New Zealand nationals in Wellington 31st March 2007
Well another Tuesday morning and I must admit I'm feeling a lot better than I did this time last week!! It really is amazing how quickly your body can become resilient to racing hard and keeping your heart rate at around 170-180 beats for 2 hours on end...
On Saturday I competed in the National Championships in Wellington. It also doubled as a continental Olympic points race for world rankings towards Beijing. The race itself was a very demanding one. With Wellington turning on its best display of hurricane like winds. The Hurricanes were playing that night at the cake tin. But it felt like they were on the course early Saturday morning.
The race went as I had expected with a small group forming after the very choppy swim. It was a good mix of overseas competitors, myself and Bevan Docherty. The 6 of us worked well together on the demanding 40k cycle course. With gail force winds around the bays and a short steep climb towards the lookout at mount Victoria it was going to be tough. I was sure it would be a case of saving as much energy as I could on the hard cycle course.
Then surely once we hit the run the real battle for the days honors would eventuate between myself and Bevan. I was in a bit of trouble before we started as I had not really fully recovered from my third place last week in the opening round of the World Cup series in Australia. But I hoped that Bevan was feeling like I did and hit the run and went for it. We both cleared out pretty quickly from the others and it was on!.
With the Kilometers being knocked off at just over 3minutes it was always going to be who could hold it together for the full 10ks. After the 6 and half K mark I experienced some cramp. Bevan saw I was in trouble and pounced. It was a great move and I could nothing about it. After about a kilometer I started to come right again. I tried to haul him back in but was short by 6 seconds at the finish line.
So another good race for myself so early in the season. I now head to Japan for the second round of the World Cup with a lot of confidence. And you can be sure I'll be pushing myself all the way to the finish line come Sunday week. Hope everyone is in good health and smiling away.
Tomorrow morning at 9am I'm on the Good morning show with Brendon Pongia talking about my up coming year. And my preparation towards Beijing! check it out if you want. All the pictures from the race in weekend are up on my website too. Take care and talk to you all soon.
Cheers Kris