As an athlete, you never quite know how to approach a situation like that. I was as prepared for that race as ever, but no amount of preparation can get you ready for something so unexpected. After a DNF like that, you tell yourself to train harder, but that isn’t always the best solution. In triathlon, it often makes things worse.

So I just kept charging on, trying to put it behind me in the best way I can. I went up to Lennox Head to do some training with Team Aeromax and I spent a good four weeks with Clayton Fettel, Mitch Robbins, Joey Lampe, and Josh McHugh. My training for the Port Macquarie 70.3 started five weeks before the race, so I had plenty of time to prepare and get my mind off of things.

The Bussleton 70.3 was six days after the Port Macquarie 70.3, so I had to be a little more careful about not wearing myself out. I got back to Port Macquarie one week before the race to do a little light training, visit with the family, and get fully recovered before the race. Much thanks for Coastline Chiropractic for the adjustment, and of course to my mum for her amazing home cooking. Exactly what I needed to get race fit.

2011 Port Macquarie 70.3
The field was fairly well stacked for the Port Macquarie 70.3 this year. At the top, you had Joe Gambles, who has won several 70.3 events in the past few years, and 10 time New Zealand Ironman Champion Cam Brown. All of my favorite Aussies were there too. Matty White, Josh Rix, Leon Griffin, and Tim Reed all made an appearance.

Overall, I was happy with the way the race progressed. I came out of the swim with the main contenders, Gambles, Cam Brown, Tim Reed, and Matty White. I knew I had four people ahead of me, but that didn’t matter too much. The run is my strength, so as long as I was close enough by the time we got there, I knew I had a chance at victory.

Port Macquarie had a new bike course this year. It was a single lap 90Km course. The first 45Km put us right into a strong headwind, and I lost my pace with Gambles and Brown somewhere around the 13Km mark. My legs were exhausted, but I managed to pull off a strong ride back into town. I gained on a few of the other guys, except for Gambles who looked like he was on a mission from God.

Right around the transition from bike to running, I was in fifth place with Gambles a good 5 1/2 minutes ahead of me. There were four other guys in the transition area with me, and as we exited, I made a wrong turn. It took me some time to correct it, and by the time I did, I was back to ninth place.

That’s when I got frustrated and really started to push it. At the end of the first 2 and 1/2 Km, I was back in fifth. It wasn’t too long before I pushed past Joey Lampe and Leon Griffin, putting me in third place.

I kept pushing. Somewhere around the first part of the second lap, I overtook Christian Kemp for second place. By then, I knew Gambles had won the race, but I still managed to get a good three minutes into his lead. Aside from the mishap at the beginning of the run, I’m still very happy with the results. I had the fastest run of the day and ended the race in second place.

Everyone wanted to party after the Port Macquarie race, but I knew I had to stay within reason. The Busselton 70.3 was just six days after that. I also knew I had to fly out to Perth on Wednesday to meet with a group of 20-24 year olds who show promise in the sport. They invited me to visit a nearby high school to, talk to some students, and do a few drills with them. Time flew by, and before I knew it, I was racing the Busselton 70.3

2011 Busselton 70.3
I’ll admit that I still felt a little fatigued at the start of this year’s Busselton race. I kept telling myself, “you’re a little tired. Don’t do anything stupid!” The swim felt good, and just like Port Macquarie, I came out with the main pack. Guy Crawford had a phenomenal swim and appeared to be on his own program for the entire bike leg.

A part of me suspected that Guy would eventually “pay the price” for his lead, so I didn’t pay much attention to it during the bike. The transition went well for me this time (no wrong turns!), and I had all of the top runners in my sights. I put in a big surge to give myself a gap on them, and I managed to hold onto it!

At this point, there was no looking back. I could hear them. They weren’t too far behind me. I overtook Jamie about 500 meters into the run, and then I caught up with Josh Rix somewhere around 3Km. That only left one person. The mysterious Guy Crawford who hadn’t yet paid his price. I caught him at 6Km.

By the end of the first lap, I had Dellow, Reed, and Matty White about 50 meters behind me. Just for good measure, I surged ahead some more to put a little extra space between us. The run felt really good as I slowly pulled away from the other guys. When I made the final turn towards the finish line, I saw that nobody had gained on me, so I eased up and enjoyed the win.

