After a good breakfast, I feel I can do anything ... and so had some good rides around the 16km bike course -- with its steep ups and downs and noticeable lack of the flat stuff. The run also is undulating -- again 2 laps winding its way around the forest over many many roots. Two days training on the courses and the rest of the British Cross Triathlon Squad started to arrive from the day jobs.. We all got excited at the prospect of rain on race day especially the Welsh contingent) and kept wet tyres handy just in case.
Race day came, and the rain didn't. But the compass in my head behaved a little like Jack Sparrow's .. (and still didn't show the way darn it!) and so I swam an interesting course -- missing the pack badly. After slipping from my super fast XTERRA V0.02 skin, I dashed up to transition -- 800m! -- and hopped on the faithful On-One steed for what turned out to be a fairly anaerobic bike session .. By lap two I was loving it and coping well in the slickish conditions.
Coming off the bike stronger than I have felt in the last 4 months I was shouted on by many friends to really dig in around the 10km undulating run course. The rainbow song (up above the streets and houses.. la la la) and stars came in my head as I climbed 27 million steps (ok about 300!) to some high up Go Ape type overhead gantry that the course designers had thrown in for a laugh .. what a great course .. Launching myself into the final 'Rober Latchschen' special pit of water before the finish line I was happy to get home safe, in 18th a solid time of 2h 46mins. Only 1 minute off Macca .. watch out man, I'm coming back! Top awards go to Sammy G for his 3rd place, Nicola Duggan for a similar bronze in the girls and commiserations to Ryan, Llewelyn and Paul who were out with mechancials.
Noticeably at the after party there were several beers and some music -- a super race video from the day. I finished off a questionable evening of recovery with Franky Batelier (1st), Olivier Marceau (4th), Renata (1st), Carina (2nd), Astrid and Christian from the race team. All in all a great nite and good to see top athletes enjoying themselves!!
Last round of XTERRA Europe in 4 weeks -- Mandilieu, Cote D'Azur. Email me if you'd like to come along!!
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