Epic NZ07 day 1

I’m a little late starting this blog.

It’s seems like a long time since Epic France but we’re now under way and day 1 is done and dusted.

If you are keen to hear from the campers go to www.ironmantalk.com or Itunes and download the IronmanTalk podcast. There’s already interviews with Scott & Gordo up there.

So what am I looking for from this camp?

This time around I’ll be doing a little more training with the guys and then finishing the camp with the Challenge Wanaka Iron distance race. We’ve got a great support crew in place this year so my organisational job is becoming easier. Training has gone so so over the last few months. My biking is slowly getting there, likewise with my running. Unfortunately I haven’t been doing any swim training for a month due to a shoulder injury. Hopefully I’ll be able to blag my way through on race day.

Day 1

Every camp I tell the guys we want an easy roll out and we can all get to know each other. Rolling out of Christchurch heading north and sitting around 40km/hr!!!!! I seem to have failed in this mission yet again. As the group began to splinter I decided to move to the front to try and settle things down…….. after getting a few of the ego’s in check I suffered the first puncture of the camp. With a quick change I was back on and time trialled for a good 45mins to hit lunch with the group. The last 70km of today’s ride was a Time Trail over some pretty damb hard terrain. Local wannabe pro Bevan Eyles took it out from Brandon Del Camp & Mike Montgomery. While we don’t have the top pro’s here this year (Clas Bjorling, Jonas Colting, Byorn Anderson etc) we have some very solid athletes. Having said that the Terminator Molina will be taking the yellow jersey into day 2. He won the swim TT and was 4^th in the Bike TT, great effort.

As usual I was suitably impressed with the fighting spirit some of the guys showed today. It was bloody hot, hilly and not a bad pace. With a 3km swim, 1hr run and 180km bike Epic NZ is well and truely underway.