Race Report Busselton Half Ironman 2009

After performing well below par in both the Geelong 70.3 event and the Australian Long Course Championships in 2009, I was very keen to turn the tide in Busselton.

My training in the lead to the race was encouraging and I was quietly confident of a good performance on race day.
My day got off to a good start in the water. After about 200 metres of swimming I found myself fourth in line on the leading train which had Pete Jacobs as the pilot, Luke Mackenzie in second and another athlete in third. Unfortunately, the athlete third in line dropped off Luke’s feet and I had no hope of swimming around him and latching back on.

I swam solo until the first turnaround buoy before being gobbled up soon after by a group of three or four athletes. I swam on feet until the end and exited the water with the second group about ninety seconds down on Jacobs and Mackenzie.

I felt that while not cycling at my very best, I was still moving along reasonably well. I started the cycle leg at almost the same time as Sean O’Neill, and while he got away early, he was never out of reach. The same could be said for Pete Jacobs, but Luke Mackenzie was a totally different story. He was riding away from me every lap and on the last lap passed me going the other way at virtually the round-a-bout at the intersection of Hayman Road and Tuart drive. I knew then that I had no hope of catching him on the run, unless he had an absolute shocker.

At the end of the cycle I felt I was in the hunt for a second place finish because I knew that my running form was quite good. I could tell immediately that I was making good ground on Sean, but I wasn’t sure how well I was faring with respect to both Pete and Luke.

It all became a lot clearer on the second lap of the run. It was obvious that I wasn’t making up any significant time on Luke, and Pete was running away from me. The only positive was that I was reducing the gap to Sean quite quickly and I would run by him about a third of the way into the second lap. I kept on running at full gas in the vain hope that I would at least post the fastest run split of the day and get the cash prime. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen either – I posted the second fastest run of the day behind Pete, whose 1.14 something comfortably eclipsed my effort.

I ended up finishing third, which I was satisfied with. The racing was clean, there was no pacing in the cycle leg to speak of and the fastest swimmers got away at the start of the race, so it was a true indication of each athlete’s fitness on the day.

It would be nice if all races had a similar outcome, but unfortunately, a lot don’t.