Bez arrived in London from Cape Town on the Thursday morning. We were flying out Friday evening. Friday morning we arranged for Bez to catch a cab with both bike & travel bags to Clapham Junction. I’d meet him there from work and we’d catch the train to Gatwick airport…So I get to Clapham all rushed as we had to catch the 5:15 train…. as I get there Bez tells me he’s left his wheels are at my house…. oh crap…no wheels no race. So I stay with all the bikes and bags and Bez zoots off to catch a bus back to Southfields. Its now 5pm and rush hour so it’s not gonna be quick sticks like we’d hoped. A couple of minutes later I see Bez rushing back – he’s got on the bus and realized about 3 stops down the road that he’d left the keys in his backpack….oh my goodness! I’m stressing huge by this stage that we’re not gonna make this flight to Nice…..…ok so Bez manages to flag down a cab and they race thru Friday rush hour traffic to S/Fields, our flight is at 7pm and we have to catch the 5:55 train to have any chance of making our flight…….He eventually makes it back and we just make our train.

I then plan to hotfoot it to North Terminal and check us in while Bez tags along with both bike bags……so off I go in search of North Terminal which I can’t find. ….oh crap! So I call Bez and he’s on the train to North Terminal…. Whoops there’s a train to North Terminal??? So eventually after running around a while longer I find this train and hop on. Bez is now at the check in counter with no passports trying very charmingly to convince the lady that he is on the flight and spells out Roger Bezuidenhout to her…and she’s believes him after which time I come rushing with our passports…phew we’ve made it…then the lady very politely tells us not to worry our flight was delayed by around 40 minutes.

We arrived in Nice at around 11:30 both Bez and I are exhausted. We mozzy on through the airport after trekking for ages with bike bags and backpacks with me moaning away. We stayed in the same place as last year so were pretty much locals knew exactly were we were going got to the hotel and crashed in like 2minutes. Day One Complete Phew! At least we made it to Nice.

Next morning we woke up pretty early, had breakfast and headed to Monaco to register, get race packs, do a little retail therapy and check out the sea’s water temperature. Man it was beautiful…. 33 degrees and calm. Bez and I then drove the bike course. I’ve got the video attempting to film the bike course and I’m thinking holy crap these hills are big - imagine how big they’re gonna feel like on a bike……Holy cow my nerves were shot. I kept filming in silence with a few murmurs of OMG under my breath….. So Bez tells me to film all the signs of the towns and as I’m so crap with the video camera I miss a sign. So we reverse, but ooops Bez reverses the car into the bloody mountain…me still filming and the camera going all over the place there is complete silence for a moment and we both just pack out laughing…. Whoops!!! The side of the car is nicely scratched and the hubcap is a mess. Great way to start the weekend!

After racking we meet up with Wayno & Co. for some dinner. Wayno on the other hand has about the same bad luck as we’ve had during this trip…his bike’s damaged on the plane so he was scampering around trying to get his bike fix (which couldn’t be fixed in the end) so a very nice local guys offered to lend him his bike…I was a little worried for a second cos he was gonna pace me for the entire race…. we headed back to Nice for an early nights sleep as we had to be up at 4:30am. Great stuff Day 2 Complete

Race Day – 4th September 2005
Bez and I have a quick breakfast of pronutro, grab our gear and head back to Monaco…. as we’re about to leave Nice I realize ooooooops I’ve left my wetsuits…so we have to drive back to fetch the flippin wetsuit…. (Well something had to go wrong we were cursed from the day we left London).

Bez decides we need to make time driving to Monaco and drives like a mad man…ok so anyone that knows me knows I’m a wreck before any triathlon never mind a half-Ironman with Bez thinking he’s a Formula 1 driver. It didn’t’ help matters. We prep our bikes and meet the rest of the clan for a nice nervous chat… Wayno, Bez and I head away from the hussle and bussle of the race to put our wetsuits on have a good laugh…ok as it turns out it was a ploy by the boyz who needed to pee…hehe…

Before the race I had a chat to Wayno and even though he was gonna race with me I was gonna stick to my own personal race plan which was to have an easy swim, be as fresh as possible on the bike by 50k’s and survive the run and try break 2 hours on the run…those were my personal goals that I needed to keep my focus on. So we’re all chatting and next minute I see people scrambling into the water – we were chatting so much we never even heard the start horn go off. Dammit. Now there are 900 odd folks all scampering into the water…Wayno is saying “Its cool let the crowds go we want clear water”. So we’re chatting while we’re going into the water and I eventually manage to get some clear water and swim very comfortably. This is my weakest discipline I just wanted to get this over and done with but remained comfy hearing Wayno calling my name and trying to get me to draft him ….I tried at times to stick to Wayno but no go so I just carried on cruising along. The swim consisted of two loops so you had to run onto the beach and back into the water for your second lap…coming out of the water Wayno was waiting for me on the beach…I was still feeling cool…. probably the best I’ve ever felt in the swim…At times my sighting is not great…. and heard Wayno saying Coops where you going girl this way… I was following another dude off course…. hehe…

I got out the water and dashed through transition. I got my race bag and took my wetsuit off by this stage Wayno was already there and helped me saying “ok girl this isn’t a tea party we have bigger fish to fry on the bike course”. Looked at my watch…. a PB swim by 3minutes…. whoopee…. great stuff my spirits were high now…