Now the Port Macquarie and Busselton are done, I’ve got my eyes on Challenge Cairns. It’s less than four weeks away, and there’s plenty of work to do. Before I go, I want to thank WTC for putting on two fantastic events. I also want to thank the organising committees and Triathlon Western Australia. You always do a great job of looking after the athletes!

See you in few weeks.

It’s great to have a bunch of like-minded guys to train with, and the fact that they’re all Aussies is just a bonus. Ha ha.
I feel that I’m back into some good fitness, and I’ve adjusted from the travel over here, so I’m excited to head over to New Hampshire, which is on the northeast of the United States, a few hour drive from Boston Massachusetts. The race is called the Mooseman 70.3, and this is the first year that they’ve held this race. I’m looking forward to traveling over there with Matty White (a.k.a. Fatty Black) and I think we are both going to go really well considering our fitness, and training. Make sure to tune into Ironmanlive at the Ironman.com website for race updates. These should be coming in late Sunday evening (Australian Eastern Time).
Cheers for now,
Tim

Related posts:

1. Race Report – Mooseman Ironman 70.3

This was going to be my first race after Ironman Australia, so I wasn’t putting a lot of expectations on myself. I was mainly using this race as an indicator to see how well my body has recovered, and how my post ironman training has been going. I’ve been pretty exhausted lately, but I’ve been doing the training. I knew there were going to be some good athletes at this race, like Luke McKenzie, Courtney Ogden, Tim Reed, and my mate Mitch, who has been killing me and training.

When we arrived in Busselton, we were looked after really well by Brian, and Hayley. Even though this was only a Half Ironman event, it had the feel of a full Ironman. They had a press conference that they invited me to, which was held at The Goose. Mitch Anderson wasn’t racing, but he was on hand to be the MC at the press conference. It was good fun, and we were stirring each other.

On race morning I was feeling pretty good, and I felt comfortable in the water during my warm-up swim. As expected, Luke McKenzie, and Paul Matthews edged away from us, early in the swim, but they didn’t make as much ground as I thought they would. Once we settled into a rhythm, I was sitting on the feet of Mitch Robbins, and when we came up on the beach, I noticed we had Courtney, and Guy Crawford with us.

I’m not sure what happened to Courtney, but once we got out on the bike, he wasn’t with us.The course was similar to the full Ironman course that they use, with just one section of it missing. So in the two lap bike leg, we were able to see how our time gap was to Luke, and Paul. Luke was flying, and I could see he was pulling away from us. Paul looked like he was about two minutes behind Luke, but we were slowly gaining on him. Just over halfway through the bike leg, Courtney finally caught up to me. Not only did he catch the group that I was riding with, but he flew around the outside, and set a good pace.

Ten minutes after Courtney caught up to me, we came upon Paul Matthews, so there was only Luke up the road, but I was guessing that his lead was over five minutes. With less than 10 km remaining on the bike, Mitch got pinged for drafting by the technical official that had been watching us the entire day. I could sense he was frustrated, and knowing that he had to serve a time penalty, he took off pretty hard, and nobody tried to stay with him.

When we arrived back into T2, I heard somebody say that Luke had over five minutes on us, so we all pretty much came out of the transition together to start the run. Paul, Guy Crawford, and Tim Reed were all with me, and Tim seemed to be matching me stride for stride. For the first quarter of the run we were all together, but then Tim and I dropped Paul and Guy as we are returning back from our first lap.

I tried to take a few surges to drop Tim, but nothing was working. He tried to surge ahead a few times as well, but we were pretty evenly matched on the day. As we got into the closing portion of the run, we knew that Luke had the race won, and it was going to be a battle between Tim and me for second place. In the final kilometer, we were both jockeying for position, to try to get the inside track coming into the finish chute. In retrospect, it was quite funny the way we were shifting across the course, to get a better line on the finish. But Tim was more stubborn than me, and he held that inside position. As soon as we turned into the straight section of the finish chute, he put a big surge on, for a moment I considered challenging him, but my legs were dead. He took second place, and I came in 2 seconds behind him for third. I clocked the fastest run of the day, so I was stoked to get the extra prime to add to the prize money.

All in all, I was happy with my race, and I was happy to see my form considering how rundown I have felt over the past three weeks. Next week will occupy my time traveling, and getting situated in Boulder Colorado. Then I’ll still have another 2 1/2 weeks before my first North American 70.3 event. I’ll keep you posted, and check my website for any updates.

