Well its all over!!! The months of training, long rides, long runs finding lakes to swim in has come to an end. The Grand Finale was held over in sunny Taupo....... well almost sunny, but more on that later.
As mentioned in the last post the bags were packed (stuffed) and we headed off to Melbourne to start the adventure. A great feed and comfy bed at Airport Aunty's place, saw us safely out to the airport at 4am... not wanting to make a habit of these let me tell you! Long story short, we made it to NZ without a hitch, plenty of time at the airport to chill out (shock horror, no more missed flights this trip!).
Getting to our first motel proved to be another story however. Following the instructions we got from Shirm and the net we cruised down the highway through some solid downpours (are they telling us something?) through to a quiet little town for lunch. Back on the road to find that a fuel tanker had taken a tumble and the road was going to be closed for another few hours (is this trying to tell us something?). Rightio, off on our detour tour. Another hour into our trip, we find out that our directions were completely wrong and we had been heading to somewhere we shouldn't have been! Maybe the universe was trying to tell us something???
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| Shirm, Matty, Griffo (THM) and Miah pumped for the race! Could have left the wetsuits on for the day! |
Yep, we finally made it to Hamilton and the next day down to Taupo. Find the house, check! (very comfy). Get the bikes unpacked and put back together, check! Check in and check out the pre races events, check! Ready to go? Check!!
A pretty cruisey few days in the lead up to race day, but a little bit of tourism thrown in to boot and before we knew it, it was race day! Forecast: wet, very wet! (and not just the swim!)
Surprisingly the nerves settled (when I realised I was going to be out all day!) and the adrenaline kicked in. Had a fantastic swim (3.8kms) and came out as the first Shep person in a time of 53mins something! Wahoo!
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| Running in the rain with Soph right there cheering alongside! |
The ride (180kms) went pretty well, plenty of rain still though. I can actually remember looking down at my feet as they were pedaling and seeing streams of water fly out the end of my shoes! Spent the whole ride eating as much as i could and talking to myself in a kiwi accent (I have no idea why, but it was pretty funny!)
Feeling a bit sick of the bike, but pretty fresh in the legs it was time for the run! And the rain keeps coming down! 42kms..... I've never run this far before, eek! What's going to happen? How am I going to do this? One by one the distance markers passed by. This is when the spectators really came into the race! There were thousands standing out in the pouring rain cheering, shouting and encouraging everyone on. They were fantastic (especially Soph and Dave!) Any time you were caught walking, there was always someone encouraging or heckling you until you got your stride back. 4 hours later and the finish line was in sight. All of a sudden the legs freshened up and the bounce came back!
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| The Finish Chute! You are an Ironman! |
The finish straight was amazing! Plenty of cheering and a great big smile (a mixture of excitement and relief!) Matt Lorback.... You are an Ironman!! and it was all over!! All the hard work had paid off and the journey was complete!
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| Good buddy Jo getting a lift from the cheer squad! |
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