Ironman New Zealand: A total sham ...

Wow, what an experience. I must say, I think the race organizers royally botched the race. And, for that reason, I have zero incentive to go back to IM NZ. It's too bad because Taupo is such a beautiful place. It reminds me somewhat of the atmosphere in Penticton. They had discussed contingencies at the race briefing (specifically, a 180k bike-42k run), but it appeared as though they weren't able to invoke any of them. The weather was the same at 6am as it was at 4pm, yet they waited and waited. I still don't know why. The explanations were poor. Almost half of the field were first-timers. Especially disappointing for them.

After returning our car to the car rental shop, the lady shuttling us to the airport pretty much floored us by saying, "Oh wow, did you guys train for months and months and spend thousands of dollars to be here?" ... umm ... yep, that's us.

But, we are not the only triathletes to be affected by inclement weather this weekend. At least we got to race ... the Canadian Commonwealth Games team did not this past weekend: click here.

For what its worth, I'll post a race report sometime in the near future.