Related posts:

1. Post Race Interview – 2010 Busselton Half Ironman
2. Race Report – 2010 Boise Ironman 70.3
3. Race Report for Port of Tauranga Half Ironman

While losing some of these top competitors, there was still Patrick Vernay, Scott Neyedli, Olivier Marceau, and Jason Shortis as well as a few others that could upset the mix. I didn’t have the best preparation, as I came down with The Flu about 3 1/2 weeks out from the race. I got myself on some antibiotics, which was great for the Flu, however, it zapped all my energy, and effected my guts in a bad way, but won’t go into those details…

It was frustrating to not have the energy to do the big blocks of training that I needed for the race, but I needed to let the antibiotics take their course. Once I felt that I was over the infection, I got out of town, and headed up to Alstonville to do some training with the boys up there. I stayed at Clayton Fettell’s place, and we got some really good training in. I really like training up in that area, because we are able to push each other in our training sessions, and the roads are better, with a lot less traffic.

I stayed away from town until Monday, which only had me dealing with the media frenzy for four or five days, which was a good thing. After coming in third at Ironman Australia last year, and considering that last year’s second-place finisher, Pete Jacobs, had withdrawn due to a broken collarbone, there was a lot of local media that were making this a showdown between Patrick and me.

Patrick is strong, and he has the experience, but I knew there was a lot of other guys in this field that were capable of winning this race over Patrick or me. I had several media commitments throughout the week, and all of the questions were geared towards how I would race against Patrick, or how I would go compared to last year…

I tried not to get too caught up in the focus on Patrick, and tried to focus on keeping my head clear, so I could race the race, as it unfolded.

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, was doing his first Ironman event, and that took almost all of the media attention away from us professionals. I’ve never seen so many cameras, or reporters covering an event, and fortunately for us, they weren’t in our face while we were preparing ourselves for the race.

The race start was going to be slightly different from last year, so the race organisers were going with a mass start.  Also, in the pre-race briefing, we were told there would be a Canon firing to signify the start of the race.  However, once they had positioned us to form a floating start line, we all began to drift forword, not wanting anyone to have any advantage over the rest of us. We were all jockeying for positions, when someone on the shoreline sounded one of those “air horns”. I saw a few guys make the jump, and suddenly there was thrashing water all around me. I started swimming with the rest of them, but could faintly hear the announcer on the sideline, trying to stop us and call us back to the start line. I could see that no one around me was willing to stop, so I wasn’t going to be the only idiot to swim back. After about another 5 to 10 seconds, they decided to ignore our false start, and the cannon went off. It was a bit unnerving to have a start like that, but I was trying to find a quick rhythm.

Several of the faster age groupers made it quickly up to the lead pack of professionals, and I could see on the one side of me a few swim around the outside to move ahead of me.  we were moving along at a pretty good pace, and as we came around to start our second, I slowly started drifting back out of the draft zone coming off the swimmer in front of me. I tried to get back up to him, but eventually gave up, and swam the second lap on my own, with about seven or eight guys off my feet.  A little frustrated,  I led the second group out of the water, and made a quick transition to get to my bike. I needed to find out who the guys were that were out ahead of me, and I would only know that once I got the Pro bike racks.  Unfortunately for me, that group included Vernay, Olivier, Paul Ambrose, and Scott Neyedli. I led the second group out of the water, but we were already one minute 30 seconds down from the first pack.

Once I got out on the bike, I try to settle in to a good rhythm, and most of the groups that came through the transition area with me were all hanging off the back. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see what the time gap was, until I reached the turnaround at the southern end of the course. I felt we were holding a pretty good pace throughout the southbound leg, but when we pass the leaders on the Ghost Road, I knew they were putting some more time into us.

When I saw the pack was being driven by Olivier Marceau, I was concerned because I know how good of a cyclist he can be. I tried to get the pace increased, but some of the other guys I was riding with didn’t seem to have the legs on the day. So it was frustrating to see the leaders continue to pull away from us at each of the turnaround points.

By the time we reached T2, I think that group had 6 1/2 minutes on us. I had a quick transition, and set out on a pace to run them down. Just after I finished my first lap, I was able to overtake Olivier Marceau. Then halfway through my second lap I overtook Paul Ambrose. And on the latter part of that second lap, I was able to catch Adrian Cominotto along the break wall, but I also was starting to feel the effects of the pace that I had been holding.

