The problem for me coming in to this race was two fold, I did not really have the endurance in the legs to ride that hard for that long as all of my efforts this season had been focused on delivering a very high level of power for about an hour. To now go for more than twice as long, was going to be hard. I had also only really been averaging about 10-15k a week, and that was probably split between 2 or 3 runs. So, no long runs since I did the MK half marathon way earlier in the year. So, I decided to just try and keep on top of the swimming, pretty much junk the cycling for a month and drastically increase my run mileage. I enlisted the help of Bill Black to help with some form of running plan and he basically just set me four runs to do every week, with one of those being an increasingly longer run. So, a week before the race, all the running was going great, I was back to being able to easily knock out sub 40 10k's, even as part of the long run, albeit, I was slowing towards the ends of these with the lack of endurance. Still, a lot of the speed was back. So, everything looked about as good as it could really.
For some reason, I always foolishly assume that racing on the continent is going to take place under blue skies and sunshine. Antwerp last weekend was doing all it could to oppose that viewpoint. Due to the fact I only arrived late on the Saturday, I had to register and make my way to the swim start on the Sunday. Me, being the ever organised did this super early.....problem with this was that it meant that I had to stand around in the pouring rain for about 2 hours. Not really the best start to a race.
Finally though, we were off. I was in a wave for my AG and I quickly realised that there wasn't going to be the normal bunch of people quickly escaping off the front. In fact, on this occasion, I was very near the front and it all seemed to be going well, perhaps me deciding to kick in this race had made a big difference. Anyway, I followed round some other chap from my AG and we got out the water in 25:45....I had to take two glances at the watch, I was expecting to be out in about 28. The course must be short I thought. Wetsuit off, helmet on though and on the way out I passed one of my mates who is a really good swimmer. It then dawned on me that perhaps I had just done a pretty good swim.
So, off on the bike and straight away, I could feel some pain up the inside of my thigh, like a bit of a cramp. I have had this before though and can normally just ride through it and it goes away. Eventually, it did subside and by now I was heading out of Antwerp on the wet, but super flat roads. This was exactly what I had been hoping for. There were quite a few railway tracks to navigate (by going across the mates they lay down) but generally, things were going well. The only problem was the annoying headwind for about the first 30k. I basically ended up getting a bit excited about all the people I was catching and I think that (as you'll see later on) I pushed too hard in this section. It was only when I got to about 50k that I realised that things were not great with the legs, especially as I still had a half marathon to run. Coming back into town, I dropped off the pace a bit to try and conserve the legs and I tried to make sure that I finished off all the nutrition I had on the bike. I eventually got back to T2 with the fastest bike time for all the non-pros...result. The only problem now was that my legs were not in the mood to run.
I started off well though and saw that after about 3k, I was averaging over 15kph (my target was 15kph) so all good. At the first aid station, I tried to take some water on and this is when it all started to go wrong. The inside of my thighs cramped again and I had to stop to stretch it out for a bit. I carried on again, but the pain was still there a bit. This is basically how the next 80 minutes of running panned out for me. I would run for about 5k, stop with the horrible cramp and then get going again. Every time I started again though, it was slower than I had been running....my pace was really dropping off and I could see that at least a few of the people in my AG had come back past me. I knew I had to finish in about the top 6 or 7 to get a spot for the World Champs in Florida so I just tried to grin and bear it. The last couple of k's were very horrible. My legs were shattered and I just couldn't wait to finish.
Finally, I crossed the line in 4:10. I didn't know for ages where I had finished but when I went to the slot allocation ceremony in the evening I saw that I had in fact managed 5th. I was pretty sure that this should be okay and low and behold, they had 5 slots for my AG. So, I paid my money and that's it...Paula and I will be off to Florida in November for a short holiday and the 70.3 World Champs.
