Only three days to go.  Thursday was an easy day as we had John’s Aquathon that evening so I enjoyed a massage and some yoga in the morning.  The race was starting at 6pm at Corsair Bay with a 800m swim and 4km run.  I had been debating all week whether to wear my wetsuit as I had not been comfortable in my new one so was it worth it for 800m as a quick transition would be key?

After talking to Roly, I decided to race without although I was in the minority except the surf girls.  It was great to see so many people racing after work and the sun had even decided to make a special guest appearance.  I did a good run warm-up and decided not to get wet but warm-up my shoulders/back on dry land so I didn’t get cold.  The men and relay teams headed off first with the women a further 2mins back.  Within no time we were off and there was no time to think about the water temperature.  I had a reasonable swim and came out of the water just ahead of Annabel – looked like I would need a fast run to hold her off.  Two of the surf lifesaver girls came out of the water a long way ahead of the field followed by Helene Solomon (French Ironman athlete training for Ironman NZ) and Ainslea Savage.  

It was off up that really steep hill again before running into the town centre and back along the waterfront to the finish.  After the first km, I spotted one of the lifesaver girls ahead and she became my next target. No sooner had I passed her and put myself in fourth place than Annabel came steaming past. Ok, time to grit my teeth and try to stay with her.  I was hanging in there (just!) when I recognized the run gait of the guy ahead and it was Mark.  He joined the train and we all headed for the music and the finish.  Annabel managed to pull away by a couple of seconds and just as I was happily settling for fifth place, Karyn Ballance powered past with 10m to go! The only consolidation was she won the NZ Ironman a few weeks later.

Our last couple of days went by in a daze and I finished my camp with a solid brick session at Corsair Bay on Saturday morning.  We had all gone into town the night before for dinner as we had been social hermits since arriving in NZ - we were always too tired to bother to go out!  I left the boys at about 11pm exhausted to have a couple of quiet beers – famous last words.  Apparently Jason announced shortly before 12am that it was his 30 th  Birthday the next day so of course they had to celebrate until the early hours of the morning.  John was last seen running home at 2am having decided to take the bus home, felt sick and got off two stops early and then realized he still had to get home……….

Needless to say, there was no-one queuing to join me for the Saturday morning session but Cookie in his drunk stupor agreed to drive my wetsuit over and keep an eye on me!    I am not sure how much good he would have been if something had happened to me in the water as he was sleeping for England in the car but the thought was there and I appreciated the company in transition.  My legs were definitely feeling the effects of the two weeks as I cycled back over Evans Pass for the last time.  We finished off the camp with a big BBQ at Gordo’s with lots of Birthday cake for Jason.  We all met some great people and thoroughly enjoyed our time in Christchurch. The nice thing is that we have all kept in touch and it was great to see Jonas come second in the pro field at Ironman NZ and Claus/Martin also both qualify for Hawaii in their age-groups.

I would definitely recommend the area for training, brilliant facilities, terrain, coaches, lots of races and a great bunch of athletes of all abilities to train with.  After a good rest, I have already started feeling the benefits of the training particularly my power in both swimming and on the bike.  I have also been working on all the technique suggestions and additional strength work and have found this is all starting to pay dividends so it was two weeks well spent.