Monday, March 8, 2010

The Original Ironman does Taupo

Dave Orlowski was one of the original few to complete the first ever Ironman in Kona. After 31 years Dave has resurfaced and is traveling around aiming to complete every Ironman over 5 years. Things have changed a lot since the first ironman - Dave cut off a pair of jeans for the first one because he wanted to wear pants that had pockets... he did the swim, bike and run all in those cut off jeans. He had to borrow a bike for the 180km cycle, and even though he had to stop and buy his food from McDonalds while on the bike course, he still managed to complete the challenge in just over 12 hours or so. Now that is a feat of endurance!

Dave's Ironman NZ report... 6 Mar 2010
The day started with a few clouds as we prepared for the swim. Lake Taupo was beautiful as the sun was about to rise and the athletes tried to find there spot for the swim start.
Prime Minister John Key fired the cannon and we were all off. Felt great in the swim as I took off but could never get into a rythm as I tried to find my space. There were many new first timers - you could tell by them swimming all over and not using spotting to find buoys. Came out of the water at 1:16 which I felt I was off by about 10 minutes.

The bike was windy or should I say a beast. As we started out it was not too bad and temperature was comfortable to keep body temps down. It did not take long and the winds kicked up and were with us all day. It just seemed no matter what direction you were riding the winds were there. I was off my bike time by about an hour and finished at 7:19 and off to the run.

Of course we had the wind in our face on the run out as part of the two loop run. You could enjoy the wind pushing you back to Taupo. This is where my race always falls apart. I have been working on it this year but ended with a 6:50 marathon and overall time of 15:50. I don't worry about my time when I am on the run as I try to enjoy as many of the spectators and volunteers and my day doing Ironman.

A finish is a finish!!!! This was # 9 for me but more important 1 more to doing my goal of all the Ironmans in the 5 years finishing with the 35th anniversary of Kona!

Train Safe everyone and Thanks for Support.

You can always count on Blueseventy products to get you to the finish and complete your goal for the day

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