Bye bye NZ

I arrived in South Korea last night for the first event of my 2009 overseas race season. On Saturday is the Tongyeong Triathlon World Championship series race 1. At breakfast this morning, I had an interview with Peter Holmes from ITU media. It is posted on www.triathlon.org . I see my sister, Sara, in Dubai has already seen it and has put a link to it from her facebook :)thanks sis. Yesterday I landed at Busan airport, then there was a 2 hours drive to Tongyeong. So at 12.30pm when I arrived at the hotel, I crashed straight in bed.But I was woken up, first at 6am, then at 7am from work beginning in the harbour directly outside of my room. I am unfazed by most things when I sleep, but the bed here has the hardest mattress ever, so it was difficult to get comfy again to go back to sleep. At 7am I was awake and not sleepy, the jetlag for me here is going to be more at night, because of travelling 3 hours backwards. At 7pm it is 10pm in NZ so over dinner I'm sure I'll be falling asleep. I rode to the swimming pool after breakfast and rode back, stopping off at Familymart for some lunch. I like the takeaway triangle sushi but I'm not sure about the sweet bread. And lunch cost 10000 won, the inflation must have been high here at some point.. The World Championship series events all have live coverage in the country of the event. But if you aren't in Korea, then you can watch the live coverage on the internet on this Saturday 2nd May on www.triathlon.org . It starts at 1.55pm local time = 4.55pm NZ time, and the mens race is on Sunday. The Olympic distance triathlon 1500m swim 40km bike 10km run will take around 2 hrs and there will be coverage on Sky Sport in NZ sometime too. Take care, Andrea

New Plymouth ITU Triathlon

It was the day after my birthday and I was all smiles going into the race. I felt ready on the start line and I had nothing to worry about at that stage, my start was fine. I led the swim to the first bouy alongside Jenna Shoemaker USA and along the back straight, as we were dragging off each other Maxine Seear AUS passed us on the inside and took the lead. Maxine reached the sand first and I managed to wade her down to jump on her feet for the 2nd lap. Then as I reached my bike, stepped on (haven't managed to jump in a race still) and started riding up the hill for the first time, I didn't look around until the top and saw we were only 3. I rode the 40km with Kirsten Sweetland CAN and Nicky Gould NZL. Coming off the bike I knew straight when they passed me that there was no flowing feeling. I felt like I was running up and down and not forward. All I could do was run the best I could to the finish. I ran 38.52 for my 10km which was enough for 4th as Kiyomi Niwata JPN ran me down from the chase pack. Kirsten Sweetland won her 2nd race in 2 weeks and Nicky finished 2nd.
I'm disappointed with my race as it was my first of the season and I really have had a good summer of training. I can put it down to the last month of training which has been 2 weeks of under 10hrs because of a virus then racing Singapore Ironman 70.3 and the other 2 weeks of recovering and building up again for this race.
I know I have a good base under me, so I've got 3 weeks to build back my strength to be able to race completely for the entire 2hrs. I couldn't do that this weekend in front of my mum, dad, family and friends in New Zealand. I now have to wait until the Gold Coast series final race in September to enjoy a race with their support again.
Thanks to the Barnett family for their wonderful hospitality again in New Plymouth.
Up next is World championship series race #1 - Tongyeong, South Korea.

Andrea

My ITU season begins

My 2009 ITU Triathlon season begins this weekend with the New Plymouth ITU Triathlon this Sunday. It is 2 weeks after my last race, the Singapore Ironman 70.3 and I finally feel like I have recovered. I have enjoyed training at home in Christchurch for 5 months this summer.
Thank you Roly (currently on holiday in Thailand ;-) ) for your QE2 triathlon swimming squad sessions and it has been great riding and running with local, French and Hong Kong athletes. Soon I will be travelling with Laurent to Sète, France where I will be training for the next few months.
My first big race of the season will be in Tongyeong, South Korea on 2nd May. It is the first of 7 World Championship series events. This year the top 5 best results will accumulate points towards the 2009 World Champion. This has changed from previous years where the World Championships was one event. The 7 race format is a lot more exciting and more difficult because every series event is important now to earn points to become the World Champion.
And for the new season I have a new uniform. I will be racing in this.