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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Headed home.

My final race in China two weeks ago was my last detour as I made my way back home after the Euro season.




I left camp in Leysin 10 days earlier planning to squash an Iron distance race and double Olympic into the next two weekends. Things didn’t go perfect but I got through it and back home in one piece. Ready to have a bit of a break and get rid of some niggles that I have had lingering over the last few months.



The Iron distance event was just off the coast of Singapore on a little island called Bintan. As expected it was hot and humid and being so close to the race in Hawaii there was only a small pro field.



The conditions didn’t suit me but I thought it was worth a go, it had so many positive things going for it and was on my way home. My idea was that if I was struggling in the heat, just jog through the marathon and leave my legs fresh for the following week in China.



The race started well and midway through the bike I joined one of my team mates. We worked well on the bike and came into T2 with close to a 30 minute lead back to third place. I’d started to cramp after the 90km mark on the bike and felt terrible from the start of the run but I knew if I just jogged the marathon I would be able to hold second place. Just that became harder than what I thought and at the 32km mark I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. The doctor on course had noticed this a few km earlier and followed me in his golf cart until eventually I collapsed and got taken off in the ambulance.



At the end of the day my team mate Brett had a great race and his first professional win coming across the line with a huge gap back to second place and a massive pay cheque of US $15000 while I watched the presentations from the medical tent. Not exactly how I had planned the day but there wasn’t much I could do about it but try and get ready for the race in China the following week.



As you’d gather the week in between was pretty easy, I left Singapore on Wednesday and headed north. Its about a six hour flight up to Beijing then another 1.5 to Weihai so that took up one day.



Conditions were cooler up there and the course was extremely challenging. For the third year in a row I came away with 3rd place. I was hoping for more but the guys at the front were to good for me this time. By the end of the race I really started to fade and was lucky to stay in podium position.



A reasonable race one week after a bad result was satisfying but I still look back a little disappointed.



Its a few weeks easy now with a bit of a trip to Mooloolabah this week and a few trips in and out of the doctors to fix a few little niggles. If everything goes well I’ll be back to full training in a couple of weeks in preparation for some races early in the new year.







Cheers, Aaron.

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