We headed to the New Forest early Saturday morning after dropping Indie in Walmer with friends and Kofi in Whitstable with some more helpful and triathlon-understanding friends.After an easy registration and early briefing, we set the tents up on a campsite a couple of miles from race HQ and spent the afternoon lazing about, comtemplating what lay ahead on Sunday and winding Paul up. Managed to hardly sleep at all on Saturday night, combination of being in a tent, gripey stomach and a little worried about not really being prepared. Got up at 5am and managed to not eat anything at all. I am getting quite good at doing pretty long days competing on a completely empty stomach.....however, not ideal! Must learn to EAT & SLEEP before races......
Having dreaded the swim, it went pretty well, kept a really good line to all the buoys and came out of the water in 33 mins so was chuffed with that. Out onto the bike and experienced some of the prettiest cycling ever, the early morning light dappling through the New Forest trees and lighting up the dew everywhere.....it would be hard not to enjoy that...and then there were the animals wandering across the roads, had a hairy encounter with a huge cow who actually forced me off the road! There were pigs, donkeys, ponies, cows and partridges on the roads all round the course, and they don't care about your PB!
Came off the bike in just over 3.5 hours which I was pleased with as meant a 16 mile an hour average over a course of hills, undulating stretches and some headwinds. Unfortunately Chris was cheering me from the roadside at T2 which meant he had to quit the race. He had hurt his back on Friday morning and had said he would quit if it was still bad while racing (to save completely screwing it up prior to Australia IM). He had done an amazing swim before he stopped, about 28 mins and did the first bike lap with a 19 mile/hour average. He would have had a great result if he hadn't had to stop.
Out onto the run, now here's the funny bit....first hill, couldn't even walk up it, so bloody steep, managed to stumble up the sand and tree roots, thinking 'they are having a ********* laugh'. Kind of set the scene for the next 22km's, although the last 4 were on tarmac I think....was almost dead by that point so can't really remember. Had nasty stomach gripes and nausea the whole of the run, have never felt that miserable running before. It would have been a really tough half marathon, even if I had felt fine and my legs weren't about to drop off, all in all, a bit of a mental challenge to get to the finish. I was consoled that all the fit looking blokes around me looked equally as bombed, some even worse! Indeed, a massive relief to finally finish. Consoling again, to find Jason and Paul moaning as much as me about it! Group moaning, very good post race therapy!
Eventually stopped feeling sick enough to pack up the tents in the rain and endure the hideous 5 hour Sunday night drive back to Kent. A great weekend in a sadistic way. Some friends back here only ever seem to say to me 'Why would you put yourself through that for fun?'......a question I can't ever seem to ever eloquently answer. However, I know for sure, some of you reading this will understand....
Jason 5.51.42
Paul 6.10.10
Chantal 6.36.35
Chris DNF
