Bala Middle is a step up in distance from what I normally do with a 2k swim 51 mile bike and 20k run and presented me with a whole host of things to worry about and try to learn.
Particularly
- Fuelling (apparently a pork pie on the bike is not advised)
- Pacing myself and not going off too fast (in defence I never go off too fast, I just finish slower than I intended)
- Coping with the weather
(Kenny's fuelling strategy was organic but lost him valuable time)
On race morning I travelled up with club mate Kenny and for once I drove. Apparently when he suggested we share lifts to races this season he didn't mean he was going to be my personal chauffeur. Its been nice though to have company at races, even if its Kenny ;-) and although snug in Rosie's T reg Micra, it was comfortable enough.
The weather was perfect and apart from a cold lake at 13C it was set for a great day. The swim went well and rather then push hard, I held back slightly and sat on some ones toes opting to save my energy. I must admit they were probably ready to hit me by the end of it as it was the same person for the whole 2k. Sorry!
I came out the swim in just over 30 minutes in around 15th and headed out on the bike on a bit of a mission to make up some places. My race strategy was to push hard on the hilly bike but make sure I slow to refuel at pre set points. This went well and although I made it into 6th at one point on the bike I eased off with 10 miles to go to refuel and came in off the bike in 8th.
Out onto the run I felt pretty good and soon started catching people. By mile 3 I was into 5th and feeling good. Approaching the turn around point I clocked Oliver Milk coming back about a minute ahead and knew if i kept the pace going I would soon catch him. 5 miles from home I caught him and in a rather civilised manor we exchanged pleasantries before I pushed on. In truth the wheels started to fall off soon after but I kept it going to the line to come 4th in 4 hours 8minutes.
So overall I was very happy. I got the pacing pretty good and fuelling spot on.
The only cock up was forgetting the sun tan lotion - some interesting tan lines!
P.S. Kenny had a good race to come in on 4 hours 44mins though club performance of the day was Carolyn Hume who knocked 30 minutes off her previous time. It was actually a different bunch of faces to the Olympic races and made it nice to catch up with people afterwards.
Race Results
http://www.stuweb.co.uk/race/gp/
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