This year's run up to the event was frought with problems, what with one of the team dropping out with an injury with a couple of weeks to go and another getting very ill with only a few days to go. However, a lot of emails and organising later and we had a good team, especially for the bike section where we normally manage to kill the race off.
My main worry this year was that Andy was not the fastest of swimmers and hence we would have to try and minimise our losses in the water as much as possible. We made countless plans all aimed at pulling Andy round etc but as soon as the horn went off, it was clear that these were the best laid plan of mice and men. I could not see where Andy was, let alone Tim. Still, we were off and I was quite relaxed as I knew that there was no point in hammering out the swim. However, I soon managed to work myself into the lead of the main pack, about 3 or 4 had snuck away, but then it was me with about 100 people behind me. I thought I would just see how slow I could swim without anyone coming past me. It was quite surprising just how easy I could make it people would still just prefer to sit on the leader's feet in the draft. Anyway, I did the 800 in about 11:45, so not bad, but certainly not as quick as I can go.
It was on to the bikes now and I knew that I would be okay here. I had hardly kicked in the swim so my legs felt nice and fresh. Tim's chain slipped as we exited T2 but we were soon all back together and then it was time to get the speed up. The ride was pretty good, averaging about 40kph into the wind and 50kph on the way back. As always, it's a bit hectic on the narrow roads with lots of shouting at the other competitors as we try and avoid having a massive pile up.
The run was the section that I feared the most...basically, I was only 1 week into my proper run training in preperation for Antwerp at the start of August (I have all but packed in cycling as I concentrate on getting my run fitness up to where it needs to be). I left T2 ahead of the others as I assumed that they would catch me up quickly and then we could try and settle into a nice easy pace. We went past some Turbo supporters who told me that we were 2 minutes up on the competition. That was quite a gap, but we still needed to work hard on the run if we were going to maintain that gap. For some reason, my running just felt quite easy and relaxed. I was able to maintain the pace of our team and evn push a bit harder when Andy, the strongest runner, tried to up the speed. I had a little look at the Garmin at one point and it said we were averaging about 16kph...I thought that there must be some mistake, but when I looked at Tim's at the end, it was true, we had been knocking out 3:45-3:50km's for the 7.5km - not bad going at all, especially considering how relaxed I felt.
Anyway, we eventually stormed home with another Turbo victory (thankfully) and the final results show that we managed to beat the second team by a good 5 minutes. All in all, it was a good day in the office and most importantly, i was pleased to have not punctured for once.....although, this season would dictate that they only occur during my A races.
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