My Eric The Eel Moment
Remember Eric The Eel from the Sydney Olympics?? Wasn’t he great?
We Aussies just love an underdog, don’t we? A battler, a struggler, a straggler?
Yeah.
Well I was all of those things on Australia Day.
You’d have lurved me!
January 26, 2010 was a special day for me. It marked the longest triathlon I have ever done. The furthest I had swam, cycled and run back-to-back. It doesn’t really sound that far … but 400m swim, 16km bike and the 4km run was a long way for me!
I had two goals: to finish and to finish in a time of 1hr 25mins or less.
Tick and tick! Achieved. How proud am I?
I finished in 72nd place. That’s stone cold, stinking, dead last - by a loooong way.
The man at the run turn actually picked up the witch’s hat and ran with me for about half a kilometre after I had turned at 2km. He then got picked up in a car. I wanted a car. A course marshal on a mountain bike rode with me, egging me on and allowing me to “draft” behind him!
I wasn’t alone!
The winner, Jonathon Hitchens, recorded splits of 6:18mins (400m swim); 24:06mins (16km bike); 13:11mins (4km run) to finish in a time of 43.35mins!
Here are my results … it’s quite amusing.
It’s alright really, there’s no need to feel sorry for me!
The upside to that sad state of affairs is I can’t get much slower. It’s all up from here!
x
Hi Em
You’ll go far with your attitude. You’re definitely in the right head space with all of this. You have your goals and your run your own race. That’s super fantastic chicky. I’m so happy that you achieved 2/2 goals.
That’s what I’ll be setting out to do in 5 weeks today (gulp!). Ironman NZ 2010. Sat 6 March. It all seems so surreal still, even though I essentially committed to it back on 18 Dec when I paid my deposit for my flights and accommodation with TriTravel. Then, I did a double flip when I paid the balance… and again when I entered the even on 11 Jan. I’m getting so fit, Em. Heart rate was 42 upon waking this morning. I can’t believe it. It’s all so exciting. I am going to make my race a fun and amazing day. Yes, I do understand I’ll be out there on the course for up to 17:00. My two goals are ‘to finish within the 17:00′ and ‘to finish with a big smile on my face.’ A secondary goal is a sub 15:00 but I’m placing no expectations on myself with times for anything – other than the official 17:00 cutoff. This is my first ironman. I want to enjoy it and learn lots.
Congrats again for your race. Sounds like you’re enjoying it. Go you!
Jules
Ah, thanks Jules! Yep, just going to run my own race! Very exciting about IM NZ … best of luck to you – you know you’ll smash it, especially on your swish new bike!!! I’ll be thinking of you on March 6!!!
Em
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