70.3 World Champs Port Elizabeth

I felt in great form going into this race. I knew the competition would be super tough and my aim was to get into the top 20 in my age category…maybe top 10 if I had a fantastic race. (There were 207 athletes in the 40-44 age cat)

I was pleased with my swim. The water temperature was supposedly 15.5c but it actually felt pleasant and we hit a warmer section before the first turn buoy. I think I self seeded myself pretty well and managed to find a few feet here and there to draft.

I managed to run straight past my bike in T1 🤦🏻‍♀️ Not that my new bike looks very different to my old bike!

I really enjoyed the bike route; even the sneaky climbs near the turn around. We had a head wind heading out and a slight tailwind part of the way home. I rode pretty much to plan (power and time) and felt very comfortable on my new bike (I’d only had it two weeks and only ridden it twice outside) Fortunately I’d had time to do some tweaks the day before and everything worked great on race day. My back, which I’ve had previous issues with, also felt great.

Before I knew it T2 was around the corner and I failed to get my foot out of my shoe as the dismount line came closer so I ended up running into transition with my shoes on, but loose, so it wasn’t very easy to run!

I felt good on the run and kept a consistent pace. The crowd support along Beach Road was great. It was getting quite hot by midday and I did my best not to soak my trainers when trying to cool down with the sponges.

I finished strong, maybe too strong?! I think I should have pushed harder in the last few kms, but it’s easy to say that now…

I was very happy with my race, but as always, I have room for improvement, and this motivates me! Looking forward to the next few hard weeks of training before IM Taiwan in October.

A big thanks to all who help me achieve what I do 🙂 Cobus, Dave, Werner, Liandi, Lizette…

A lot of people were very apprehensive about coming to South Africa. Comments on Facebook were hilarious! But it turned out that most people fell in love with SA. They were shocked by the beauty of the country, the friendly people, the amazing food and wine. Well done Ironman SA; you put on a great event!

Swim: 00:34:58
T1: 00:04:04
Bike: 02:49:12
T2: 00:03:12
Run: 01:35:01
Total: 05:06:25
15th out of 207 (Age cat 40-44)

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