The start was kind of funny! The guy called the start, then, 5 sec later, yelled STOP STOP STOP They were missing some whatever authorization they needed to give us a start LOL. 3 minutes later, we were racing. It was kind of hard to stick to my strategy of keeping some juice for the bike because I felt the field was strong but I knew many of them would crash in the second run from looking at last years' results. That run was pretty smooth, I was in good place... except when I missed the turnaround at the first lap (directions were not clear;)). A guy behind me yelled "Some precious seconds lost here!" I was feeling like saying "I will soooo burn your azz on the bike" but I stayed in my zone, kept my focus.

Mmmm nothing really. I'm really satisfied about this run.

Really need to practice getting on the bike. Today was ok, but I feel like I've been lucky at putting my shoes on fairly quickly.

I just need to practice it, it will come with time.

I pushed hard a few times on that course while training, so I was expecting a speed avg of ~34kph. After the first couple of laps, I looked at my avg speed and it was ~35.5kph and I was saying to myself that it would probably be a good idea to ease the pace a bit in order to survive the second run. Somehow, my brain just shut down a few minutes after and all I would do from then on was to push hard on the pedals, yell "on your left" and keep the aero position real tight. Traffic was kind of heavy and I feared being caught for drafting once (I knew the motorcycle was right behind me!!!!) but everything went well.

I am immensely satisfied about this ride. It will be used for further positive visualization.

Jumping off the bike, one of the shoes unclipped. I had to go back and pick it up, lost probably 30 sec there. Anyways, I'll just tighten the pedals for future races... making a mistake once is all right but twice, not much.
Racking the bike on the handlebars with the earo bottle on is annoying, I need to find something better.

The legs were angry at me on that second run! They hurted in various places intermittently, the right calf was probably the worst. Mentally, I wasn't in such a good place anymore. The run course being so short, leaders of the various races were passing me (and the others of course) all the time which was discouraging somewhat. At the water station, a little boy crossed the race track right in front of me, I could have killed him dammit!!! A knee right on the head could hurt pretty bad... fortunatly, it didn't happen.

I don't know what I could have done differently, but there is certainly something, I'll think about that... later. Same ranking on both runs is great, that I am very happy about.

None! I might pay for that tomorrow.


I had a fairly tough training week, both in terms of volume and intensity. I felt the legs were not 100% fresh, but it was all right, this was meant to be a preparation race.