Travel / Surf Guys Thoughts: Road trip and race report

Hi all,

This is going to be a race report as well as a roadtrip report. I posted last week saying that I was heading South for my first race in a National Series but as my wife had never seen the West Coast of our amazing country - I thought that a roadtrip that way was in order.

We headed West and stopped at the top of the Otira Gorge where I was pretty sure that we could see some Kea (native mountain parrot to New Zealand) - these birds are such playful and cheeky parrots that will steal your hat or sunglasses if you're not alert. Here are a few pics of them

It was great to see them here being playful and there was such a buzz from the tourists that had stopped at this spot to take photos and my wife was chuffed to see these birds in the wild.
Sometimes I take this sort of thing for granted as when I used to work up the mountains on ski areas, we used to see these birds all the time.

We stayed the night in Franz Joseph Glacier and spent a good amount of time in the local hot pools - just what you need after a long drive.

The next day we headed South as we needed to get to Wanaka where the race was to be held - it was an awesome drive and the West Coast lived up to its hype and the day started with mountain cloud and drizzle. Here is a photo of the Haast River, we took this going over a bridge and we are heading up over a mountain pass. I just love the colour of the glacial water - we do live in an amazing country!!!

Got to Wanaka and the weather was very warm - Wanaka is in the Southern Lakes District of the South Island of New Zealand. This area comprises a large number of glacial lakes including Lakes Wakatipu, Wanaka, Te Anau, Manapouri, Hawea, Dunstan and Benmore - such a beautiful area of the country.

These pictures above are of Lake Wanaka - I went for a walk the evening we arrived to stretch the legs and took this photo with the sun going down - so nice!!!

The next photo was actual race day for me - so hot, about 32 degrees with little wind but I'll get to that soon.

Race day arrived and I was feeling very nervous, this was my first sprint distance race (750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run) and I had to do it in a National Series Event.

Triathlon New Zealand has this national series called the Contact Tri Series (have a look here http://www.triseries.co.nz/ ) and this was race 4. Race 5 is here in my home town in 2 weeks and I am entered in this as well.

Race start time was 5.20pm for our race with the Elite men starting at 8.00pm (with daylight saving time, it doesn't get dark here until after 10.00pm)

The sun was shining and it was bloody hot at start time and we had to walk down the beach to the start. Lake temp was 16 degrees so it was a wetsuit swim and I had a great swim. Came out of the water in 7th place (out of 34) in 12mins 09 sec.

T1 was super quick even though my fingers were quite cold, out on the bike to start an 8 lap course - great for the spectators for sure.

Out on the bike course - very fast and hot!!

T2 was another great transition so very happy with that. Got the helmet off and running shoes on and off on the run. The finish line that is shown in the photos is not the one that we used - there was "Challenge Wanaka Ironman" the next day and this was on the running circut.

Did I mention it was HOT!!!!

This was a great event and I really enjoyed being a part of it. We watched the elite race that was later in the day so I have a few photos of this race BUT for the record on my race.
I finished 2nd in my age group and
26th out of 34 participants
In a time of 1 hour 19min 09 seconds.

Sis - you asked about my knee in the last post - the knee feels great and strong. I just need to keep pushing it and see what happens.
Julie - enjoy the pictures.

Here are a couple of photos of the elite race.