Very quickly, I had a feeling of sluggishness come over me, and as it passed through the carpark at Town Beach, I was dreading the hills that were ahead of me. Just as I was hitting the first big climb up Windmill Hill, I had Matty White overtake me. Up until that point, he had pretty much been holding pace with me, but running about 150 m behind me. So I felt a bit demoralized as I realized that the sluggishness I was feeling in my head, had passed on to my legs, because Matty flew by me, and I soon walked part of the way up the hill.

I got some inspiration from the Team Berkel supporters that were camped out at the top of Windmill Hill, so I was able to get into a decent rhythm again coming back in through town and all the way out to Settlement Point. I was feeling quite crook as I was approaching that turnaround point, and I ended up throwing up In a Portaloo (Toilet). It must have been while I was sitting on that fiberglass thrown, that Paul Ambrose overtook me again. But with my body back on track I was able to finish my third lap, but unfortunately I was not able to make up ground on any of the leaders ahead of me, so I ended up finishing seventh on the day.

Not one of my better outings, and I’m still a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to stay with the lead swimmers back in the earlier stages of the race. But it’s all a good reminder to me that I need to stay focused at all times. I would have loved for this to come down to a running race with Patrick, Scott, Courtney, Matty and me. It would have been interesting…

But it’s no longer time to dwell on the past, and put all my focus and training into racing the Half Ironman in Busselton in early May. After that race I will be heading to the USA for six months of racing in the northern hemisphere. Looking forward to that, but I will keep you all posted on my website, and twitter.

Cheers for now,

Tim

Related posts:

1. Ironman Western Australia Race Report
2. Country Energy Ironman Australia Triathlon
3. Port Macquarie Half Ironman

Related posts:

1. Ironman Australia – Port Macquarie
2. Ironman Australia: My best result yet!
3. Country Energy Ironman Australia Triathlon

I came back from that race with some focus, and started to put in some good training sessions, which got me another second place finish in the Gold Coast Half Ironman on October 4^th.  I was a little disappointed that I let such a large gap form with Clayton Fettell on the Gold Coast, but he just put together the perfect race, with an awesome swim/bike combination.

I knew I was going to up against some good cyclist in the Scody Half Ironman here in Port Macquarie, so I had to be aware of the time gaps. So on race morning, I was feeling pretty good, and I was getting a lot of good feedback from the local crowd. I love racing, but racing in Port Macquarie gives me that added buzz.

I was figuring that Cam Watt and Boyd Conrick were going to be the early leaders out of the swim. But I knew with cyclists like Bryan Fuller, and Adam Holborow racing, it would be likely that their lead would get taken back in the bike. I just wanted to be in a position to keep pace with those boys. But as it turned out, Boyd didn’t have the swim I expected, and a relative newcomer named Jamani Francis came out of the water with just over a minute lead over my pack. I still felt that I was in a good position, because I had Joshua Rix, Adam, and Bryan Fuller in there with me, as well as the new young gun, Mitch Robbins and a few other boys.

I had a good transition, and I was hoping that I could keep with that group for the first few kilometers as we rolled through town. We had only gone about a kilometer into the ride, and Adam went off the front as we rolled through the center of town. Just as we started the slight rise up Clarence street, when Brian attacked. I was still struggling to find my legs after the swim, and I wasn’t able to go with him. By the time I reached the top of Clarence Street, I could see Adam and Brian were together a few hundred meters up the road.

I knew that they would be focused on trying to catch Cam and Jamani, and I was hoping that the group that I was riding with, we’re going to work with me in not letting the gap blowout to the race leaders. When we passed the boys on their way back from the first turnaround, I could see that they had opened up a gap of a few minutes. There were a few guys riding with me that weren’t willing to do any work, and maintaining the pace, so I had to drive the group for the majority of the race. Although I was happy to see Mitch Robbins up there in the front with me, and having a go.  Mitch, being a local Port Macquarian, and racing in his first major event in the open category was pretty cool to witness. We were both getting huge cheers from the crowds as we passed through the course.

