s my fault and sometimes we do just make mistakes. I was happy to get an idea of where I’m at compared to the other guys in the world. My “fourth place” will now be recorded as a DQ as I actually ran about a mile less than the others. It still felt far though! Sorry for causing some excitement on the run split guys! 
We are now in LA for a few days before we head to San Diego to set up for the next 8 weeks.
My next race will be from the Buffalo Springs 70.3 in Lubbock Texas on the 27th June. 
 
Catch you soon! Paul Attard Rohto Ironman 70.3 Hawaii on the Big Island – June 5, 2010