At 11:45am we stood on the start pontoon looking out on a millpond. Into the starters hands.... and we were away! Still not keen to get my freshly healed tit into too much biffo, I dealt with the riff-raff a bit like a girl and was getting bullied backwards through the first 100m before manning up and moving forward through a few guys. Once around the first can I could see I was just off a breakaway bunch and had to put my foot down to get across to it. In the water is just like jumping across a gap on the bike, just go hard and fast and recover once you get there, which is what I did. Plus, by going fast you're much less likely to drag people with you. Swimming in a breakaway bunch compared to the masses is bliss, so I was happy to nestle in and wait to hit Waitangi Park where it'd be all on again.
I spent a good 10 seconds trying to do my helmet up, which in transition time feels like 10 minutes. Luckily it didn't cost me and I was on the bike and safely in the front bunch. We had about 8 of us, which means there's enough of us to just look at each other until we get caught, or the perfect amount to work together and stay away. All but one of the Aussies were there to ride and Kiwi's tend not to shy away from honest work so we were into a good roll and going well. The gap to the second bunch wasn't much, but it wasn't really changing. A few attacks went in to soften the legs up but nothing of any significance. I was trying to ride smart and not work any harder than I needed to, which tends to be the opposite of how I like to ride. Tim had found this out in a race a while ago so I was now rationed to one attack and one attack only. I felt good so thought I'd have a dig with a lap to go in case we got caught by the second bunch, and to see if I could smuggle some easy time up my sleeve. Once off the front I dangled there waiting for someone to join and it didn't take long before Ryan Bailie and I were working well together and stealing time. I think the national coach almost fell over his whiteboard when he saw us come past off the front - it's taken me a while to learn how to ride a bike.
Another ho-hum transition before getting the running legs going. Crikey, I felt pretty good! I tried to keep a lid on it while I started to wonder - was this the day it was going to come together for me? I was sitting just off Ryan when I came past the coach who simply said "on his shoulder" and like Flash Gordon I seemed to be there with ease. A couple of kms into the run we were caught by the front runners from our old bunch and we both tagged on to their freight train. It was about here my guts opted out and I got some horrible stomach cramps which made it an 8km battle. Going backwards on the run for no good reason is not something I've experienced before and not something I'm keen to do again. I hated it. Running past family and friends while guys ran through me was rubbing salt to my already sore guts. From having a great race I faded to 5th New Zealander and 13th overall. What could have been...
Just like Ripcurl says, the search continues.
Nugget.
PS Thanks for the hometown support.