I think we did a pretty good job of maintaining the pace, because by the time we made it into the transition area after the bike leg I was told that Brian and Adam were just under four minutes ahead of us on the run course. I knew that if I was going to have a good day, it would be my run that would make the difference in this race. I quickly went to work of trying to chase down the boys. With the new three lap run course, it was easy to see if I was carving any time into their lead. I saw them for the first time about three quarters of the way through the first lap, and I knew I had already ran some time into that four minute lead. By the time I completed the first lap, I had already run down Adam, and I had Brian about 45 seconds up the road from me.

I was running a little too hard, and I could feel the pace taking its toll on me, but the crowds were spurring me on, so I maintain my pace until I passed Brian to take the lead. As I passed him, I felt that he didn’t have enough left in the tank, to respond to my attack, so I surged ahead, and I immediately felt much more comfortable with my run. I was only halfway through the run leg, but I was able to relax a little bit, and focus on my turnover. I had a nice smooth rhythm and it felt great, so I was able to appreciate the crowds, and I think I even smiled a few times. On the three lap course, I could see that I was running away from the other boys, but I could see my good mate Mitch making his way through the field. Adam struggled a bit on the run, but once he found his rhythm he was able to hang in there for fifth place. Mitch ran his way into second, so it was incredible for Port Macquarie to have the winner, second place, and Adam rounding out the top five. I ended up posting the fastest run of the day with a 1:15:30, which was four minutes faster than the second fastest run of the day.

Related posts:

1. Pre-race interview – Port Macquarie Half Ironman
2. Post race interview – Port Macquarie Half Ironman
3. MY FIRST WIN! – Campbells Shepparton Half Ironman

Related posts:

1. Post race interview – Port Macquarie Half Ironman
2. Port Macquarie Half Ironman
3. 220 Triathlon magazine interview

When I got to the race start, I was able to catch up with a few of the boys, and we were able to muck around for a bit, before we got to business. I knew that Clayton Fettell and Joey Lampe were going to lead out the swim, and I wasn’t planning to try to stay with them, because they are just way too strong. I settled in with Adam Holborrow, Nathan Stewart, and Ollie Whistler. Adam brought us in to the finish, and when I got to the bike compound, I noticed that we had James Bowstead from New Zealand with us. I’ve raced with James a few times, and he’s a really good cyclist, so I figured that between myself and Adam, Nathan, and James, we would’ve caught up to Clayton and Joey in the first lap.

I was told when we left the bike compound, the boys were two minutes up the road. James Bowstead broke away from the groups that I came out of the water with, and Adam and I were able to bridge the gap to keep him in our sights. However that didn’t last long, and he was able to edge away from me, and I didn’t want to burn out too early with an early chase, so I settled in and let the other boys catch up to me. By this time we had swallowed up Joey, so I knew that Clayton, and James, were out there on their own. I felt that we were moving along at a fairly decent clip, however when we were given the time split after the first lap, I realised that Clayton had gained an additional one minute 42 seconds over his swim lead. I pushed myself a little harder, and I was hoping that I could reel in some of this time gap, but after about 35 km into the ride, I began to see black spots, and felt really uncomfortable. I eased off a bit, and try to settle in with a piece that was comfortable, but when I got into the turn at the second lap, I was told that Clayton was now over seven minutes ahead of me.

I did not want to compromise my run, so I maintained my pace, hoping that Clayton would fade in his last lap. However, that didn’t happen. Clayton had a phenomenal swim, followed by an excellent ride, so by the time I made it into T2, he had nine minutes, and nine seconds lead on me. So at this stage, I was running angry, and tried to get straight to work.  I was a little upset with myself, for letting the lead slip away, the way that it did.  James Bowstead was running in second place, and when I rolled into T2, I had five guys with me, so I wanted to push out hard, to focus only on the guys ahead of me, and not the group that was starting with me.

I had a good start to my run, but each time my got to a turnaround where I was able to see Clayton and Bowstead, I could see that those guys were running really well, so I had my work cut out for me. I was moving along pretty good, but I knew that the only way that I could beat Clayton, was that he’d totally blew in the run. I was closing in on James, and I was able to move into second with about 4 km to go. I didn’t give up, and I was pushing really hard, but when I got to about 1 km from the finish line, I could hear the announcers calling Clayton over the line. I ended up running a 1:16:16 Half Marathon, which was over 4:30 minutes faster than the second fastest on the day, so I’m very proud of that accomplishment.

So now I’m going to prepare myself for the Scody Half Ironman in Port Macquarie on November 1st. I will be leaving tomorrow to head up to Alstonville to do some training with Clayton Fettell, Simon Thompson, Joey Lampe and possibly Jason Shortis. My main focus is still on Busselton in December, and everything seems to be moving on track.

