Worlds Race Report

What a day !!...full of things going on,great atmosphere and great race…

I started my day racked next to scott molina, those of you that don’t know scott, he was one of the big 4 in years back, including dave scott,scott tinley and mark allen

in the old days those guys would win every race under the sun, if it wasn't one it was the other..he held a camp in nowra 2 years back which some of us went on and some of u like myself got to know him well

he greeted me with the standard smile and handshake and “hi john” like I only saw him yesterday. my first thoughts were this is going to be an interesting day up front. for the record scott won hawaii ironman overall too.

My plan was go hard on swim and bike and back off 2nd half of run to save myself for next week,I followed it to the tee…

my experience told me that in these “worlds” races if u don’t have a swim u don’t have a race…no point floggin myself but I'd get a good pre hawaii hitout.. it went somethink like this…

Swim was usual shxt fight and like a washing machine, coral very low but not too bad, looked at my watch on exit expecting around 25mins (no wetsuit) but it said 28min..

oh shxt! god knows what position I was in..hmm maybe its long I thought,I later found out scott m was 8 mins ahead ops!....

out the transition and me and j mergler together on bike..this,ll be fun I thought,first bend and guy falls off in front of me,great!

...the next 10k I saw 3 guys hit orange cones,and a draft buster hit one missing my head by inches..hope this gets better I thought…

15k and finally theres a hill,I catch mergler back up and pass firthy..bloody windy and rains one minute bloody hot the next… bit lonely and uneventfulfrom the turnaround downhill and wind home,mergler gets a minute on me…into transition and I find my spot yayyyy lol…(not as easy as u think)

mone shouts I'm 38th in my age..hooley dooley I better make it a quick first lap I thought….took mergler and found a braziliian guy in my age gr to run with after one lap…ended up 15th and 38:30 run which was perfect to my plan…that'll do me, another minute and I would have been top 10…

good fun,good day,2nd aussie home in age gr,1st uk home and first norfolk islander haha

Other people? Didn,t see alice in the race but 24th is exellent(ref stephens email), pre race I was trying to get her head into accepting 30-50th and not feeling crap about it so 24th is bloody good with 7 min run pb

mark preston I think was 30 something, scott molina came 2nd in a sprint to the line with a mexican 10 mins ahead of me…not sure about anyone else as only had quick look at results on board…

That’s all folks!...aus team party tonight and off to kona in the morning

Jh hillbillies world correspondent honolulu 9/10/05 J