This is far from the race report I thought I’d be writing but as unfortunate as it is that’s racing for you and you have to take the good with the bad!
I made my way up to Yeppoon for my first serious crack at professional long distance racing, Ironman 70.3 style. All my training has been geared around this longer style of racing and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a massive amount of confidence into this race but at the same time knew I was stepping into the unknown over the 1.9km of swimming, 90km of cycling and 21.1km of running with some very seasoned professionals lining up alongside me.
After close to nine hours of travelling I arrived at the resort and was very happy to put the car in the car-park and get out of it! And always being able to count on dad to look for the positives in the trip I did clock up over 1500km on the car for them going there and back!
For anyone who hasn’t been to Yeppoon before it is one of the most relaxed race atmospheres I have had the pleasure of travelling to and the resort accommodation certainly aids this.
Fast forward to Sunday morning and the nerves had definitely crept in after all the encouraging messages from friends and family back home and finally dawning on me how far I had to go! But nevertheless confidence was high and I knew the training was under my belt and the performance was inside me. And as someone very wise told me a few days earlier, ‘the future belongs to those that believe in the beauty of the dreams,’ or more simply put and what I would almost call the DAT Racing motto; ‘just back yourself.’
Standing on the start line with the likes of Sam Betten, Tim Reed, Joey Lampe, Matty White and Mitch Anderson I can honestly say didn’t daunt me in any way and as soon as the gun went off it was on. I got a great start and found my height to be a great advantage out to the first turning buoy and quickly settled onto the feet of the guy in front of me. I knew from an early stage that the likes of Sam and Joey would be leading the way but felt as though I was in a great position for what was ahead of us. Exiting the water there were three athletes ahead of us including Sam Betten, Joey Lampe and Matt Bailey but I was in a great position starting the bike in a group containing John Polson, Matty White and Tim Reed. We all settled into what I thought was a very comfortable rhythm for the 90km ride and coming to the end of the first of five laps on the bike we had reeled in both Joey and Matt and had just Sam ahead of us. Unfortunately that is where my day came to an unfortunate end when I punctured just 25km into the cycle leg and was unable to repair the damage. To say I was disappointed would be a huge understatement as I was in what I considered to be the perfect position and was feeling fantastic but at the end of the day that’s racing and there was absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent it. Still wanting to get something from the weekend I did go out and run a half-marathon once I’d made my way back to my hotel room and am very satisfied with the time I produced.
Full credit must go to the boys who battled it out for the win. Sam continuing to extend his lead on the bike to almost four minutes when he started the run but he couldn’t quite hold off a very fast moving Tim Reed for the win but did still finish second with Matty White rounding off the podium in third.
Massive congratulations must go to training partner and roomie for the weekend, Robbie Mullins who was also racing his first 70.3 and finished a very impressive 13th in his age category and rumor has it he has caught the Ironman 70.3 bug and is already looking into his next one!
Not to dwell too much on what could have been I am now looking to take advantage of the good form I have and am looking at a few races within the next few weeks so say tuned!
