Mary Briant. File picture
GISBORNE triathlete Mary Briant started 2016 the way she finished 2015, on the podium.
Briant, who won the women’s 55-59 years division of the Mount Maunganui Tinman in November, backed that up with a silver medal in the Port of Tauranga Half Ironman at the weekend. The popular annual New Year race doubles as the long-distance triathlon nationals.
“It gives me a complete set of medals after I finished third in Tauranga last year,” said the 57-year-old, adding “you need to be a bit crazy to put yourself through something like this”.
“But I love it. It’s a lot of fun and a great way to keep fit and meet other more crazy people.”
Briant, who was eighth in her age group in the ITU long distance triathlon world championships in Sweden in July, was third on Saturday. But she was the second New Zealander in her age group so collected silver.
“There were more competitors in my age group this year so that made it a bit special,” said Briant, who completed the 2 kilometre swim, 90km cycle and 21.1km run in five hours 56 minutes and 42 seconds.
“It was quite stormy over the weekend and the swim conditions were a bit rough, which didn’t help me as swimming is not my strongest leg. But it’s a short part of the race so I just relaxed and enjoyed it.
“I’m stronger on the bike but even then we had to battle against head winds before completing two laps around the base of the Mount.”
Briant said preparation was key for anyone wanting to compete in such events.
“It’s not something you’d want to do without proper preparation, and being a member of the Eastland Tri club, you’re well prepared.”
A fourth in RotoruaPart of Briant’s build-up included a fourth placing in the Rotorua half-ironman the week before Christmas.
“The run, with a couple of hills, was especially tough but you always get support.
“At the weekend, Andy (Baker, who finished fifth in the 40-44yrs group in a personal best time of 4:44:11) passed me on the run and called out ‘come on Mary you can do it’.”
Baker is using the half-ironman as training for his first ironman at Taupo in March.
Triathlon New Zealand high performance squad Tayler Reid and his Gisborne-based coach Stephen Sheldrake were second in the team section.
They clocked 3:55:58 — three minutes behind the three-man team of swimmer Nathan Capp (New Zealand 1500m record-holder), cyclist Gordon McCauly (Commonwealth Games time trial medallist) and runner Matt King (who spent two years training with the Brownlee brothers Alister and Jonathan).
“Our runner got sick so I used my coach card and made Tayler do the run, as well as the swim,” said Sheldrake. “Tayler is in a big block of training and will race next month at the ITU Continental Cup race in Kinloch.
“I’m racing the NZ sprint championships the same weekend in Kinloch."
Reid enjoyed the experience of competing alongside Capp.
“He’s a different class, as you’d expect being the national 1500m record-holder. My aim was to try to stay with him as long as possible, which was about 2000 metres before he blew away,” said Reid, who came out of the water second, 1min 25sec behind Capp.
“Considering I was up against someone of that calibre, that wasn’t too bad."
Reid hits the wallSitting fourth heading into the run, after “a good bike ride from Stephen”, Reid hauled in the third then second runner then “hit the wall”.
“I went out way too fast, 35 minutes for the first 10km. But I was feeling relaxed and it wasn’t until 14km in I suffered for it.
“I was conscious of the guy behind me closing the gap but quitting was never an option, especially when you’re competing as a team. I was happy that I was able to run through it and finish second.”
Reid was back in action the next day for the Round the Mount 4.5km swim race. He placed third.
Another Gisborne athlete, Steve Webb, took on the challenge of his first half-ironman. He was 24th in the 50-54yrs division in 6:28:02.