World Champs Finale Australia - Nicky
7 October 2009
I had a great run up to the World Champs here in Australia. I was really enjoying my training and especially living with my relatives on the southern side of the Gold Coast. Their house was in the perfect place in the hills and away from the traffic, yet I could join others to train with them if I wanted. A perfect combination. I had a solid three weeks of training, then moved back to the Apartments in Labrador close to the race course, and felt sick on the Wednesday morning prior to the race. It was just a sore throat and I thought I had a chance to hold it off but as the days progressed I got worse. I did not race the World Aquathon Champs on the Wednesday and tried to recover just keeping in some light training. On the Saturday when I went for a run in the morning I felt as flat as a pancake and thought my cold was not getting any better. Frustrated, but still keen to race after a good training block I continued with my training schedule.
The race day brought a long wait for the start at 2.45pm. I thought the longer the better in my condition-more recovery time. I had a good swim start but was on the right hand side of the first buoy so a lot of people cut on the inside of me. Then we started heading to shore, I was puzzled and half followed but had a look to my right and the slower swimmers were going straight, that's funny I thought and then we all started heading that way-it was hard to see the white buoys with the rough conditions in the water and the high rise buildings in the back ground but I had not gone as far the wrong way as some so I was lucky. Unfortunately on the way back out for the second lap the group broke, how I am not sure. When conditions are rough it is hard to see behind a sea of other girls. I started to close the gap on the way back in but was still about 20 seconds behind out of transition 1.
I worked hard at the start of the bike and was closing the gap but the group behind was closing on me so I decided to wait up for them and work as a group to catch the front group as they were so close. Our group could not get things together though because two to three girls didn't want to pull through or physically couldn't pull through so we would rotate nicely and stop, then rotate nicely and stop, very frustrating for us pulling through and doing the work or more work than we should be. Andrea Hewitt and I tried to get away because we were working hard and wanted to catch the front group but every effort was closed back up. It was good to have one fellow kiwi that wanted to work as a team.
On the run I started a little slower than the other girls and tried to find my legs, I ran solid but didn't have the speed others had and found me loosing places. My aim for this race was top 16 in order to get a PEGGs grant but I went backwards towards the end and unfortunately ended up in about 22 position. My current world ranking is now 25th. My goal this year was top 25, so although I have had a disappointing year I just scrapped in there.
Now I must decide where I go from here. Perhaps back to France to race the last GP race in La Baule and then onto Gruissan for a team sprint race. Or perhaps to America for a couple of non drafting races if I can source a time trial bike and disk wheel. So another couple of decisions to make but I don't feel I have finished yet this year so watch this space.
Thanks for your continued support this year, I will keep in touch as I make some more decisions, cheers Nicky.
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