One mistake down...

Port Macquarie Half Ironman done, just over 5 hours. Overall happy that I have one under my belt, however felt like my run let me down. Admittedly I took it very conservatively on the run, being more concerned about not doing any permanent damage to my knee than getting a good time. With the ultimate objective being completing Port Ironman next year, the important thing was to qualify. And I did that simply by finishing Port Half.

What I took away from Port was a number of things..
Simply having now done a half ironman (the longest thus far for me), I know what to expect and can therefore be more aggressive the next time. As they say, experience is crucial to the longer distances. I realise now how much more work I need to do on the run, especially off the back of the bike. This means much more training specifically for long rides followed by runs straight away. Additionally I need to do many more longer runs at faster pace to get used to the demand on the body.

I learnt that there is a definite skill involved in not getting penalised for drafting on the bike. After being told that I had incurred a 5 min time penalty for drafting on the first lap of the bike course, I was a little discouraged. Now, I would like to clarify that I did not intentionally draft. This is beside the point however, because it matters not what your intentions are it only matters how the Technical Official will see it. This is where the skill comes into it. Needless to say, this is one area of my training I intend to look into. In future I will be more intentional about appearing to be not drafting. As it happened, I got picked up for drafting through a hilly section while there were about 8-12 riders all around me, how the TO didn't penalise every single rider in the group is beyond me.

The knee injury was frustrating. I anticipated that it would be a problem for a good part of the run. It was, but perhaps more frustrating than the pain itself was the effect this had on my mind. When you are doing it tough, you don't need many excuses to ease up the pace and take it easy. So when you have a convenient one like a knee injury (now the fact that it is an excuse does not mean the pain wasn't real - there were times where I was forced to walk just to ease the pain), the will power is in short supply and the mind is all too eager to agree with the body.

One good thing to take away from Port is that I was relatively happy with my swim time. Just over 26minutes, equates to around 13:45 per km. This is pretty good for me in open water. I was averaging a little less than this in a 25m pool with the wetsuit, and have always struggled swimming well in open water. Everything went well for me on the swim. We were pretty spread out at the start, in comparison to the shorter tri's and land starts where it is rather crowded. Got in a good position and found myself just off the lead group of the age groupers.

All in all... I have to keep reminding myself that I just completed a half ironman and didn't feel like I over did it at any stage, and more to the point that I could probably do 2 out of the 3 disciplines over longer distances pretty easily. The difference would be doing the 3rd discipline well over 42+km at the end of a long day. I guess this is where the training needs to step up another level (or another couple of levels as the case may be). For the most part I am looking forward to getting back into the solid training and getting this knee sorted out.

More time with the family is a priority again, so it looks like early mornings are back on the agenda.