By Gemma Houghton on 07/06/2011 08:17

 

I’ve been in Australia over a year now, so when I heard they were running a long-course triathlon event in Cairns, I was leaping at the opportunity to enter (although note, I was not leaping anywhere 2 days after the race....more like a hobble).  So here is my race report…..

Not quite brave enough to take on the full ironman (yet), I opted to enter the half ironman course. It was the first year for this event, so I didn’t know what to expect.  There was a map of the ride elevation etc on the website but I never understand these things, so I was going in blind.  A friend of mine had mentioned something about tough headwinds in Cairns but that was about the limit of my knowledge of what the race might be like.  I just knew that the race was near the beach and it would take me away from winter in Sydney for a weekend. 



Arriving in Yorkey’s Knob (yes this really is the name of the town the race starts from), I wasn’t quite prepared for the Cairns wildlife warning signs.  Now not only did I have the nerves associated with doing a half-ironman, but I also faced the possibility of a box jelly-fish, crocodile or shark attack. Great! Well, if that wasn’t going to get me swimming quicker, I don’t know what would. 

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