On the day of the race, I looked at the river and it appeared to me that there was little to no current whatsoever. To me, this meant the best option was going to be swimming the shortest course rather than trying to hug the banks etc and stay out the current which can often plague a good swim time. However, after sticking to that plan quite well, a quick glance of the watch on the way to T! proved it had not been the best plan - 23:30 - that was part 1 of the plan in tatters as i kind of knew I needed a good swim to give me a chance.
Out on the bike, thing felt okay and with all the passing that I was doing, I felt confident that I was putting in a good split. Towards the end, I certainly noticed that I was starting to tire though, this was certainly not a good sign when I knew I still had the 10k run to go. In the end, I came back in to T2 as the only person on the day to break the hour for the 42k course....good cycling, yes, but what followed was not good running.
Pretty much as soon as I got out on the course, I realised that I had gone a bit too hard on the bike to be able to run at the speed I wanted to. I think in hindsight this is just something I fail to learn every season. You can not ride the bike like it is a TT and then hope to run well off the back of it. Thankfully, I have started to spend some more time since this focusing on my effort and how easy it should feel to be able to run well. Anyway, I digress, the run just got worse and worse really and I eventually came across the line with a 41:30 split which was way off what I needed.
After looking at the results at the end of the day, there would have been little hope of me winning with some young South African chap there who stormed the course faster than my best case scenario. Still, I got 3rd in my age group and it was the catalyst I needed to better manage the last bit of my training before Antwerp.
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