another race!, and some times

Today I entered the race. The Karapiro half ironman is a nice little race situated in Lake Karapiro, Waikato. I’ve said before, the lake is famous for breeding the best of NZ rowing and many rowers take on multisport of the occasion.


The swim is on a fresh water natural lake, we’re bussed 2km up the road to the swim start, then the course is to go 70m into the lake, swim parallel to she shore for 1.7km and another couple of hundred metres into shore again. Transition is just next to the lake and it’s pretty straight forward. Freshwater swimming is a good opportunity to do a fast-ish time as you don’t have much challenge from swells or waves, you can stretch and glide in every stroke and go hard without blowing up.

The bike is a big 90km loop that takes us out around a big mountain called…..mountain. It is not a fast circuit, but the first hour is a solid ride where we can expect to make good advances. Then it start to get worrying, with some hills, and more hills and more hills. Not big ones, but the succession of them makes them a threat. On a fine day it’s a 2.40 ride, we’ll see how that works in real life. We end up in downtown Cambridge, where the second transition is. the whole town is out there watching.

The run is a semi urban 2 laps circuit that goes on the riverside and then onto some new subdivisions just out of town. There’s a single hill on the run and it’s a 2min climb that does some damage. On a fine day we’d be roasting under the mid morning sun.

The race is a prep race in my calendar. I’ve have trained regularly for it, with long rides and long runs, but I am only half way there, there is a lot more of strength and endurance work to be done in the next 5 weeks so I am not looking for flash results. On the other hand, it is a race, so I will give an honest effort to try to get as high as possible on the final results. There is one mate racing alongside and he’s going to be a serious threat to many as he’s trained hard over the whole winter and is ready to hit it. I shall see him going past me after 40odd minutes on the bike.

It was a weekd of Time trialling, except for the run, that has been very shy for my liking. Monday we did 1km repetitions at a steady 3.30's and Tuesday was our return to the Aipor Oaks time trial, we have the chance of a 16km 25km or 40km TT. I choose the middle distance, it's long enough for me, he he he. I'm happy with my overall performace of 41minutes and even happier that the new bike geometry is working OK for TT effort, I was able to power through on head wind sections that usually would be a pain in the back. I even managed to run decentll for 1km after the bike.
Today was a swimm TT in the morning, I was lucky I only had to do it once, the other guys in the lane had to do it again after 5min rest. 1000m under 13.30 is OK forme and I walked out of the poos feeling good.
Three more days to race day, it's time to start with a race plan, and checklists and so on