Challenge Wanaka Half - Love this Place!!

Well as the trends follow it wouldn’t be a blog article written by me unless it was a few months late. With the change to living in Canberra full time, the last couple of months of getting married and making the move have made life rather hectic. But anyway here we go with my race report from Challenge Wanaka Half. As has been the case with almost all of my racing since the beginning of 2013 the preparation with all of the travel between Canberra and Newcastle for work this prep resembled my preparation for most of my early Uni life, cramming in as much as I could in the weeks leading in. Stress and frustration aside there were some really great moments happening in my life around the time of Wanaka, and really the main reason we made the trip was marrying my now beautiful wife, which was the highlight of such an amazing week in the southern New Zealand town.

Onto the race, and I really didn’t know how this one was going to go. Seriously 4 weeks earlier id kick-started the prep going around in the Canberra 70.3 as a bit of a “training run”. As expected it ended rather miserably, and I was struggling to remember a time when I was that broken after a race, battling for a few days. I was really then just hoping for an improvement on that.

Race morning came around and the water temperature read 14.1 C. Yep that’s cold. I think it was a bit less than that but when it’s that cold half a degree either way doesn’t make much difference. At that temperature I knew a good 15 mins was needed when you get in the water to adjust to the cold. For those that haven’t raced or swam in that temperature your face stings, this cold makes it hard to breath and get any sort of rhythm unless you take a bit of time to adjust. This swim, as cold as it was, still remains amazing, the water is just so clear and as you swim along staring down into depths, it feels so close but really is a long way away. Anyway round we went and I got through it, nothing special out of the water in around 28 mins and close enough to the front to make reasonable ground on the bike and given the lack of swimming I was happy enough…. It must have been the new HUUB Archimedes Wetty hehe.

Out through T1 and everything was numb, jumping onto the bike I just wanted to get some blood moving and get the legs spinning a try to grab few spots early and build into it. Getting moving early I managed to do some early damage getting myself up into 3^rd by around the 40km mark and sitting solo until I caught and easily passed 2^nd place through 70km and the aptly named “devil Hill”, if you’ve been out there you know the one I’m talking about. It seemed the bike legs were on. As is with Wanaka you have to be prepared to be alone. It’s just one of those courses; you're alone, it's lumpy and always windy. The latter may vary, but you can always guarantee it will be there making for a course that suits the strong men…. Just like me :D. It was about then I realized if I could hold the race together, I could be in with a pretty good shot of finishing on the overall podium. Not knowing how far from the overall leader I was, I now had to think should I push and try and catch up, or just hold my effort and see where I end up. The latter being the smarter option given the lack of preparation, I went for that finishing with a mid 2:20’s ride and into T2 a good few minutes down.

T2 – I wanted to be quick, I tried, but all I did was create frustration by me stupidly throwing a minute away running to the change tent with my gear rather than getting changed at the bike. Not ideal and getting changed in a bit of a panic and grabbed my nutrition with the exception of 2 gels, we will get back to that, but at the time I thought it would be ok.

The run at Wanaka is one of the most scenic courses, Trails alongside the crystal clear waters of Lake Wanaka and the draining Clutha River, the scenery doesn’t get much better. On the other hand, it’s tough. Soft sand sections, undulating gravel track and 12% gradient pinches does enough to sting the legs, especially for the bigger guys. In the back of my mind I knew I was in second out of T2 and figured I had a good lead on 3^rd and 4^th, but didn’t want to relax too much.  I pushed solid through the first 13-14km averaging around 4min/km pc and sitting in a good position to hang onto that second spot…… Until boom….. Yep, leaving my gels in T2 id taken my red bull waaay to early on and the amount of coke I was taking in at each aid station wasn’t enough to replace what id left behind. Needless to say when I got back Leesh (from Compeat Nutrition) was livid, and not at all impressed. The end result saw me battling and at km 16 I found myself back into third and asking some serious questions. . . Not today, I hate failing!! Today wasn’t going to be one of those days. D$%k and Balls. It’s a saying some of the boys have… When you’re in the back end of a race, and starting to struggle it’s time to get the D&B’s out and suck it up….. It was that time. Ahhaha.

With the only aid station left 2km from the finish and still a good 3km from me. I just tried to hold form and hang on, scared to look back. Thinking to myself, just run as hard as you can and if you get caught either way there is nothing you can do about it and you’ve done all you can. As the metres ticked off I knew I could be getting caught. I just hoped I had enough and an out and back section about 3km from the finish showed the gap of around 500m. I’d have to blow it big time to drop this one and was able to hang on and clinch the final spot on the podium. A relief, there wasn’t much expression over those closing km’s, there were dark places. All too common racing on that course. To say I was happy would be an understatement. Given the course and the lead up even the couch had doubts, and he’s generally pretty spot on. Again I do have to give it to him…Coach Corey, somehow manages to get me up for these races on minimal prep. I know that the competition wasn’t necessarily world class, but with the winner taking out the overall AG title in IMNZ a few weekends back, it was a good indicator. Nonetheless good signs for what can come now I have this Canberra base and a good winter of solid CONSISTENT Training. Something i've missed for a good 12 months.

All in all very happy with the result, all the

signs are there and most of all a good weekend with the lads, Aspo (my best man) rolling in just outside the top 10, Lindsdawg a few spots back after a DQ debate and smoking run split and of course ol Matty Porta dusting off the treadly to come down and have a hit out. I’ll remember those beers in the spa after this one for a long time. 

Thanks again the guys from Challenge putting on an awesome event, this one is pretty special. If you haven't thought about it before, I highly recommend considering a week or two under the southern Alps and just chuck this race in amongst the fun.

I suppose at the moment then this is one of those "watch this space" moments, but only time will tell.

Until then, thanks for reading...

Dan.