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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

3rd in China World Series Event

I was very lucky to get through the weekend finishing in third place and experiencing a very different style of living.
On Wednesday I left for Weihai, a small city on the Chinese east coast.
First I traveled through Hong Kong and spent a night in one of the roughest motels imaginable at Beijing. (Cockroaches, hookers the lot!) After being refered by the tourist counter at the airport.
From there it was on to Weihai and a bit of formality that goes with ITU races. Picked up from the airport and into a four star hotel!
Race briefing, meet and greet then bike check in and we were ready for the race. My first since Ironman in August.
Again a bit of a weird distance 3/80/20.
I raced as hard as I could and finished in third place in a small field. It was'nt my best race and it felt like I am still lacking alot of strength that I can work on leading into Busselton in December but at least I know what I have to improve on now.
Massive thanks to all the race organisers and volunteers for their help. The race was awsome and went smoothly for their first time. The course was very hard and made for a fair race and the chinese crowd was just great. Hopefully I'll be back next year.
Full results are at http://www.triathlon.org/results/results/2010_weihai_itu_ld_triathlon_world_series_event_/5232/

Aaron.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

China town!

Next week I head up to China for the first round of the ITU long distance world championship series. Just a quick trip this time through Beijing and onto a little place called Weihai.
I'm looking forward to the trip as my last adventure to China for a continental cup was really awsome.
The race is just the standard ITU long distance with a three kilometre swim, eighty kilometre bike and a twenty kilometre run but looks to be over a fairly challenging course.
The best thing about some of these Asian races is usually the trip there as alot of the time it turns out to be a bit of an epic adventure, then when you get there most of the people dont even know what a triathlon is. I think most of the people that crowd the streets to watch are just curious to see their first triathlon.
I'm hoping to have a strong race then head home and into a couple of shorter events in Oz as our summer season kicks off.
More updates soon!
Aaron.