13.01.15

3rd at Port of Tauranga Half Ironman NZ Championships - The new year has started off pretty well with a 3rd placing at the 26th Port of Tauranga Half Ironman which doubled as the New Zealand Championships.

I had a solid swim coming out with the lead pack only 30 seconds down on Graham Ogrady. We caught Ogrady just after 7km and the group of riders slowly shrunk to 4 athletes including 3x World Champion Craig Alexander, Braden Currie, Mark Bowstead and myself.

It was supposed to be a hot and sunny day but instead the first 45km we were greeted with a constant drizzle. After the first 45km the clouds started to break up and the sun was finally starting to show it's face. I managed to have the fastest bike spilt of the day and lead the trio behind me into transition.

The run started off like a 10km race and the first few kilometres were blistering, I had to pull the reigns back and just try and run my own tempo hoping I would catch up later on. Heading onto the base track around Mount Maunganui I was in 4th but managed to pass Craig and Mark half way around and by the time we completed the first lap I was 17seconds behind the flying Braden Currie. At the 13km mark Craig ran up to me again but I was unable to stick with him and he surged up to Braden and caught him a kilometre later.

I was stuck in forth gear and just couldn't find the extra push to bridge up to them and the positions stayed that way until the finish with Craig taking the tittle with Braden 2nd and myself in 3rd. The next few days I will be trying to get my legs right for this weekends Asia-Pacific 70.3 Championships in Auckland, it should be another fast furious race!

Port of Tauranga New Zealand Half Ironman Championships, Tauranga. 2km swim, 90km bike, 21km run

Pro Men

1st  Craig Alexander Australia, NZ 6 23:02 4 1:59 2 2:07:31 4 1:11 2 1:14:20 1 3:48:03 1 (swim, T1 transition, bike, T2 transition, run, finish time)

2nd Braden Currie Wanaka, NZ 4 22:58 1 1:54 4 2:07:50 3 1:10 3 1:15:20 3 3:49:12 2

3rd Cameron Brown Auckland, NZ 7 23:04 8 2:08 1 2:07:19 7 1:13 4 1:15:50 4 3:49:34 3

4th Mark Bowstead Waiuku, NZ 3 22:54 2 1:54 3 2:07:46 6 1:11 5 1:19:39 5 3:53:24 4

5th Ryan Sissons Cambridge, NZ 5 22:58 6 2:06 5 2:13:39 1 1:06 1 1:14:01 6 3:53:50 5

6th Simon Cochrane Auckland, NZ 8 24:09 9 2:09 8 2:14:01 16 1:40 9 1:22:04 7 4:04:03 6

7th Oliver Shaw New Plymouth, NZ 10 24:49 16 2:22 10 2:14:18 2 1:09 8 1:22:04 8 4:04:42 7

8th Jamie Black Melbourne 11 25:25 17 2:27 9 2:14:07 8 1:18 10 1:22:39 9 4:05:56 8

9th Chris Sanson Palmerston North, NZ 19 30:50 11 2:14:57 9 1:21 6 1:19:42 10 4:06:50 9

10th Hamish Hammond Greytown, NZ 2 22:53 3 1:58 6 2:13:49 5 1:11 14 1:27:20 11 4:07:11 10

 

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