South Island Half Ironman – Race Report

An article by Debi Hazelden    2 Comments

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My Very First Half Ironman!

Time: 5 hours 29 mins

I’ve been pretty slack over the past 5 weeks. At first it was because Scott was in a taper week for Kona, then he was in Hawaii for 2 weeks. I can’t get up early to train if there isn’t anyone else getting up. Scott came back and it was 2 weeks of no training for him. So not much training for me

All this time off training, started with me not doing well at the Duathlon champs in Taupo back in August and just continued. Time wasn’t stopping though and up came the South Island Half Ironman I had been planning to do for the past year. My coach suggested I change my plan – do the half ironman as a team and not to do the run. This is because I hadn’t been training much and wouldn’t have enough time to recover for the big race in Auckland on Nov 20^th.

I couldn’t find a team member, not that I looked hard. I put a message up on Facebook. I decided to do the run and not push it.

I was about to do my first half Ironman and quietly very excited!

The main difference with setting up for a Half Ironman then the shorter races I usually do is the importance of nutrition and wearing socks on the run since it’s a longer run. I set up my transition, realised I forgot my running socks. Good one. I had worn long thick socks to the race so they were going to have to do. I set them up next to my running shoes, gel and visor in transition on my bright yellow towel. (I brought the yellow one as I often can’t find my bike in transition).

I taped my gels on my bike. I haven’t practiced with any gels so quietly pray that I don’t get an upset stomach and Scott will say “I told you so”.

I got in the water for a quick warm up. Glad I did as the water was ice cold on my face and warmed up after a few minutes in there. I got back out for the race briefing. When we were all set to get back in the water a girl next to me mentioned that I looked really nervous. Made me realise that I was, and I really didn’t need to be so I tried to relax a bit and swam around getting to the start line. No-one knew where it was so there was a lot of chatter and everyone spread out.

Swim 33:50 / 1.9km

Swim went in no time. I caught onto someone’s feet and stayed there for half the distance. Longest I’ve ever been on a persons feet.

Bike 2 hours 44mins / 90km

Onto the bike, it was a 3 lap course of 30km each. I took it easy for the first lap and a half as I wasn’t sure how I would handle the longer distance. There was a group of 3 guys and I that were riding together (legal distance). When a girl zipped past me I took off after her. She was going pretty fast but I didn’t want to let her go. There was about 7km to the turn around for the last lap so I tried to hang on. When I got to the turn around she had lost me. Little did I know she was part of a team and I would see her cheering me on in the run later. One more out and back and I got the tired feeling at the 75km mark. I still wasn’t too sure how hard to push since I still had a 21km run to go. Looking back I should have pushed harder than I did. On the bike I had 4 gels and 3.5 bottles of electrolyte drink. The gels I had were yum, GU raspberry and the purple ones.

Run 2:08 21km

Onto the run and I decided I was going to do it, just not got hard. One lap of 6km around Lake Hood was nice. Then it was a 15km out and back in the bush. A false flat on gravel, not the best for an easy run. I took it slow. There were no markers on the way out so it felt like forever. By the time the turnaround came I was wanting to finish. People were passing me going in the other direction to the turnaround asking how far to go. I was thinking “bloody ages” but I just smiled and said “not too far”. I hadn’t been doing many runs longer than 15km lately and it showed. I ran pretty damn slow on the way home, with the plan not to stop running. I walked every aid station drinking coke and water and stopped to go toilet down a side track since I’d drunk so much.

I finished the race in 5 hours 29mins. 2nd in age group and 7th female. Pretty stoked to have finished. Really happy with my swim and bike time, I got my goal times. My run was super slow but I will aim to push that next time with a goal of 1hour 45mins. Bring on Tauranga in January!

Now it’s one week of training then taper week for the Auckland qualification race.

If you want to enter for next year you can check out the race info here: www.cisport.co.nz