Just keep coming back and checking out the website for updates, and I’ll send another blog update once I start my training with the boys. I also want to thank Lisa Pringle from the USM for allowing me to come back up in race and the Gold Coast. It’s a great event, and I have now finished on the podium for the last four years, and I will keep coming back here, until I crack this one. I also want to thank all of my [intlink id="109" type="page"]sponsors[/intlink], and my supporters, who have made it possible for me to get the results. Everyone of you play a part in my successes. Thank you.

Related posts:

1. Gold Coast Half Ironman
2. Cannibal Gold Coast Half Ironman
3. Race report for Geelong Ironman 70.3

My win at Ironman Western Australia last December, has had a lot more impact on my career than I had originally anticipated. Previously, I used to do rummage through the industry magazines, to see if there was any mention of my name, or to see if I showed up in any of the photos… Well, the last several months have been an eye-opening experience in terms of the media exposure that I’ve received since December.

Even in the lead up to Country Energy Ironman Australia Triathlon, I was invited to be one of the four professional triathletes to speak at the VIP Breakfast Function on Friday morning. The other three athletes however, were all past or current Hawaiian Ironman Champions, in Chrissie Wellington, Michellie Jones, and Tim DeBoom. I was honored to be invited, and to be listed with some of the legends in this sport.

Other than that, I had a few other media responsibilities, but tried my best to keep a low profile before the race. That can be a bit difficult when you’re racing in your hometown… even just stepping out for a coffee, took longer than expected with all the locals wishing me good luck for the race.

For any of you that have read some of the reports from this race, you will know that our weather was not ideal in the lead up to the race. Fortunately for me, I knew the course, and I was meant to taper anyway, but we had rain on and off throughout the week. This must’ve been frustrating for a lot of the visiting athletes, that were hoping to get familiar with the course during that time.

I felt well-rested on race morning, and other then having to slog through ankle deep mud on my way to the swim start, I was feeling quite good about the day. For the first time, Ironman Australia allowed the pros to start 35 minutes before the age groupers. I don’t think this had much impact on the men’s field, but I think the women’s race was a bit more honest.

In the swim, I anticipated that the usual group (Pete Jacobs, Cam Watt, Mathias Hecht) would pull away early, and I figured that Tim Deboom would be with them, since he has a strong swimming background. I stayed with the second group, and we made a few errors in navigating the course, so we ended up coming out of the water about three minutes back from the leaders.

Once out on the bike, I settled into a good rhythm. I was feeling strong, but I wasn’t interested and trying to catch the lead swimmers too early. I knew there was some good runners with DeBoom and Jacobs up the road from me, but I had 180 km to ease my way back to the leaders. And with a three-lap bike leg, you get to see the time gaps at each end of the course.

About halfway through the ride, I saw Cam Watt breakaway from the rest of the group, and he was having a crack at it. So before this race gets out of hand, I picked up the pace to bring myself back into the lead group, and then I would look into how far ahead Cam would be at that stage.

Just after the start of our third lap, I caught what was left of the leaders, and I could tell from the turnaround that Cam was another two minutes ahead of us. I made the decision not to do anything stupid, like trying to bridge the gap up to Cam, because I felt that the race was going to be coming down to the run, and I was now riding in the vicinity of Vernay, DeBoom, Hecht, Jacobs, as well as Simon Thompson (who is an unknown over this distance, but still a major concern…).

Fellow Port Macquarian professional triathlete Adam Holborrow came around me, and he was flying. He was powering along, and I felt that the pace may be a little too high, considering it was our final lap, and we still had the 42 km marathon ahead of us. I looked over my shoulder, to see how the others were handling this pace, and I could see that Adam and I had dropped the rest of the field and they were about 30 seconds back. I knew that Adam was focused on catching Cam, but I didn’t think that was the best move for my race, so I eased back and let him pursue to Cam on his own.

I gave my legs a little rest while I cruised along, and waited for the other is to join me. I maintained a decent pace throughout the rest of the lap, but every time I turned around I could see the strong runners still hanging off the back.

