Chris Moors reports on his participation in the Kellogg’s trials held on the Gold Coast over the weekend of 18/19 September

As you may be aware, I trialled for the Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Ironman series held at Tugun.

It was a cool event to be a part of, with 69 males and 49 females from all over Australia trialling for the 8 positions that were up for grabs for each gender. The event was made better by the fact we had some decent swells rolling in … 4ft sets breaking heavy at times, with big lulls between the sets. In the mornings it was nice and glassy but in the afternoons it chopped up.

Rounds 1 and 2 were held on Saturday. For the guys it was three heats of 23 (x2) and for the girls there were two heats of 24 (x2). Everyone did these rounds and the top 20 in each gender, based on points, went through to final on the Sunday.

The races were similar to a normal surf ironman event, just a fair bit longer. A rough estimate of the distances were: 800m swim, 800m run, 1.2km ski, 800m run, 1km board, 800m run to finish. Each round was a different order for swim/ski/board, but the same distance.

I was pretty stoked to qualify in 18th spot and make the final on Sunday after finishing 5th in round 1, and 8th in round 2.

The final on Sunday was pretty intense and another step up in pace from the rounds on Saturday. The surf skills and pace of the top guys is pretty impressive. I managed to finish 18th in the final, a bit gutted I didn’t make the cut on one hand but happy on the other that I was not totally outclassed.

Sadly, no Kiwis made the cut this year. The Kiwi trialists included Dan Moodie, Mike Janes, Dan Nelson, Ollie Puddick, Maddison Boon and me. Out of the Kiwis, only Mike Janes, my Kurrawa training partner, and myself made the finals.

I would love to see more Kiwis, particularly Red Beach clubbies, having a crack at it in future years. A few words of advice, turn up as fit as possible and be prepared to hurt a bit. I gained a lot out of racing at this level and would recommend it to any up and coming budding ironperson.

Chris Moors