Race Report - Pure blonde series race I

The official start of my racing season. I was not looking forward to Tuesday evening, I told Nat I’d be using a BRAZIL race suit that my mate Ro brought from Beijing World Champs.

The suit is, let’s say, a wee to tight for me. Not quite sure if it is because I’ve grown wider or because it is just not my size, but I managed to wear it with some dignity (note, it is also a bit see through)

(photo coming soon, stay tuned)

Anyway, as for the racing itself, it was good NZ conditions, with choppy seas and grey clouds all over. Nothing too fancy, but nothing too hot either, which is what matters. 1km swim and 4km run. 

The field was small… so I knew it was going to be between three or four of us, coach Dan, a young pro German athlete and a couple of other faces. While I was thinking that the race briefing went on. 

It turns out they had changed the course from a 2 lap triangle to a 2 lap oval kind of shape. I was to pay later for it. 

Men and women started together and 50m in I was in third, behind Dan and ze german. Then I was in second and all of a sudden someone came on my right, he seemed quite strong so I took his feet. We turned around the 250mark and I was on second behind the fast feet. As I was picking the good lines to the beach I saw fast feet and the others keep going straight. I continued on my own and was the first to the beach. When I got up I heard that I was doing it wrong!!!!!!

Yeah!!! Wrong!!!

I swore a bit and saw how the other guys had over 50m advantage over me… I rounded the first buoy in 5^th and got off the water in 4^th, about 1min behind the leader. On my shoes I went, and tried my best to catch whoever I could. I gained a few seconds on the guy ahead, then passed him and then I could see he back of the second guy. At the turnaround (it’s two 2km laps) I was 40 and 20 seconds behind. I tried for about another 1.2km and the gap was not getting any smaller, so I went to cruise control and finished, 25 seconds behind the leader,  my mate Nick Carter, who was as surprised as everybody else of having won his first race. Congrats to him, he’s worked his a#$ off this winter, and it looks like it’s paying off.