Cairns is one of the biggest races of the year with both the 70.3 and Full Ironman events being held on the same day. Cairns is located on the North East coast line of Australia about 900km south of the most northern tip of Australia. The tropical rainforest for a backdrop and the bike leg twisting along the coral coast line, Cairns is a breathtaking place to hold a triathlon.
Pre race I was confident of a good result, I have had a solid block of uninterrupted training and was looking forward to my second time back in Cairns. The days leading up to the race I had a few light training sessions just keeping the body firing, and had some good sensations leading into Sunday.
The swim leg out at Palm Cove, was quiet choppy, the first 600m out to the first turn boy was very rough, and I was getting thrown around a lot. I settled in for the rest of the swim leg just trying to hold on to the feet in front of me. I came out of the water in the top 10 and was looking forward to the challenging bike course ahead.
The bike leg at Cairns wines along the Captain Cook highway towards Port Douglas, and then back into Cairns. With the weather being terrible all week everyone was expecting a wet bike leg, to our surprise the bike leg was dry and quiet warm. The first 30km out to the turn around was very fast with good quality road and only one main climb of about 1.5km long. At the turn around we were met with a beautiful cross wind through the more exposed sections of the bike course which broke up many groups. I stayed with small group of 4 riders through most of the bike course and in the back end of the course picked up a lot of riders who had gone to deep early on the course. With about 5km I distanced my self from our group and rode passed all of the elite women and some of the pro males who's day had not gone to plan. Coming off the bike in 1st in my age-group and 2nd age grouper overall I had never had better legs and looked forward to having a solid run.
The run started well for me, I was very comfortable and was running on target pace, I had great legs and at no stage was my fitness my undoing of this race. Around the 6km mark I started to get a stitch and that turned into server stomach cramps, I had never experienced such a pain in my stomach before, I couldn't run without hurting and I couldn't take a full breath. I ended up walk/running the rest of the run leg, and had the worst run time to date in a half ironman which to me is very disappointing after the amount of training I have done.
I want to thank everyone that helped my get ready for this event, my training partners and coaches. My family and friends. And my supporters and sponsors. Without you I wouldn't even of been on the start line.
I was happy to come away with 3rd but disappointed I wasn't able to leave it all on the course.
Till next time.
