First off I have to say that I am getting better with the updates, the race was on Saturday and I am already writing about it on Tuesday! Last Thursday I flew out to Wellington, New Zealand for the ITU Oceania Championships. It was a crack field with over 50 of Australia's and New Zealand's best triathletes vying for the title of Oceania Champion and also National Champion for the New Zealanders. Having competed in this race last year as one of my first elite races I was keen to see how I could perform one year on and was also prepared for what Wellington could throw at us after a freak storm on the Friday afternoon last year.
The preparations were going as well as could be hoped for apart from a slight tightness in the leg preventing a few run sessions in the days prior but nothing serious enough to put me out of the race or warrant any concern going into it. Putting this aside I was feeling great on the Thursday and Friday over there and was ready for a big performance come Saturday. Fortunately the late night tsunami warnings from the disaster in Japan didn't eventuate and we were greeted with really calm water conditions and only slight winds on the bike course (a significant difference from last year thankfully!).
I managed to get a great spot on the starting pontoon beside a few fast swimmers and once in the water made the most of this by getting on their feet as quick as possible. It was a pretty rough swim but as we ran into transition I found myself well positioned. I didn't have the greatest of transitions and found myself chasing hard to make sure I got on the back of the main chase group. Throughout the bike I positioned myself well towards the front of the group to make sure I didn't miss out on any opportunities and to try and catch the lead group of 8 guys up the road. This didn't eventuate and towards the end of the bike there weren't many of us in the group willing to work so the gap extended and as we came into T2 they had established well over a minutes lead. Heading out onto the run I didn't quite have the pace as some of the other guys from my bike pack and quickly found myself losing group to the quicker runners. Although I didn't quite have the run I would've hoped for or feel I'm capable of I still finished the race strongly in 24th place which is a significant improvement on the previous year. And also I have discovered that with this result I have now moved myself up to inside the top 200 on the ITU points list, now ranked 196. Still a long way to go but definately feel like I'm getting somewhere.
Back in Australia and only two weeks out from my next race which will be the ITU Oceania Cup at Mooloolaba as part of the Mooloolaba Triathlon Festival where I will line up against well over 60 guys, many of them the same athletes as in Wellington. It should be another cracker race where I'm keen to put in to practice all the hard yards from all of my training and racing thus far this season.
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