Arrived on Thursday to Mandurah, after a long 6 hour flight across to WA via Sydney. I was in Sydney for a few hours and was able to catch upfor lunch with the black prince (aka Dwight), thanks to the prince for my awesome new rockstar aero helmet, Love it! Thankyou also to Virgin Blue for the upgrade to Business class, made the flight across a hell of a lot more bearable. I settled into my Sebel accommodation which was nice.
Friday was a busy day with the usual media commitments, press conference, tv interview etc… Saturday I went down to the iron kids event and handed out medals to all the cute little kiddies. Saturday afternoon I dropped my bike into transition, ready for a big race day.
Race day! The swim was a down current 1.9km, in saying this I was red lining still to keep up with the pack. I came out of the water at the end of the pack and had quiet a bit of work to do to chase down Clayton Fettell.
The start of the bike saw the pack contain at least 16 strong guys, which soon was to be strung out by Paul Ambrose, Tim Reed, James Bowstead and myself pulling off the front and making a gap across to Clayton Fettell by the 50km mark. Then James Bowstead and I made contact with Clayton Fettell on the way back into town. Hats of to James Bowstead and Clayton Fettell who had me balls to the walls sitting on 290-330 watts! I was “Boxed”. The bike course was a flat fast course which worked to my advantage. The three of us rode into transition all together, it was great to see “Giant Trinity’s” 1,2 off the bike (speed machines!).
The run leg consisted of 2 laps. To start off with Clayton Fettell took it up the road storming off, I was feeling a little worse for wear and it took me 2km’s to catch Clayton Fettell and then by the 5km mark I had found my run legs. Reports were that Tim Reed was within 55 seconds of me during the run leg at some stage. But in the end I managed to be 1 minute 45 seconds ahead of him to take the win and be crowned Aussie 70.3 titles champion.
Thankyou to the City of Mandurah for having me, also a special thanks to Geoff and the Ironman Asia Pacific team on a job well done.
And of cause thankyou to my team who I couldn’t have done it without there continued support; Scody, Daikin Air Contitioning, Rockstar Racing, Giant, Newton, Urban Hotels, Shimano, Endura, Oakley, Garmin, Blue Seventy, Continental Tyres, Hypnotic Zoo and also thanks to Mike (my manager), Grant (my coach, Aeromax Team) and also my amazing Wife and our Pug (Poppy) for all your love and support which is always greatly appreciated.
See you in Port!
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