Ironman New Zealand Race Report Part 1

Ironman New Zealand done and dusted for another year. The time seems to go so fast as I can still remember my race from the year before like it was yesterday.

Anyway, Tracy and myself drove down Wednesday afternoon to a little drama with our accommodation. The motel we had booked had somehow not put us into their computer system when we booked last November and they didn’t have any spare rooms so we didn’t have any accommodation! Taupo, is not the biggest town, and it’s always fully booked out on Ironman weekend so Tracy was getting a little nervous or should I say annoyed J

So the motel staff rings the Taupo information centre which can see all the hotels/motels accommodation vacancies and comes back with the answer, sorry there is no rooms available in Taupo!

Next try, they ring one of their friends who own a lodge, and it was our lucky day, they had a mix up with one of their bookings so a room had become available in the last 1hour or so. And best of all we drive down to the new place, the Baywater Motor Inn, and it’s a BIG UPGRADE, a really nice studio unit with a big spa pool and views over Lake Taupo. All good I thought.

I had a great view of the Taupo Road so I got to watch a heap of  athletes testing/screwing their legs before the race, wearing next to no clothing the days before the race, swimming in speedos......

Check out the photo below, now I could be wrong, but these guys must be triathletes, I am not sure many of the locals go swimming in speedo’s when its 20 degrees outside

View from Motel Room

Wednesday night I had a great massage from Dot, every time I go to Taupo I get a light massage from Dot, and my body always feels better for it, she is one of the few therapists I have ever had who actually knows where to apply pressure and how to loosen the muscles without just getting in and pushing as hard as possible!

So the few days before the Race I got to meet up with the Timex crew who had a booth at the expo and were sponsoring the event. Tracy was a happy girl, as she turned up with a *competitors brand watch* and obviously they couldn’t have her walking around with that. So she got a great sleak looking Timex watch J

Rudi from Compressport was also in town so I got some nice new compression socks for the race which not only worked great in the run, but also helped with the warmth on the bike which everyone else was struggling with.

So Thursday and Friday I had some media commitments , got my bike racked, wrapped my bike up in my $20 BBQ cover from Bunnings to keep it nice and dry and before I knew it was less than 12hrs to race day (I also did some light exercise to keep the legs loose for race day J)

So that’s part one of my race report, time for me to go to swim training, so part two will be up tomorrow. Like my swim this morning it involves getting very wet!

Pre Race with Hiro and Maki

Media Conference