Doing this race 2 weeks from my main race of the year Ironman Germany was not ideal but I just had to enter this one as it is good craic with the mountain bike instead of road bike and off road run crossing rivers its a real muck fest.

We swam into the current and wind so it was a tough swim but I was swimming well and got through the fight during the first 100m or so.. I jumped out in second place and got the suit off handily enough. I was pretty quick in the transition. Runners on, grabbed the borrowed mountain bike and off I went on the bike course.

I ‘used’ to be pretty handy on a mountain bike, I raced Downhill races as a teen so I assumed I was still a hero. But no, my skills had dispersed and I had to resort to a lot of running with the bike as it was faster than my feeble mounted efforts.
There was a duathlon race(run,bike,run) on the course too so it was hard to know who I was actually racing against. Then some tall lean lad passed me on the bike so I jus followed him for the 2nd lap of the bike. It was a draft legal race!
As we came into transition 2 he had the trick shoes on so he had to change into his runners, I had my bad boys already on so I was out on the run course first. I was running poorly and my chest was a bit tight with my asthma.. I eased my pace to catch my breath and when the long lean lad came past me I just ran on his heels. This felt grand and I followed him for a few k’s..

We came to a small enough hill and my head dropped as I gasped up the incline, when I got to the top the long lad was gone! He had dropped me 🙁 putting a 30m gap into me I was a broken man.. I decided to settle down a bit as I was not going to catch up needed to catch a breath. I plodded on and during the last 500m my chest finally opened up and I was comfortably running a good pace finishing strongly in 2nd.

I was happy with my result and am now looking forward to Ironman Germany next weekend. Im on the taper now (training less/resting more), giving me time to do all the things I’ve ignored like this Blog yaaay:)

Added 30 Jun 2012
by Dinny