2nd Place in my first 70.3 Ironman

Ok, it's finished. That's the first thing I thought when I crossed the finish line. There was no "oh that was fun" or "I'm so glad I did that" ..although I was happy and I was smiling. I actually had had a good result. I finished in 2nd place - although I was 11min 14sec behind Jodie Swallow of Great Britain, congratulations to her for her first 70.3 too. My first reactions to the1/2 Ironman distance is that it is a long way. It didn't feel like a race when I blew up and had pins and needles through my arms to my fingers. The day started off well with a nice controlled and relaxed swim and I felt like I was riding strongly. I blew at 75km on the bike! I pretty much stopped! Bryan Rhodes who was having a leisurely ride behind me actually thought I punctured by my pace change when I slowed down. I lost over 2 minutes in that short distance to be caught by the Tereza Macel from Czech Republic, going onto the run. There is no worse feeling than not being able to push the pedals around fast. My SRM power went from around 200 to 118 and I couldn't hold onto my aerobars. I was just resting my hands wondering if this feeling would pass. At transition I was totally out of it as I forgot to take my feet out of my bike shoes. When I got onto the run I was just jogging. That's all I could do. So that was fun with 21.1km ahead of me. I jogged and managed to keep that pace good enough to keep a distance behind Tereza and had the energy to push for the final 5km and passed her with 1km to go. My run time for the half marathon was 1.37.06. It's time to catch my flight back home to Christchurch. I had a great time today, the day after the race. I went on the Singapore Flyer and got my feet and hands nipped at by these crazy fish which can't get enough of eating the dead skin off you. Sounds crazy but it feels nice after a minute once you get used to it.