Challenge Wanaka 2024

We are back in Wanaka and this time we haven’t taken 3 months off. We have spent the last 4 months training hard and building up to this race. Training had been abit rocky due to a few illnesses and travel but all in all I feel it went very well.

Manon had flown over from the UK 2 weeks prior and we had been cycling the course and enjoying our time back together. Manon was also racing so it was a special day for both of us!

I’ll start a couple of days before with the Bay to Bay swim. I was using this as abit of a feeler for challenge as to what i could realistically expect. I ended up doing the 1750m course in 29:44 – I was ecstatic about this and it gave me confidence that the rigorous squad sessions with Fitter had paid off. I set my sights on a sub 30 swim!

The morning of race day I woke up in our van at Glendu Bay. With a slightly restless sleep which is expected before race day, I hopped out of bed and got the porridge and coffee going.

I’m not a fan of porridge but I managed to force it down. The coffee on the other hand was great, something I have recently endeavoured to perfect!

We went to our bikes which we had racked the day before and I set out my transition. Pumped up my tires and headed back to get my wetsuit which I had left in the van. Talk about being out of practise. Not only did I leave my wetsuit in the van but also left my bike computer. I wouldn’t actually realise this until 20km into the bike.

Once the wetsuit was on, we headed to the start line. Had a quick kiss good luck with Manon and I headed out for a warm up swim. 100 strokes out, 100 strokes back to shore. ‘Yes, I can still swim’ I thought.

To the front of the swim line up I went. I looked around and saw everyone was a good 6ft 3 with long arms. I made a comment about getting in everyone’s way at the start before putting my googles down and getting ‘in the grove’.

BANG!

I sprinted two steps like Usain Bolt before going full swan dive into the person next to me. I swung my arms in a fashion that would only look good in a boxing ring. I came out on top. I’m always keen for a mid swim scrap. I smiled to myself as I got into more of a swimming motion.

The first 200m much like last year was quite simply flat out, foot to the floor. Here. There and Gone.

My aim was to stay with those fast feet in front of me. Whether they were actual fast feet was yet to be decided, but I knew for sure when I got to the first turn bouy and looked ahead at open water. Not only had I been swimming with the front pack I had swum upsides the leaders and got myself out of the draft. Bugger… I better get back in the draft, and smiling like a Cheshire Cat I slowed and slipped behind the person to my right. His name I did not know at the time, but discovered later on that it was Ben Attkin. A story to come about Ben.

The next 700m I sat comfortably swimming behind the lead 3. There was 1 person who had disappeared into the distance but as far as I was aware I was in the top 5. With the last 600m to go my initial efforts came back to bite and I slowed dropping from that lead pack. 200m to go my googles decided to fill up with water and I couldn’t see a thing. I ripped them off, stuck my head above the water, and gasping for air did some pretty horrendous swimming.

31:04 not the sub 30 I wanted but only 30 seconds behind that front group. Out of the water attempting to take my wetsuit off ended up in the most embarrassing reaching behind my back and squirming I couldn’t reach my zipper! My shoulders were not being flexible and I was getting angry with it. I ended up slowing to a walk and managed to get it off and down to my waist. Transition was smooth apart from this and I overtook 2 people while mounting the bike.

It took me 15km to catch up with Ben who had a 30 second head start out of transition. When i eventually pulled upside him leaving Wanaka centre I realised I had probably spent a bit too many matches trying to get up to him. He promptly came past me again and we exchanged a few comments to each other but I doubt either of us heard what the other was saying due to half of lake Wanaka being in our ears.

‘Have you ridden the course before?’ I exclaimed.

‘Nope, you?’

‘A few times! On this next hill you need a lot of momentum keep your speed up!’, I smiled.

He later told me, I was either too strong for him or just mad. I confirmed to him I was just mad.

Unfortunately much to my disappointment he let me go off into the distance and I didn’t see him again. Hoping I hadn’t broken him too early on I carried on alone being passed by 1 person who can only be described as a rocket ship. Nothing was said and no attempt was made by me to keep up. The man flew.

Literally nothing interesting happened for the next 40km. I was just on my own ticking off the k’s nice and quickly. Oh apart from a bee.

A fucking bee. Flew into me, quite hard. Landed on my left thigh and stuck its arse into my leg. FUCK. That hurt. As i write this now 24hours later it still bloody stings.

I finished the bike in 2:40:15. Nothing to shout about but not too slow either.

Time to run, Brian a friend from when I was training in Ashburton last year shouted out my time splits.

20 mins behind 1st, 17mins ahead of 3rd.

Well no point in chasing 1st and I’d have to walk to get caught. Let’s take this easy. I forgot to take into account the hill, the damn hill. 200ish meters of accent in about 2km. Steep would be an understatement.

Running all but the steepest part I threw electrolytes over myself and drank water. Collected gels that I wasn’t too keen on and wee’d while I was running… yanno to keep myself warm?

Flying back down the hill and into the second lap I got more splits from Brian.

‘2nd!, 4th!, 13th pro.’

I had no idea what he was on about, but there was no way I could have gone from second to 13th?! I later found out:

2nd – 25-29 Age Group

4th – Overall Age Group

13th – Including the Pro’s

The second lap was much the same, I cheered on Els Visser as she went on to win the Pro women. Coming into the end I saw Manon heading out on her 1st lap of the run, a big high five and a cheer sent a big smile across her face. Thank god I thought, she is enjoying it!

Coming down the finish line feeling quite fresh and not completely spent was a bizarre feeling. But I had to keep in mind I was doing a Ironman in 2 weeks time and training had to resume!

Manon finished in style and I managed to do some pretty rubbish reporting from everyone at home. I even forgot to get a video of her going down the finish.. oops.

Then began the long wait until the prize giving. Where i got to stand 1 step higher on the podium than last year.

Maybe 1 more attempt?….