IRONMAN triathlon veteran Richard Sewell from Cundletown believes a time of around 9 hours in next Sunday's Australian championship race at Port Macquarie will be enough to book himself a flight for the world event in Kona, Hawaii later in the year.
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Sewell will be a starter in the 45-49 years division, moving up since last time he tackled Port Macquarie.
"I'm an old bugger now,'' he laughed.
This will be his first trip over the 3.8km swim, 180km bike and 42.2km course since 2013. That year he produced his best race when he was a brilliant 11th overall, clocking 9 hours 25. That guaranteed him a trip to the World Ironman Championship in Kona, where he repeated the performance, finishing in 9.26.
"That was a good year,'' he said.
Sewell is hoping to get through Sunday somewhere between 9.30 and 9.45 hours. He isn't expecting a repeat of 2013, where he said perfect conditions paved the way for his personal best time.
"It's hard to say what time you'll do until the day,'' Sewell explained.
The weather, he said, is a major factor.
"We had a good tail wind in 2013 and that helped,'' he said.
Sewell has said his preparation has been incident free. He's restricted his racing program to events with the Forster Tri Club along with a couple of local events.
He's been a regular competitor at the Australian Ironman at Port Macquarie for the past decade. The event celebrates its 30th anniversary on Sunday, starting in 1985 at Forster-Tuncurry before eventually shifting to Port Macquarie.
Sewell said he never goes into a race with a projected time in mind.
"I just want to finish first,'' he said.
"That's Plan A. Then I start to look at my time.''
Sewell added that qualifying for Hawaii is always an ambition when he starts the race. It'll be the same on Sunday.
He's been to Hawaii four times, with the 9.26 in 2013 his stand out effort. But even recording a PB two years ago wasn't a catalyst for him to think about retiring from the event. He's a competitor. He lives to race. He always believes he can go faster.
"Every time I finish I look back on the race and on sections where I could have gone quicker,'' he said.
"I'll be the same on Sunday. And I'll be trying to qualify for Hawaii.''
But even if he doesn't it's unlikely that this will be his last ironman.
