| Kona 2009...???? |
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What happened in Kona? What exactly happened....hhmm..I really can’t tell you. I just know that I was in the best form ever, felt great, had the perfect preparation and finally had a good swim. Leading a big group the whole way, was a new positive experience. I came out of the water and was happy with my swim time that was 4 min. faster then last year. I remember and also heard from a lot of people that I was smiling all the way to my bike. I felt strong fresh, excited and ready to hunt the whole field like last year. The smiling ended fast and the hunt would never take place..... I jumped on my bike and in the first kilometers I would already find out that something was seriously wrong. I started the bike leg and felt that my gears were making a lot of noise and didn’t go smooth like the day before. My bike is perfect and taken good care of, we had it tuned up at Bike works and they always do a good job. I can tell you that my bike was riding smooth as ever when I checked my bike in the day before!!!!! I never had problems with my gears in the last 10 years of racing and I can insure you that I felt totally devastated with this going on in my most important race of the year. I struggled the whole bike course, some parts it went a little better because I had some gears that went smooth, bad luck for me that the ones that I ride the most didn’t belong to them:-( I never got a rhythm on the bike and struggled on. I didn’t want to stop to try if I could fix the problem, finally after 110 km. I did. The mechanical tried to adjust the gears, it helped a little but not enough, besides that my legs were killed and I wasn’t able to play my cards on the bike as I normally do. I really felt devastated! I tried to start the run, but I just couldn’t and decided to stop! So now the remaining question, what happened to my bike? Everything was working perfect when I left her, so something happened between that point and the point that I started the 180 km. I think that somebody maybe hit my bike while preparing his or hers own bike, the space between each bike is to less and you can easily damage other peoples bike without even meaning to. It makes me sad, real sad. I didn’t deserve this, I worked so hard for this one day. My boyfriend Thomas and I did everything we could to have a perfect day. It’s just shit and I can’t say something different. I will be positive again in a couple of days, I will always stand up again, no matter what. I don’t want to end the season like this, so we will do another Ironman. We worked so hard for this and I’m not going to throw it away just like that!!!!! I’m lying on the beach while writing this. I’m looking at the amazing waves, life is still beautiful but sometimes it’s a little unfair. I just got a nice bracelet from a local women.She gave me the beautiful bracelet because she feels so sorry for me. It leaves me with a lot of questions and a beautiful bracelet........ Thank you for all the support and Mahalo to all the local people her on this beautiful Island. Yvonne |