Third placegetter Tayler Reid (right) and runner-up Jake Birtwhistle, flank Ironman 70.3 Geelong race winner Jelle Geens, the reigning 70.3 world champion.
A patchwork of sticking plaster covers the left foot of Tayler Reid as he eases on one of his cleated cycling shoes.
He says he’ll never again do the run leg of a 70.3 ironman without socks, but they’re out of the question for this training ride.
He’d never get the shoes on over the socks, he says.
A quick turn of the circular tighteners on the outside of the shoes has him ready to go.
It’s Tuesday, two days after his third-place finish in the Ironman 70.3 Geelong race near Melbourne. Reid, 28, walks as if his feet balance on a cluster of blisters, because they do.
He covered the half-Ironman distance – 1.9km swim, 90km bike ride, and 21.1km run – in three hours 34 minutes 39 seconds.
The race started at 7.30am on Sunday and for Reid was over at 11.05am. He rested for the remainder of the day, spent most of Monday getting home to Gisborne and woke up wrecked on Tuesday.
“At the moment I can’t do much training . . . my feet and legs are kind of destroyed. I feel I’ve aged a hundred years in the past day.
“I put everything into the race and that is the price you pay. It doesn’t come free, putting your body on the limit. The body’s going to say, ‘We need to chill out now’.
“I’m just going to spend time on the bike today. That will make me feel better. I’m used to exercise four to six hours every day. If I just sit still I’ll be stiff. A nice, easy bike ride or swim will do me good.”
Sunday’s race was his first over the half-ironman distance. He noticed other competitors putting on socks before the run but he’d always run without them over the Olympic-course distance of 10km.
He’s thrilled he made the podium. Race winner Jelle Geens, of Belgium, is the Ironman 70.3 world champion, having won the title at Taupō in December, and runner-up Jake Birtwhistle, of Australia, had a “blinding second half of the run”.
A host of other top-class performers were in the field, and Reid’s half-marathon time of 1:09:14 was the third-fastest, after the first two finishers.
“I’m so stoked with that.”
Reid’s preparation under new coach Ben Reszel, of Germany, had gone well but as he had never raced this far, it was hard to judge how he would feel. Despite this, he felt “fantastic” the whole day.
“You’re not always blessed with that. Sometimes you feel horrible and you show up and sometimes you still have a good race. It’s a lot more enjoyable when you feel good, and I felt great. And you always get a boost when you’re in a fight for the podium.”
Three of Reszel’s triathletes had podium finishes – Reid, Geens, and women’s runner-up Hannah Berry, of Tauranga.
Reid’s strength has traditionally been the swim.
“It’s where my love of sport comes from . . . I competed and trained most of my life with Enterprise swim squad and Midway surf lifesaving.
“And in triathlon I come from short-course racing, so my start speed is a lot higher than that of most guys regularly doing ironman races. I was able to get into clear water early, while other guys who are about my pace ended up fighting [for space] instead of swimming.
“I think I was third out of the water.
“Riding the time-trial bike was awesome, such a fun part of the race. We averaged about 45km/h for two hours. We had two 45km laps. The first lap was just us pros, but in the second lap we had an age-group race on the course as well, and it got a bit crazy. They’re not going 40 to 50km/h, so we were going past them like they were standing still. That was pretty cool.”
New technology helped riders stay out of the penalty zone for drafting.
“Each bike has a light on the back of it. If you go too close to the bike in front, its light will start flashing red and alert a technical official and a penalty will be imposed. You have to keep the light blue or yellow.
“You need to be about 14m behind the bike in front unless you are passing, and then you have 25 seconds to pass. It seems like a long time but to go faster than the 45km/h you’ve been going requires an exponential increase in effort.”
He finished the bike ride at about seventh – some bunching is allowed as they come into transition – and he was out on the run in fourth place, perhaps saving time by not putting on socks.
Not having done this distance, Reid had planned to race conservatively, to be smart and patient.
“I got on to the run and thought, ‘I feel fantastic, we’re just going to go for it now’. A group of four of us ran the first 5km in 15 minutes 30 seconds, which is crazy fast.
“Eventually Jelle got away from us. I ran in second for most of the run, alongside my friend Kenji Nener. We dropped Jake (Birtwhistle) and we kind of worked together, taking turns in the lead to keep the pace high.
“On the second lap I noticed Kenji hadn’t fuelled. I noticed him suffering a bit so I put in a surge and got away. I didn’t know where Jake was but he had a blinding second half of the run. He caught me at 18km and I couldn’t respond. At that point I think he was running faster than Jelle.”
Reid held on for third place in his first half-ironman and earned a token confirming he has qualified for the Ironman 70.3 world championship men’s race in Marbella, Spain, on November 9.
In the meantime, he is looking ahead to the World Triathlon Championship Series race in Yokohama, Japan, on May 17.
That will be held over the Olympic-course distances of 1.5km for the swim, 40km for the bike and 10km for the run.