2 years ago i raced The Beaver Triathlon. That year it was the British Middle Distance Championship and i came so close to the win. In that race i started the run 3 mins back on Scott Nedelli and Craig Twigg. It took me about 10 km to run them down and i went on to lead the race by 1min 30s with about 5 km to go. If i carried on at the pace i was running i had the race in the bag. However it did not go to plan, i had a rather epic bonk and in places i was struggling to stay on the pavement. I went into free-fall loosing over 5 min in 5 km and didn't even make the podium. Races like that leave scars and demons. It feels so good to go back last weekend and avenge the loss and finally bury those demons.
Swim
I got off to a good start, but didn't find any feet. In what was a rather uneventful swim i picked my own lines and only lost a couple of minutes on the fish at the front. I think i crawled out the water in 10-15th area
Bike
The wind was up which made it an interesting ride given my wheel set up. I had a Knight 95 on the front and disc on the back. In places it felt like i was kite surfing and fighting to stay out of the hedges. But 15 mins in and i had got used to the handling in the high winds and was ticking along nicely in 4th. I had a solitary bike from here on. I almost caught Phil Murphy but he pulled away on the 2nd lap. I lost my aero frame bottle (the 2nd time I've lost it in a race) which forced me onto the aid station nutrition. I wont be buying another one!
On the last lap, I felt strong i had paced my effort well and was making ground on the guys ahead. I caught Phil on the hill and he didn't look like the force i almost caught on lap one. At this point in the race the front of wave one was lapping all the athletes from wave 2 which I made for with an enjoyable run in back to transition flying past people.
Run
Jumping off my bike i was in 2nd with Tom Mcglashan (who needs to be checked for gills and a tail given his swim time!) just behind me. I didn't realise that i caught him in the final few km of the bike. In transition I took my time, I sat down and made sure my socks and shoes were on right. As i was sitting there i heard a time split of 4 min to Angus Smith, which meant i had a lot of work to do to get back into the race.
The run course is an out and back which is basically 4 big hill reps. Its a hard run and as i learnt 2 years ago you have to save some beans otherwise the hills will rip your legs off. After lap one i had halved the gap to just over 2 mins. At this point i knew that i could win if i just kept my cool. I had a couple of strong runners behind, but i had just enough of a buffer on them that i didn't feel under pressure yet. I eased back my pace, learning from my mistake of 2 years ago. The next lap i took another minute. Angus was gritting it out at the front and had been all day. I much prefer being the hunter than the hunted. I felt for him as with the out and back nature of the course he could see all the hungry wolves gunning for him. I caught him about half way through lap 3. Now my only thought was don't blow up again you plonker! I walked through an aid station to make sure i took on more than enough sugar and coke to get to the end. Chris Nicholls (last years winner) gave me a shout out and warned of the Team Freespeed athlete (Alain FRIEDRICH) that was moving fast behind. I let loose down the hill to make sure and took the tape.
It feels great to finally climb onto the top spot. last year i peppered the podium, but never got on the top step. Lets hope its the first of many more.