First race overseas for the year, first race in Asia, first time to the Philippines, first Xterra and first pro race.
Some would say to many first for your first shot at the top tier. It would of been a lot easier to of gone down and raced at 70.3 Geelong a course I have raced before, familiar faces, food, and language. I thought It was important for my to remove my self from the local scene and step outside my comfort zone to experience something new.
Xterra Philippines for me was chance to go race somewhere, where I felt no one was watching or judging. Somewhere we I could be relaxed and just enjoy my first race against some of the best athletes in the world.
The moment we touched down in the Philippines we were treated like rockstars every step we took followed by another photo. The team at Sunrise events made sure that we were well looked after from the moment we were in Legazpi.
We arrived around lunch time at Legazpi and after a carnival reception, a interview and 1000 photos we got to our hotel. The group had decided to go out and ride the 30km bike course that was based at the bottom of the Mayon Volcano. It was adventure in its self after getting lost a couple of times and loosing our guide Ben and Brad were able to get us back on course and to the end of the bike leg.
Saturday was the busiest day with a swim in the morning down at the swim course, 2x interviews, a hotel transfer, 20'000 photos and a small jog in the afternoon I was ready for race day.
Sunday started like any other triathlon, a early wake up, small amount of breakfast, a shuttle down to the swim start and another 1000 photos. I knew Ben was going to take out the swim leg hard to try and distance him self from Brad the other main race favourite. my goal was just to hang tough as along as possible and get out as close as possible to Brad. This was going well till we turned the first bouy and started to swim off course. loosing the feet of the small group I was in, I came out of the water in 5th position but everyone has broken up with leaders already being a few minutes up the road.
The bike leg was going to be fast and technical with the rain that we had overnight turned a few corners into slides, and a few river crossings that we rideable on Friday became small lakes and with no way of telling where the bottom was you just had to to hope for the best. I started making time back on a few rider on the bike leg catching up a couple of places, and riding with some team riders helped me push up the hills and then took alot of risk's on the down hills to catch up, but with not knowing where anyone was it was hard to gauge if you were making up time or not.
I came into transition in 4th place with the podium out of reach I just tried to hang on for as along as I could. My running volume has been down leading into the race due to an injury so I was just hoping I could hold off till the end. Running up the sand at the half way mark I was caught by 2 others and it was at the hardest point of the race for me, climbing (literally) up to the turn around point. The last 4km home was fast and slightly down hill with alot of river crossings and changing of direction to negotiate. I held on the 6th place in a race I will never forget.