Walt Disney 70.3 Half Ironman, Orlando Florida, U.S.A - May 20th 2007

Dear Sponsors and Friends

Yesterday I raced the Walt Disney 70.3 Half Ironman in Orlando Florida; with a few good weeks of training up at Boulder, Colorado at an Altitude of 5430ft I was hoping that my body would be ready to lay it all on the line. With one of the best fields assembled at the Disney 70.3 it was going to be tough to make top 5! There was Craig Alexander, Simon Lessing #1 & #2 at this distance in the World, Luke Bell and a host of other top professional men that would make it a very fast tough race!

We started at 6.20am, the earliest time that I have every started a Half Ironman. The water was very calm and I got a great start and hit the front within the first 100 meters and worked hard to try and get a break after 500 meters. I was getting a little tied so let Simon take over and swam with him in a group of about 5, then nearing the finish I picked it up a bit to string it out.

I had a fast transition and headed out on the bike with Luke, Simon, Craig and myself. I felt good and tried a few surges to see if I could break away but these guys are quality cyclists and it was energy wasting so I just settled into my rhythm at around 5 miles T.J Tollakson joined us on the bike and it was then a group of 5.

We were all riding strong and it wasn’t until 45 miles that T.J and Luke made a break for it. I wasn't up for the surge and neither was Craig or Simon so we fell back and entered the transition together were I found out T.J had a 2.25 minute lead and Luke was over 1 minute ahead so it was going to be a fast run. I had a lighting fast transition and headed out after the leaders. I was a mile into the run when Craig caught up to me. I ran on his shoulder but he put in a couple of surges and I just didn’t have the leg speed to respond so had to drop off.

Simon took another mile to catch me and I stayed with him longer but he has too longer a stride and slowly moved away. I kept pace with him to see if we could hunt down Luke and T.J. I found I was gaining on T.J but not making much time up on Luke buy mile 9. I could see T.J and caught and passed him as fast as I could, then at the final turnaround I could see Santiago Ascenco running very fast and had to pick my pace up to finish in 4th place only 43seconds behind Luke Bell. After the last few months it was a fantastic result and I’m looking forward to some more hard work at Altitude and Ironman U.SA Championships in Coure d’Alene in 5 weeks.

Thank you for the continued support.

Kind Regards - Bryan Rhodes