Race day. the start line was very wide which meant that there was not much jostling for position going on in the 10 minutes before start. i managed to get on the front line and waited for the starting cannon. this time mike reilly’s 2 minute warning was actually given 2 minutes before the start, unlike kona where the 2 minute warning was about 15

I arrived earlier at the race site than last year which gave me more time to get set up. still i do manage to waste most of it by fussing over the bike and taping about 2kg of accessories to it to make up for all the weight that cervelo have shaved off. my pre race build up has been better with the lessons learned from imsa and not stuffing my face

Km 1: 4'09, km 2: 3'46, km 3: 3'52, km 4:3'46,km 5: 3'44, km 6: 3'41, km 7: 3'48, km 8: 3'48,km 9: 3'47, km10: 3'46, km11: 3'48, km12: 3'50, km13: 3'56, km14: 4'05, km15: 3'55, km16: 3'59,km17: 4'08, km18: 3'58, km19: 3'53, km20: 3'58km21:3'51, 195m 0'42s 0- 5km: 19'17 6-10km: 18'5011-15km: 19'3416-20km: 19'56

So a quick recap of the story so far. having taken a year off work with the express goal of qualifying for kona i find myself with two strikes against so far and a very difficult race looming. i’ve now completed five ironman races in my short triathlon career and i’ve managed to show across the board improvement in each race except south africa

I t is fair to say that 12h40 did not meet my time objective for the race. i’ll own up now and say that i was shooting for 10h40. however there is always something to be learned from each race and that knowledge kept me going to the finish line. also, 6000 miles is a long way to travel home without a finisher’s medal. if i had to have a bad rac

Mon: 2h bike trainer/ 1h30 run. i was supposed to include 5 x 10 mins @ 15km/h on the run but could only manage 3tue: 2h30 bike trainer + 5k swim in the eveningwed: 1h30 bike trainerthu: 3h10 bike (longchamps) + 1h22 run including 20 mins @ 14km/hfri: 2h40 bike trainer, 3.5k swimsat: 2hrun (including 4 x 5k @ 14km/h)/ swim meet anne pinonsun: 3.5k

Pre race for th e first time ever i did not wake up before th e alarm. in fact this time i didn’t e ven s et the alarm since i assu med the others would wake me up at the correct hour. well the others woke up on time and left me to catch up on my beauty sleep. serves me right for trusting the french. so i leapt out of bed 30 minutes late at 4.30a

After a good finish to last week, this week was the worst training week since i restarted training in mid november. i think the efforts on saturday, combined with the celebrations of wales winning the grand slam and eric's 40th birthday bash fool their toll. monday i managed a good session on the home trainer with a run. on tuesday i visited longch

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