IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship 2016: 16th at Mooloolaba
16th, 3:52:36. Swim 22:50, bike 2:06:19, run 1:19:11.
The Ironman 70.3 world champs are now run and done and as I look back on the outcome I am proud of the performance I put together given the far from ideal build up I had. I changed my year structure a bit this year as I often felt burnt out come August/September. After my 3rd place in 70.3 Coeur d'Alene in June I took a week break and then started back into some top-up base miles for the month of July, which was my last month in Boulder. On literally the last run up there I was doing some 1mile efforts and I tweaked my calf. I didn't think too much of it as I had a lot of travel a head and figured it would get some decent rest over the next few days.
Long story short I made it worse back in NZ doing hill reps up Mt Eden, then again 2 weeks later in Brisbane doing a track set with Sebastian Kienle. The 5 weeks between leaving boulder and racing I ran less than 10 times, which is never ideal. But there is a silver-lining and this allowed me to stay fresher and really do some great quality in the water and on the bike. I spent just under 4 weeks leading in to worlds with Josh Amberger in Brisbane at his parent's house. I had a great time there and it allowed me to train with a good mate and in warmer climates.
About 2.5 weeks out Sebastian arrived to join our training group. I have looked up to and watched Sebi race for a number of years now so it was very exciting to live and train with him. The next few weeks we all did some good work and pushed each other, probably a bit too much as both Josh and I got a head cold. And to add insult to injury a week out I discovered I have an intolerance to some seafood as I had a nice romantic night hanging over the toilet power chucking. Anyway race day rolled around on the picturesque coast of Mooloolaba and I was very excited to be apart of the World Champs but also very nervous about how I would perform with the setbacks I had had.
Before I knew it we were all in the holding area and they were introducing the top ten seeds. Luckily I was quite cold by this point so I swam hard to the start line and literally had 10sec there before the hooter went. This caught a few guys off guard. It was a flat swim as the waves from the previous days had settled but it was rough in terms of the sheer number of athletes that can swim at the same ability fighting for space. I spent the whole swim telling myself to hold firm and be rough if I need to (something I'm not great at). This along with some good swim form helped me to stay up the front of the lead group and exiting the water in the top ten.
With about a pack of 20-25 exiting the water, transition and the first 5km on the bike was crazy! Everyone was jostling for position and the pace was very surgy with large power spikes. I focused on staying near the front of the pack and ready to try and go with the Uber bikers (Sebastian and Andreas Dreitz). They caught us fairly early on in the bike and I went with them, along with the whole pack. We reeled the lone leader, Josh Amberger in around 25km. From then on the pace was hot with lots of people trying to break away or position themselves further up in the group before the hill.
There was a lot of talk going into the race about the hill, and I'm not sure if not going over it was a blessing or a curse. Its always good to know road but I think I would have freaked out a bit knowing I only have a 42/25 as my easiest gear. This road looked like a wall and although the super steep section of about 18% was just over 400m we all clawed our way up there with my peak power of 952W coming at this section. We did 2 laps around this hilly section, which was a great inclusion by the Ironman crew as this is where it started to break up or sap peoples legs for the last 20km home.
Well I got out on to the run and I hardly felt any pain, GREAT. So I just kept running as strong as I could and hoped it would hold. I wasn't 'run fit' but I was fresh and I just ran as strong as I could hold on to. So to cross that finish line in 16th place in a World Champs event I was over the moon. It has been a different year this year racing my first Ironman and doing a couple less 70.3's but I am very happy with how it has gone and I am already excited for next year.
I don't like to finish on a negative so I just want to say thank you to everyone that has helped and supported me this year, it means the world to me. Next up for me is a bit of a break then in to the NZ season with Port of Tauranga Half and Ironman New Zealand. I'll be trying for KONA!
What I’d tell an athlete now
I ran fewer than 10 times in the 5 weeks before this race. Tweaked a calf on my last run in Boulder, then made it worse on Mt Eden, then again on a track in Brisbane.
I still went 3:52 for 16th at a world championship. A race build survives an injury more often than athletes expect, because the swim and bike work keeps going and often gets better for the attention. What kills a build is testing the injury every week to see whether it's healed, which is exactly what I did twice.
This report was written in 2016 and has not been edited since, beyond reconstructing paragraph breaks that were lost in the original PDF. No wording has been changed.
