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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s been a pretty great last six months. I\u2019ve been working on my swim, and now I\u2019m seeing the results. I won Ironman Vietnman 70.3 on the 7th May, placed 6th at Ironman 70.3 Subic Bay in the Philippines, and 5th at Ironman 70.3 70.3 Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Before I get into my recent results though, I want to recap my last eight months, and how I got to being on top of my game again.<\/p>\n
Kona in 2016 wasn\u2019t my best, mostly because of my bike. I was at the front of the race, the front of the Ironman World Champs, but maybe being light made me struggle on the descent. I didn\u2019t get the result I wanted.<\/p>\n
After Kona, I slowed down with my training, I was doing a bare minimum of around ten hours a week. I just needed to slow everything down, but I still did some late season races. I was third in Thailand, and 4th in Ballarat.<\/p>\n
I had a great Christmas with my family, then I did Geelong 70.3 in 2017, and considering the field was so strong, I was happy with my result of 7th place. The race was the first for many after the holidays, and the swim, bike and run were all really fast. I was ready to dig my heels in and work hard.<\/p>\n
After Geelong, it was Subic Bay 70.3 in the Philippines, and I probably rode a bit too hard in the heat. I came 6th, which was OK, and it was great experience working hard in the head. After the Philippines I went to Taiwan for Giant. We did a big bike ride and some promo stuff for the brand, it was great. In the swim in Taiwan, I missed the lead group, but the bike was OK and the run was OK, and I came 5th overall. It made me realise I had to work on my swim this year.<\/p>\n
By the time Challenge Melbourne came around, I had Kona on my mind. I was training for Ironman, not 70.3. I had two key Ironman training sessions with Dan Plews on Monday and Tuesday, and by the weekend, I just wasn\u2019t quite ready for the shorter distance of Challenge Melbourne. It was cold and rainy and wet, and my swim wasn\u2019t great. I didn\u2019t finish the race, and got a DNF.<\/p>\n
The field in Vietnam was really solid, and there were plenty of top guys as it\u2019s known as a great race. The swim was really fast and Sam Betton started with a cracking pace. I was just behind the lead pack, and stoked with my position as we started the bike.<\/p>\n
Luke McKenzie started out the front of the bike, but he didn\u2019t seem his usual self, and I got to the front quickly. Michael Raelert was away and was riding really well with about a two minute lead ahead of me. On the 2nd lap he got a flat tyre. It was a real shame for him because he was riding so well. You always hate to see a great competitor not get through the race due to a mechanical issue.<\/p>\n
Amongst the motorbikes and spectators that go along with large scale races in Asia, I stayed at the front and Mike Philips was just behind me. By T2 I had around a 1:46 lead. The transiting was pretty disorganised though, and as I grabbed my gear bag for the run and opened it, I saw it was the wrong one, so I lost my lead while I was trying to find my correct bag. That was a real bummer. The bags were all just kind of thrown together in one pile so it made it pretty tough.<\/p>\n
Luckily though, my running was strong, and I was able to stay out in front without pushing myself too crazy hard. The first part of the run was great and I felt so strong, but by the end I was really melting in the heat. It was crazy hot! I was pretty excited to get to the finish line, and see I was the only guy who finished sub-four hours with 3:45:19.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Throughout this year though, I\u2019ve been working really hard on my swim. Working with Dan Plews, we look at everything from my diet to physiology of my body and how I train.<\/p>\n
Now, i\u2019m really excited for this next block. I\u2019m in the mix now, and am feeling on form. I want to be in the mix at Kona and Cairns. On June 11th, the Asia Pacific Championships are in Cairns, and I\u2019ll be defending my title. I had the fastest run last year, and if I can run the same or a better time, that\u2019d be great.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve just got my eyes on Cairns. Check back in to what happens at Cairns 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2284"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2317,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284\/revisions\/2317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timberkel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}