|
|
|
 |
||||||
|
The Great White North Half Ironman, Canada - Race Report, 4th July 2004Dear Sponsors and FriendsWell I have been in Edmonton, Canada this weekend to race the Canadian Half Ironman Championships held in Stony Plains at the Great White North Half Ironman Race. I flew up from my base training camp of Bend Oregon which has been an awesome place to train with every day fine and in the later twenties. I arrived to nice weather in Edmonton with my Bike but no clothes - they hadn't made the Plane changes which I thought was really strange as its usually my bike that doesn't arrive. The bag of clothes came the next day. I got in some good training at the Kingsmond Pool and around the park which will host the ITU Edmonton World cup race this weekend so felt really pretty good even though the last 3 weeks have been packed with mileage getting ready for Ironman Lake placid. There was a really good field of Triathletes from Canada that had gathered to compete at there National Championships Canadians: Tom Evans, Jasper Blake, Kevin Cutjar, and the one international, Me. Race day was a little overcast and the forecast had indicated that it was clearing and going to warm up so I was looking forward to that. The lake was warmer than the air Temp at that point. The swim was fast with a group of four of us establishing a good lead early on with John Weston from Polson Montana leading the field he has lead out of the water in Hawaii. I had my usual fast Transition and was first out onto the bike course I felt good and rode in front for about 15-20k then Tom Evans came blasting buy so I just went off his pace, then at about 30k into the bike it started to rain and I was freezing the Temp had dropped to 6 degrees I was so cold I wanted to quit then but just tried to stay positive. I lost a lot of time on the bike as I tightened up and was uncomfortable. I came into the transition in 4th place and couldn't even get my plastic bag open that contained my running shoes. I had the slowest transition I couldn't feel anything as struggled to get my shoes on. The first 10-12k of the run felt like I was running with no feet - I felt strong but not fast !! I got passed going into the turn around by Kevin Cutjar who was going very strong in the cold conditions. I ran better for the last 10k and finished in 5th place and I really didn't feel like I had even done a Half Ironman so that is a good sign I have gotten straight back into my training which has been good. 1st Place : Tom Evans Canada 2nd Place : Jasper Blake Canada 3rd Place : Paul Tichelaar Canada 4th Place : Kevin Cutjar Aussie 5th Place : Bryan Rhodes New Zealand. Well I hope that everyone is well and I'm looking forward to my next major event Ironman Lake Placid in 3 weeks. Take care and I will get my next report out quicker. Kind Regards - Bryan Rhodes |
|
|
|
|
|
| © 2008 Bryan Rhodes - Champion Ironman - Site Map - Hosting by Lardman | ||||||
 |
||||||