Ishigaki

Evening friends,

As alluded to in my previous post, the next locale in my pursuit of athletic excellence was the small fishing isle of Ishigaki, Japan. 51 weeks of the year, Ishigaki’s raison d'être is engaging in all manner of fishmonging, but 1 week a year, the island embraces triathlon. Running for 18 years as a bastion of the World Cup circuit, I made the trans-pacific sojourn with a bunch of fellow Aussies keen to rep the green and gold in the land of the rising sun.

Doddsy and I testing our new tandem approach on the way to briefing. We're looking to start racing like this  in 2014.

The flight over featured 24hrs of talking smack and tactics in equal amounts, with myself and Fish engaging in our usual pre-race ritual of painting eloquent pictures of dissecting the field like a surgeon. If karma had paid any attention to our gratuitous exaggeration and nonchalance towards the talented field, it would have had us lapped out of the bike on the first lap, however we managed to escape the karma police, with Fish claiming his first World Cup win, and myself snaring a pleasing third. 

Re-attaching my false beard.

My primary concern in the swim was the maintenance of my swimming cap, and therefore avoiding hair-induced blindness. Taking ample precautionary measures such as avoiding conditioner pre-race, double capping, and putting my hair in a Bam-Bam style pony tail, I was gratified to finish my first swim leg of the year cap-intact. Navigationally advantaged, I managed to lead out of the water and onto the bike, where mayhem ensued in the wet conditions. Spending the first few laps dodging crashes and launching attacks, I found myself with only Fish and Irish gent Bryan Keane for company, and we set about grafting out as much of a buffer over the main pack as possible. After Bryan hit the deck with 2 laps to go, it was down to myself and Fish, surprisingly enough holding true to our bold, pre-race plans. 

Onto the run, and my legs felt about lively as a pensioners pool party, and so with Fish blazing up the road unchallenged, I tried in vein to hold of the rampaging Irishman behind me, who drew up to me at 8km, and then away from me at 9km. 

Super happy to be back on the podium, and well pleased to share it with two very deserving lads Fish and Keaney - nothing makes waiting for hours in drug testing freezing cold waiting to pee go quicker, than sharing it talking even more smack with these two gents. With Bryan disturbingly even more ‘chipper’ than usual following his sip of champagne on the podium, I’m sure the drug testers were more than suspicious about his inability to stop laughing for the best part of an hour…

Wine tasting post-race...

From here, it’s four more weeks until Yokohama WTS, and like usual, it’ll be a matter of trying to get a few more run kms in the legs, without having them break... The usual balancing act of Wilson...

Take care friends,

Willy