Days before a race I try to taper a little bit but at the same time i try to stay active, for me it is rather hard to find the right balance between overtraining prior to a race and doing just too little. The last swim I had was 6 days before the race, the last bike training was a day before consisting of 30K slow pace and I have been running for almost every day of week prior to the race, but only very short runs (1.5k on the treadmill) due to my ongoing injury. 

On Saturday evening I packed my bag, I have a little "What to take with me" spreadsheet which is very handy as I only need to tick off my gear and I don't need to worry about forgetting something. This was the first time the race was held in the afternoon and therefore I didn't have any problems with sleep depravation the night before. Remember during my first Triathlon, in Windsor I raced on only 2 hours of sleep.  

The whole family came with me and therefore we had combined this race with an onsite pic-nic, we arrived at the race site around 12pm, with my wave starting at 2:40pm. I had given myself until 1pm to eat something, I didn't want to swim with a full stomach. We settled ourselves in the pleasant environment whilst observing other participants from other races whilst we were having our lunch, my mother in law had prepared a whole bunch of sandwiches and she made some nice salmon ones, in the hope I swim like a fish. Thanks, but I'm afraid it didn't really help. 

Talking about mother in law, when we arrived at the race site we crossed the bike track and as you do you wait till no bicycles are passing by until crossing, my mother in law crossed but we waited more patiently, as the queue started building up and the patience of Mary started coming to an end, she shouted to all of us (more than 40 people in meantime). What are you waiting for? They are just practicing! Obviously not realizing that other waves already had started their race. All the people waiting with us on the other side were all laughing. 

Around 2pm I went to the transition where my bike was already racked from just after the registration. I started organizing my transition area, luckily the person next to me didn't turn up so I had a bit more space. I first organize my bike, ensure that I'm in the right gear, sticking my gels on the bike, resetting my speedometer, checking my tires and brakes. Once this is done I lay out my shoes, towel, helmet and sunglasses on the right hand side of my bike. Afterwards I noticed I forgot to add my emergency repair kit on my bike, luckily I didn't end up with a puncture. Then I took off my clothes and start putting on my wetsuit, putting my bag away, just behind my bike.  

During the setup I noticed 2 readers of my blog, David and John. Good to meet you guys and well done for the fantastic results. They are very nice people.  

At 2:30pm I went to the waterfront and got myself a bit wet by warming up inside the water. The water was not too cold, not sure what the temperature was but I guess it must have been around 18 degrees. 

The Swim

During the warm-up I concentrated on relaxing by placing myself horizontal in the water and blowing bubbles like a little child, I just enjoy this part! 

I was one of the first ones to be in the water, but that meant I was first in the start line, which wasn't a good thing. I pushed off my watch once I heard  that we had only 30 seconds before setting off. From the moment I heard the horn I set off and started rather well, but maybe too quick, as I didn't want people to swim over me. During the first stretch my goggles filed up with water and my arms felt tired. I had to slow down my pace. For some reason I was swallowing a lot of water every time I was breathing. Again I was not sighting, probably due to the excitement I was under. 

During the swim I was thinking about the people who were cheering me on and that I couldn't let them down, I could already hear them talking to each other when they saw other swimmers coming out of the water. That's him, no that's not him, I think I can see him, no not him either, is he having problems? What's happening?

My thoughts were wandering off and I was thinking about doing the same swimming stretch all over again and how I will be jumping in the water for the second lap. I was thinking about giving up already! Who was I fooling? Nasty thoughts, luckily those thoughts disappear after a short time. 

I jumped in for the second lap and as expected my goggles came off and had to adjust them, I could see the first ones already passing the first buoy. At this point I was thinking I was far behind and must be one of the last ones. After the second buoy the positive thoughts returned and started swimming in a nice pace, but this was too late now!  Maybe an Olympic distance would have been better! Who am I fooling now! 

I swam the first lap in about 9 minutes and the second lap in 12.5 minutes. 

I ran out of the water to the transition and they were all cheering me on. I started to pull the robe of my wetsuit whilst I could hear the marshals shouting: Right, Right, ... only after a while I realized what they meant! I had to undo my wetsuit from the right!  The wetsuit came of quickly but putting socks on with wet feet isn't easy. I'm going to start practice running and biking without socks, one thing less to think about during transition. 

The Bike

I ran with my bike out of transition and I can still hear my cleats making that click, clack sound. I hate running with my bike shoes, such a weird feeling. I jumped on the bike and got pedaling very quickly. The first thing I noticed was that my crowd had already moved to cheer me on, the second bit I noticed was the wind which was holding me up tremendously for the first 2.5k of each lap. The first 2.5K of each lap was against the wind and the second leg of the same lap is with the wind. This meant that I was only to achieve 14 mph against the wind but about 25 mph with the wind. The end result was that the first leg of a lap tires you completely out. I lost a lot energy and started feeling rather cold on the bike due to the water on my clothes. I was hoping to achieve 20.5mph but only achieved 19.5mph which meant I ended up 6 minutes slower then expected. 

I'm blaming the strong winds for the loss of time. 

This was the bit I was fearing the most due to my leg injury. I started off on the run and I was trying to think positive but my mind went back to my leg. Is it holding up? Is it not holding up? Is it a good idea to push a bit harder? What about my achilles? Am I going to compensate on my right achilles? After about 2k I could feel pain in my groin and started to suffer. I started to think about the number of laps I had to complete and I was thinking how much more I had to run. During the run I saw some familiar faces and we were cheering each other on whilst passing from the other side. During every lap I had my wife and friends passing some water on to me, I started to become de-hydrated and enjoyed chucking some water over me. Just as you see on television. During the run I was looking at my watch and knew that I wouldn't finish in the time I was hoping. 

I finished the run in 42 minutes as expected, this was a bit of a surprise to me considering my condition. During the last 100m I tried to sprint to the finish line but at that point I could feel I was absolutely empty. 

I'm pleased that I managed to complete my third triathlon in a time frame of about 5 weeks. I expected to complete in 13 minutes less but now I know I still have a long way to go. I lost 5 minutes of my expected time during the swim, during the bike I lost 6 minutes. I can blame the wind for the 6 minutes lost on the bike, but the 5 minutes lost during the swim is pure down to myself and have to admit that I'm too weak and I need a lot more practice and better technique to keep up.

Thanks to my family and friends who came along and saw me suffering but weirdly enough I enjoyed this race. I'm going to reflect on my results a little bit and take a break to concentrate on my training and heal from injuries. Maybe end of September I will participate in another triathlon or otherwise next year.