When we were about a kilometer from the transition area, I could hear the race announcer calling in Adam Holborrow, so he would’ve had a minute and a half on us going into the run. My buddy Nathan Stewart got off the bike just ahead of me, so we both entered the tent together. I made quick work of my transition, and I was the first to exit the change tent, and as soon as I came out, I saw Adam standing (well actually he was hunched over massaging his leg, and I knew he had cramped up) just outside the tent. I think he tried to run out with me down the chute, but it must’ve taken him a while to find his run legs.

I knew I still had Cam up the road from me, so I just try to find a good rhythm, and a comfortable pace. Within the first kilometer, I was joined by New Caledonian, Patrick Vernay, and I settled in to a four minute kilometer pace. Patrick was speaking to me, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. He has a strong French accent, so I’m not sure if he was speaking to me in French, but either way, I didn’t know what he was saying.

We ran shoulder to shoulder for the first lap, and I could feel him put in a few surges, but nothing that was too difficult to match. After we’d come through for the start of our second lap, he started to pick up the pace, and my Garmin Forerunner displayed that we were doing 3:40/Km’s. I knew this was too fast, but I didn’t want to let him go, so I ran with him for another 3-4 km’s, but by the time we got to the turnaround at Settlement Point, I decided to let him go.

However, I think the elevated pace had taken its toll on me, and I quickly backed off to doing 4:10/Km’s, and even that felt tough. As I approached the halfway of the marathon, I felt I was in a bad patch, and I was just hoping I could get through it as quickly as possible. I could see at the turnaround that Pete Jacobs and Jimmy Johnson were not too far behind, and they look to be running well. The crowd support was incredible, but it wasn’t enough to lift me from the patch I was going through. On the second half of my second lap, I felt Jacobs coming up on me, and rather than try to run with him, I decided to run my own race. He seemed to be focused on catching Patrick, but with 15 km to go, I felt that it was not the right move to try to surge again with Jacobs. Also I was hoping, that if I kept a steady pace, I would be able to catch a tiring Vernay and Jacobs in the final stretch of the race.

But I have to hand it to Patrick and Pete, because on the day they had the stuff, and Patrick walked away with his third consecutive Ironman Australia victory, with Pete taking out second. I finished third, another two minutes and 40 seconds back from Jacobs, but I was really happy with the way I raced. I could have easily sat back on the bike, and let the others set the pace, but I was out there having a go, and I took it to Patrick for the first half of the run, and he is one of the best in the sport.

I have to acknowledge the support I got from “ Team Berkel ‘09” which was the mastermind of my mate, Benjamin “Woodsy” Woods. Woodsy took charge of the project, which involved contacting many of my sponsors to support a fund-raising activity for another mate of mine, Brad Foster.

Woodsy got the support from my clothing sponsor, Scody, to supply 100 singlets, which he sold through a support group on Facebook, to friends and acquaintances that were coming to spectate on the day. Also, Cannondale donated some clothing, gloves, socks, and other items, which were sold and auctioned on the day, to the supporters. And lastly, PowerBar came through with those inflatable noisemakers, which were a huge hit amongst the athletes.

“Team Berkel” set up camp at the top of Windmill Hill, so they were able to see us on each lap of the bike, and each lap of the run. I know these guys were supporting all the competitors, including the other pros racing against me, but it was always the highlight of every lap for me to come up over that hill, and listened to the alcohol-induced crowd go crazy.

I think every athlete will go home with some fond memories of these “fool’s on the Hill”, but the best part is that we were able to raise over $4000 for my mate Brad Foster, who was attempting to raise $140,600 for the K.I.D.S Foundation. He didn’t reach his goal, but we were glad to be part of it, and he’s coming back next year to do it again, and reach his fund raising objective. And I’m sure we will be back to do our part…

My next race will be the Busselton Half Ironman on May 2. I haven’t done a lot of short course training yet, but it will be good to get back into doing some shorter sessions in preparation for some races I’m doing in North America. I’ll keep you posted as the season unfolds.

1 Patrick VERNAY 8:24:53
2 Pete JACOBS 8:29:03
3 Tim BERKEL 8:31:43
4 Jimmy JOHNSEN 8:33:43
5 Maik TWELSIEK 8:34:10
6 Timothy DEBOOM 8:39:47
7 Simon THOMPSON 8:42:21
9 Matt WHITE 8:50:59
10 Chris DMITRIEFF 8:53:06

Related posts:

1. Ironman Australia – Port Macquarie
2. Ironman Western Australia Race Report