Taka treated us to a rip snort of a day and my tired body was quietly fizzing for a tester.
I was off to a tentative swim start, then put the gas on and managed to swim the long, but less messy, way around to the front guys where as I just started to get into my stroke, the beach came up to meet us. The 500m swim must be measured on the king high tide and we were right on the bottom of it, not to worry I'd survived and ticked off one of my key processes.
After seeing my heart jumping out my throat coming up that nasty hill to transition we were on our bikes and away. I'd talked to Tim, (the coach), and we'd agree I'd work hard from go if there was the chance of a break, which there was and a group of us made the most of it. It is amazing how fast you go, with relatively little effort, when in a small bunch with everyone organised and working. And that was the that for bike ride. No real attacks were thrown out there, although a Korean rode away for a small gap towards the end, which I think none of us actually realised, I definitely knew nothing of it.
A good T2 and I had my legs running for their life - another thing Tim had said, take it out hard. So was me and the Frenchman Moulai forcing the pace through the first kilometre. It was about then my legs sent an urgent memo to my brain asking wtf I was going on.I had done bugger all running, let alone anything at that pace, since Kinloch and 1km was about as far as I could fake it. I tried to hang tough but about halfway through I did a silly thing and started thinking backwards. Four of us had broken clear, but I couldn't sustain the pace - how far behind was fifth? What if I pushed to hold on and then exploded and got run through? Two questions that shouldn't have crossed my mind. I was in defence mode and watched the front three run away, only to see one drop off just up the road - if only I'd been 'just up the road'...
I ended up coming in comfortably in fourth and even stopped to lap up the outstanding atmosphere Takapuna streets put on for us - it really is an awesome place to race, possibly my favourite so far.
Lesson learnt - hang on as long as you can, then hang on some more.
Until next time,
Nugget.
