IRONMAN - Nurse beats the clock in tenacious Ironman effort

You could say Oringa Barach has perfect timing.
The 62-year-old Whangarei nurse competed in the 25th Ironman New Zealand race at Taupo and turned in a well-timed effort with just minutes to spare before race cut-off.
Hundreds of cheering spectators were kept on the edge of their grandstand seats that lined the finishing chute on Saturday night, as the big red digits of the clock counted down to midnight.
Barach splashed her way through the 3.8km swim, rode the 180km bike and toughed it out on the 42km run.
But as the seconds ticked by it looked like Barach would not make the deadline and instead, miss out on a medal. Then, out of the darkness, Barach lurched into the brightly-lit finishing chute.
With less than 10 minutes to spare she ploughed through the finishing tape in a time of 16 hours 50 minutes. She turned back to face the grandstands and took a well-deserved bow.
"I kept looking at my watch on the last leg back to town. I knew it was going to be tight but thought if I ran down the hills and strided it out walking up I could scrape in. I was struggling but it was magical coming down the chute."
Waiting at the finish line was 60-year-old Brian Barach, who completed the gruelling race in 12h 48m, and admitted his nerves were "jangling" as his watched the clock and hoped his wife would make cut off.
The couple was part of an eight-strong Northland contingent in the race. Whangarei avocado grower Graeme MacDonald clocked in at 10h 38m - a remarkable feat given it is his third ironman race in the last 12 months.
MacDonald raced at Taupo last year and qualified and raced at the World Championships in Kona Hawaii last October.
The 51-year-old was delighted with his 12th iroman finish on Saturday after doing a personal best on the bike phase in near-perfect race conditions.
While Cameron Brown and Terenzo Bozzone tussled for line honours at the front of the record field of 1289 competitors, there was the David Howard versus Daryl Curran battle back in the pack.
The two Whangarei mates trained together covering thousands of kilometres in the pool and on Northland roads in preparation for their first Ironman race.
But when the cannon signalled the 7am start it was a battle to be the first down the finishing chute.
Howard, an avocado rancher, slipped out of the water only a minute ahead of Curran, a community police constable at Onerahi.
The lead swapped early in the bike stage, but the two remained within sight for most of the ride before Howard burst ahead just before heading out on the run.
Howard pulled away after Curran struck stomach trouble 5km into the run and had to make a few hurried portaloo stops.
"I'm rapt I finished. Running down the finishing chute I was just happy it was all over," Curran said.
Howard reckoned it would be his first and only crack at the race after finishing in 11h 31m. Curran crossed the line in 12h 18m.
"Everything hurts beyond belief. Going out there for the first time you think you're never going to make it," he said.
Sushi chef Hidenori Hashimoto shut up shop on his Whangarei business for the day and finished in 12h 45m.
School principal Shelley Gosse, from Dargaville, finished her second iroman race in 12h 40m, while drystock farmer Chris Walls finished in 10h 42m.
In the pro-elite races Cameron Brown won his eighth title while Christchurch's Gina Ferguson ended the six-year reign of Jo Lawn.
Brown put together a near perfect race to set a new race record of 8.18.05. Ferguson won in 9.18.26, more than four minutes ahead of Lawn with Australia's Charlotte Paul third.