If I was to sum up the Rotorua Triathlon in one word it would be ‘wet’. The fact that the weather only decided to rain on the morning of the Tri is even more ironic. When we arrived at Blue Lake around 6.45am it was bucketing it down, my partner wisely decided to stay in the car until the very last minute while I setup my bike in transition.
The swim went fairly well, was caught slightly off guard by the countdown to the start and wasn’t in quite the best position to start however. Still it’s first race I’ve done in a couple of years, so was really just to get the feel of things again. The bike section was also challenging, I had been having some derailleur issues prior to the race. In the wet these were 10 times worse, with gear changes being a little hit and miss. Come the run, wet and cold and with soaked shoes, I really just wanted to finish the race. The enjoyment factor was starting wane.
Overall I’m pretty happy with the result though, the swim was much better than my first Tri back in 2007 and the time considering the wet conditions and bike issues were reasonable too. Below is some footage of the race from Triathlon New Zealand.