The Icing on the Cake

It is just over 4 weeks till the big one in Kona and over the next couple of weeks I will be finishing up putting the icing on the ironman cake. I say icing because a training program for an event like an Ironman is like a recipe, where a number of ingredients are put in over a number of weeks or months and is finally topped of with the icing, the hard work that is the final stages of an ironman build up.

This past weekend a large layer of icing was spread on, with a solid couple of days up on the beautiful Coromandel. Day 1, Saturday, myself and Craig Kirkwood headed off with bikes on the roof to Whangamata for the Whangamata Half Marathon. We were greeted with a lovely Sunny day but the presence of a bitterly cold strong southerly made things interesting. This race was always going to be used as a tune up for Octobers World Champs and things went really well. On a tough course made a little harder by a strong head wind on the way back to town i managed a PB of 1:19 good enough for 8th Overall. Well done to Craig for winning and in a course record 1:10.


After a 90 minute spin later in the day, and some great pizza from Lerenzos thanks to Kirkie, we bunked down for the night at a local backpackers for some much needed rest. Because the next we had a bit of ride around the Coromandel to worry about. 192 km with about 1500 - 2000m of climbing around the Coromandel Peninsula or K2 as it as known.




We were greeted with a fantastic day, and fantastic views all around the peninsula. It is truly one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand to be on days like this.