Taiwan 70.3
Well it didn’t start off to plan
Our flight leaving Perth was delayed which meant when we landed in HongKong we were in a mad rush to board our next flight. (Perfect way to start the day after an over night flight)
The good news we made it, the bad news the weather was to bad to land in Kaohsiung which meant we had to land In Taipei re-fuel before returning to Kaohsiung. Bad times because that meant we missed our train connection to Taitung. (Still I’d rather miss a train than plow into the air field in a ball of flames, So i shouldn’t complain. )
Once we landed in Kaohsiung we made our way to the train station (massive thanks to the Ironman Taiwan team for helping sort our connections and tickets) we grabbed the train that saw us arrive in Taitung at 7pm that night. While unloading our bikes from the train which made traveling through airports with a bike case a dream I lost my iPhone. Which almost put me over the edge. As you know losing a phone these days is MEGA PAINFUL especially when social media is part of your work. Still I held back the tears and carried on with only huge amount of complaining… ha….
What topped it off was the next day we were drying our clothes on a rack and I looked at a bag underneath these dripping wet clothes and through “ha that looks like the bag that carries my passport” BECAUSE IT WAS.. I pulled out my dripping wet passport and proceeded to have a small melt down… Kate and Ruth took control of the situation and dried it out. We think I’ll be alright to fly to Malaysia tomorrow… (Time will tell)
But the Positive:
I LOVE coming back to Taiwan. I’ve had some of my best races here, the Ironman team of Renny, Shiang, Queena ,Joe and the rest of the team treat us extremely well and we’ve always enjoyed racing, training and being a tourist while in Taiwan.
This time round I was wearing race number #1 which was a privilege. I was really pumped, it’s not often you get the number ONE bib so when you do it’s pretty awesome!
I LOVE coming back to Taiwan. I’ve had some of my best races here, the Ironman team of Renny, Shiang, Queena ,Joe and the rest of the team treat us extremely well and we’ve always enjoyed racing, training and being a tourist while in Taiwan.
This time round I was wearing race number #1 which was a privilege. I was really pumped, it’s not often you get the number ONE bib so when you do it’s pretty awesome!
I knew i was fit even though I’d raced IMNZ Three weeks earlier. I felt the body had bounced back quickly and I was ready to give it my all on race day.
We participated in the swim leg of the 5150 the day before the 70.3 which was a lot of fun, packed our gear and went to bed early. I slept for nearly 8 hours which is crazy and most likely because the overnight flight and stress was catching up with me.
RACE DAY
I woke feeling refreshed, which was great because the previous day I felt like 14 buses had simultaneously run over me, then all of them had reversed.
race day saw cooler than usual conditions for Taiwan, which I wasn’t disappointed about.
The swim was smooth, I felt a little flat but wasn’t to worried, exiting the water I heard I was 2min down to Peter Kerr, but in 2nd place.
Freddie Cronenberg was with me out of the water and we pushed hard on the bike to try and make a dent into Peter’s lead. To my surprised at 65km a group of 3 caught us, I thought I was holding good power, but obviously not high enough. We rode out the last 25km together and then the real fun started. By fun I mean running near max holding as high a heart rate as possible and trying not to blow up. YAY GOOD TIMES!
THE RUN:
5 of us started the run close together with Peter 90 seconds or so ahead.
Freddie and I started running together in 5th and 6th place. If you know Freddie you know he’s a quality runner and I thought if I pace off him I’ll make it close to the podium. We ran shoulder to shoulder or single file for the entire run. We both thought we’d bring back a few runners in the late stages of the run, but it wasn’t to be our day with 2nd- 6th all finishing within about 2min of each other. Freddie knew we were fighting for 5th and was surging me relentlessly in the last 5KM of the race. In hind sight his ability to change pace so often is impressive although at the time the word Impressive wasn’t what i was thinking.:). He was putting me in the hurt locker again and again, but on that day I felt like we were tethered together and in the final 200 metre’s I launched the best attack I could muster. This resulted in my adductors cramping and Freddie closing the gap back up just as we hit the finish shoot, I gave another surge and got a VERY SMALL gap on Freddie and finish is 5th place. The worse part was Freddie finishing in 6th, he’s a great guy and we’ve had many battles over the years. Usually it ended with Freddie running me down or running away from me, It seems we are both becoming more even over the 3 disciplines.
Freddie and I started running together in 5th and 6th place. If you know Freddie you know he’s a quality runner and I thought if I pace off him I’ll make it close to the podium. We ran shoulder to shoulder or single file for the entire run. We both thought we’d bring back a few runners in the late stages of the run, but it wasn’t to be our day with 2nd- 6th all finishing within about 2min of each other. Freddie knew we were fighting for 5th and was surging me relentlessly in the last 5KM of the race. In hind sight his ability to change pace so often is impressive although at the time the word Impressive wasn’t what i was thinking.:). He was putting me in the hurt locker again and again, but on that day I felt like we were tethered together and in the final 200 metre’s I launched the best attack I could muster. This resulted in my adductors cramping and Freddie closing the gap back up just as we hit the finish shoot, I gave another surge and got a VERY SMALL gap on Freddie and finish is 5th place. The worse part was Freddie finishing in 6th, he’s a great guy and we’ve had many battles over the years. Usually it ended with Freddie running me down or running away from me, It seems we are both becoming more even over the 3 disciplines.
This will go down as one of my most memorable triathlon battles. The other being last year in Taiwan with Christian Kramer. (Taiwan seems to be the home of epic battles for me)
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| Freddie and myself post race |
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| Me post race. Probably could have chosen a better back ground. |
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| Renny and the guys chilling post race |
In the end I’m happy with the performance, sure I would have liked to be a few places further up the field but I gave it all I had on the day and I'm happy with the result.
In other result news, Kate finished in a very close 4th and had a good all round day. Our friend, travel companion and GK Endurance Athlete Ruth Chang finished in 2nd in her age group (just 46sec off the win) putting together her fastest ever time and grabbing a spot to 70.3 Worlds in Australia this year. I think Kate was more excited than her!!
The last 48 hours we’ve spent at awards, riding, site-seeing, eating, talking, socialising and of course packing our bikes up. Good news Ruth lent me her spare iPhone so until I lose that i’ll be back on social media which I might have an addiction to!!
We are racing Malaysia 70.3 on the way home to as we thought it was a good choice to hit two races with one set of flights. (Although when I look at the weather app and it says, 38 degree’s but feels like 46 degree’s I think we may have made a bad choice!) I’ll keep you posted on that one. If you don’t hear from me I’ve probably melted or forgotten who I am due to heat stroke.
Thanks again to the Ironman Taiwan team for the support and of course all my awesome sponsors . Until the next time, which happens to be in 5 days. )
Guy
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| The swim course |
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| Kate, Ruth and myself soon after Ruth stomped home a PB |
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| Kate right after her 4th place finish |
