From Papamoa we headed south to Taupo where we planned to watch Ironman New Zealand and cheer on a lady from our spin class back home, Ally Johnson. We arrived on Friday (the day before the race) and checked out the town and Ironman expo. It wasn’t as impressive and the Ironman Canada expo however it was still pretty cool. There was talk of bad weather the next day and people were concerned about whether the race would go on or not. Later that afternoon we were in the hot tub at our campground (sweet eh?!) and a couple of the racers came in and informed us that the race had officially been cancelled – bummer!
In the end they postponed the race by a day and held it as a 70.3 event (half Ironman distance). The weather was great and I think all things considered it was a successful event despite the fact that participating athletes were robbed of doing the full distance. The storm that came through was bad but in the end probably wasn’t as bad as they had been forecasting.
I forgot to mention that when we were in the hot tub talking to some of the racers that we started to get a bit fearful of spending the night in our tent and one of the lady’s offered us floor space at the house she was staying at. In the end we took her up on it and packed up our tent. We spent the night there and met her friends who were coming up to watch the race as well and the next morning they cooked us breakfast and took great care of us! Very hospitable and accommodating! Ann, the lady who invited us to spend the night also offered us a place to stay in Wellington as we made our way down there. Thanks Ann!!
Congratulations to Ally Johnson from Calgary who participated in the event and had a great race!
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