TTTC Race 3 - 1st - 59:11

Well, after 5 years of turning up for the Thames Turbo Sprint races, I have finally managed to break the habit, taking a win for the first time! The more bizarre aspect is the nature of the win itself.

In all honesty, my preparation had not been ideal, come Saturday and not wanting to waste the whole bank holiday training wise, I decided to set off on a long run. It initially felt quite easy so I decided to just settle in to the pace and see what happened. In the end, the idea of a negative split run came over and I managed for the first time to actually have a good long run, as in, I never felt like I was about to fall to bits at the end - for a rubbish runner like me, this came as quite a shock. So, 30k's later at 3:05 marathon pace meant that the next day was not going to be much fun. I had a wedding in the afternoon on Saturday as well, so that wasn't going to help with the recovery much either. As it transpires, the wedding ended up involving more drink that is commonly recommended, so much in fact, Sunday was a total sofa day.

So, come race day, although the legs didn't feel that good, my head didn't seem to be in the right place. At the back of mind, and having scanned the start sheet, I thought that I was about to blow my best chance of ever winning one. A lot of the normal fast people were mysteriously missing the chance was there....and as they say, you only need to beat the people who turn up.

The swim was the same as always, to the second, 6:02. Out on the bike though and I could feel the run in the legs now, I was just missing a bit of power. I decided to just try and get a bigger than normal gear turning, but all in all, it was not a star performance - coming to the finish, I knew that I was close to the 32's. At this point I knew I would be close to losing out, especially with the run to go.



The run was where I really struggled to get in to a good rhythm. I was not running much slower than normal, but again, it was by no means a speedy run. I eventually made it round in 20:14 which may well be one of my slowest times.




There did seem to be a general assumption that I had won on the day, but I was not sure. I knew that my time was only just under the hour and there are typically a couple of others who managed to break the 60 minute mark. In the end, I managed to take the win by 1 second. Was really pleased though, after first racing here in 2005 and finishing 13th on that day, finally in 2011, I was able to win....thanks mainly to the best executed preparation.

Turbo News: http://www.thamesturbo.com/archives/1233