I had raced two Olympic distance races between Hawaii and Ironman Western Australia and had done well in both against competition which trains specifically for the shorter distances. This had given me some confidence in my fitness and ability as I started the Ironman on Sunday.
I lead the swim, with a small group on my feet, but I swam easy and was still comfortable as I broke away on the bike with another athlete to gain over 3min lead on 3rd place as passed half way on the bike.
Unfortunately I was not able to pick up my special needs bag at half way and my nutrition plan was not going so well. I started to tire and in the last 60km’s I dropped back to 6th place as I headed out onto the run.
I started the run very fast, but fatigue was causing my lower back to be in a lot of pain and took a lot of my energy to keep going until it relaxed after 15km.
But the cost of running through the pain was soon to show as my energy suddenly was depleted at 18km’s and I had to walk a little bit (unsteadily), until some sugar went into my system and brought me back to running. I jogged easy for the next 15km and recovered enough that I was able to run hard again at the end and get into 3rd place.
It has been a very busy time for me since Hawaii, and I am very happy that even on a tough day that I am not in my best shape for, I can still do well against my competition.
It is the end of my racing season now, I get married in 2 weeks, and will not train for 4 weeks now, except for some easy exercise with friends.
Thanks for a great year; it has been great to race for Team Abu Dhabi.