Its Sunday 1st April, normally it would be a great April fools joke to get up early and push your self to breaking point but today over 500 w0men in Nelson did just that.
I was one of them.
I woke up Sunday morning and ripped back the curtains expecting to see the rain that had been forcasted. You can only imagine my joy at seeing blue sky and sunshine. It was going to be a fantastic day.
As I raced around the house getting my gear in order, Shane was out in the garage giving my bike the once over, checking air pressure, seat height and that gears all changed smoothly. What a champ he is.
In all there were 298 Walkers and 258 runners. I made sure that this year I was going to get a good start and made my way to the start line to line up in front on the best side of the road. We all stood around chatting nervously waiting for the start.
I led out from the start but the sound of fast moving feet came up from behind and I was over taken by a very fluid and fast moving lady (beside me in the black) she proceeded to pull away from me leaving me in her dust. I stayed in second place with my rival from Blenheim behind me.Each time I would glance over my shoulder there she would be and 297 other walkers all stomping after us.
By the time we made our way around the 3 km course back to the bike transition she was a good 100m in front of me. I found my bike, threw my helmet on and raced off to the road to mount my bike. Leaping on my trusty stead I peddled off after her determined to catch her up. I caught her up half way round the 12km cycle way and zipped past her and pushed myself to up the tempo to try and get some distance between us before entering the pool (my weakest)
I pulled up at the next transition and gave my bike to a catcher then tried to get my legs to function. They had turned to jelly at this stage and were refusing to do anything that closely resembled a race walk. But upon looking over my shoulder and seeing the person I had worked so hard to catch and pass strutting my way spurred my legs into gear. We raced into the pool area and entered the pool side by side. I thought I was toast for sure as I was having trouble getting my breath and was wondering how on earth I was going to get on in the pool. But as luck would have it, she called out to me - thanked me for the race and told me to go for it as she cant swim. I thought she was having me on but it didn't take long to see that she really couldn't swim. So all I could do was flip over and back stroke the whole way.
After the race I met up with her (Yvonne) and we are now going to met up and train together from time to time. She is just learning how to race walk and can help me to find the right style as well. So a good friend gained.Here I am at prize giving receiving my big silver tray and a printed plate for the event. I also won a smaller plate for winning my age group plus a spot prize - I picked a printed tee shirt so I can remember the day.
Now it is back to training hard so that I can do the next three events in faster times.