We took it easy getting our bikes as there were heaps of people and I didn’t wanna crash before I’d even got on my bike. I get to the mount and start riding Wayno slightly ahead of me…. knob nose here forgets we’re in France and they drive on the right hand side of the road so I hear a few Frenchmen saying something to me but as I don’t speak the language don’t take notice. Eventually after a little while I realize whoops they’re trying to pass me…hope they saw my SA Flag on my tri suit so I was excused…1 km flat and then we start to climb…. I soon realized something is not quite right with my bike…. damit…so Wayno and I stop and my wheel is misaligned bike guru Wayno sorts it out and we’re off again. Guys are flying past me but I’m not too worried cos I know its gonna be a long day and I need to stick to my race plan of being fresh by the 50k mark. Passed Coral who was looking as happy as day, same as me…I was really enjoying myself…. we had a little chat and headed on….

Wayno would ride with me at times and then pretty much did his own thing…. it was cool cos we cracked a few jokes during the race which certainly helped when the dark patches started setting in…. it was cool to have a little company but I was still sticking to my guns and riding my own race I was not gonna try to keep up with him cos I knew I would certainly blow. The views were absolutely breathtaking. I was enjoying the scenery, keeping my mind off the pain that I was experiencing …the first decent was a little scary although was quite a relieve to let the legs relax a bit…I was pretty nervous after seeing a chick over-cutting a corner and smashing into a tree…I was gripping onto my brakes so hectically that I was starting to get a little cramp in my hands…haha…ok I’m a girl…(note to self – replace break pads after race).

As I’d planned I got to the 50k mark and was feeling pretty good still so all was going according to plan except one thing I desperately needed the loo…. damit this was the first time I ever I wished I was a bloke…Wayno found this rather amusing, anyway so further on we found a reasonably flat section on the course with a wall along the road…perfect…so off pops Coops behind the wall conscious as hell that someone was gonna see me as I was wearing a crop top and tri suit so you’ve pretty much gotta strip down naked to have a pee….charming and so lady like huh….guess desperate means for desperate measures

We get back on the bike and I’m feeling relieved and ready to tackle the last 40k’s…at around 70k’s I’m really hitting a dark patch there is 8k climb and its taking its toll…..Wayno just kept encouraging me saying. “One last climb and its downhill all the way back to Monaco.” I go through the motions and I can see a lot of other people are going thru the same motions as me……..which is kind of encouraging in a very strange way……anyway I get through and its downhill back to Monaco………my strategy was at the last 10k’s I needed to finish all my nutrition on my bike as I needed to stock up for my 21k run….so we’re cruising down the hill….trying to let my poor legs recover…..got back to transition and I was feeling fairly good.

I had my bad patches but bike was over and I was relieved cos it was really tough out there. The strategy on the run is to hit the first 10k’s feeling good and then try to give the last 10k’s a really good push if I had anything left. By this stage the sun was scorching hot…and it was certainly taking its toll on most people…. we approached the famous formula 1 tunnel and I say to Wayno, “I need to walk.”

Wayno is getting worried cos I’m already walking as we’ve not even run 1k yet…..after some encouragement and sort out my little self doubt we carry on running and I say to myself “I will not walk again, only through the aid stations.”

Now we had to run 4.5 loops of 5k’s. Now what I didn’t know was at the end of each 5k there was a mean hill that we had to tackle. Oh boy was it hard! I had to force myself to run up it….I just wanted to walk but I had to push through it especially after seeing some power triathletes walking up the hill.

I kept saying. “OK I’m not gonna let this hill beat me.”

The 10k mark approached and things were going to plan. With lots of encouragement and cheering Wayno was saying, “Right we’re on target for sub 2 hour, great stuff. Time to pick up the pace a little.”

I could feel Wayno pushing the pace but had to pull back at times as it was a little too fast for me. He’s a power runner. I take my hat off to him for being so patient with me when I said nope Wayno I can’t go that fast…. he would slow the pace slightly…. the cheering and encouragement was wonderful from the spectators even though I had no bloody idea what they were saying expect I knew what “allez allez” meant go go…the rest was a good guess………..knowing the finish was drawing nearer…I knew I had to tackle that hill one last time before I could finish, the heat and the whole day was pretty much taking its toll….Wayno started upping the pace a little more and I managed to keep up to him….I was really feeling great by this stage……so powered up the hill and knew the quicker I could get up here the better cos I could hear the finish line with all the cheering….Wayno and I cruised to the finish line…man oh man what a wonderful feeling it was. We missed the sub 2 hour mark by a few seconds (probably due to me walking in the tunnel) but it was a still the second PB of the day by 10minutes I was thrilled…..thanks to Wayno’s encouragement and patience….

Wow what a perfect day of racing it had turned out. We went to look for the rest of the clan and went to the beach and all shared our war stories of the day…. one conclusion we all came to was “what a tough day it was”…. we were all delighted to have finished, and to have done one of the hardest Half Ironman’s in the world was an achievement within itself. After the awards ceremony and the handing out of Hawaii slots, we headed home. The day had taken its toll and I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was just climb into bed and sleep.

Thanks must go to Wayno who was very patient and offered so much encouragement during the race. Of course to my Coach, Bez thanks heaps for all the guidance the training programs and all the encouragement and guidance it’s been a tough year of racing for me but I somehow managed to finish this race with two personal bests which finished my season off with a high…more improvement hopefully next year!