The swim went generally well. The interesting thing was that you could not see more than 6 inches in the water which meant that there was no way to avoid bumping into people. After the first turn at 600m the swimmers started to get strung out and I found a nice pocket to swim in. I am still amazed that despite swimming with 800 people I still managed to go off couse several times during the long back stretch! I did not push the pace too much knowing that this was the start of a long effort.

Swim a littel faster and do a better job of taking my bearings.

Not too sure what happend in T1, but looking at my time I suspect that I must have stopped to blow dry my hair! I did run into a problem getting my wet suit off as it got tangled up with my chip strap around my ankle. That being said I did purposely plan to take the time to put on socks and shoes and eat a gel.

Try moving a little faster. I am going to start training without socks to see if I can save some time by skipping the sock step.

The vast majority of the bike course did loops in the industrial ship yards of Antwerp - a bit of disappiontemnt considering the beautiful conutry that we could have been riding through. Another facet of riding through shipyards were the train tracks. The course must have gone over 40+ sets of train tracks that ending up taking its toll on the riders. I must have seen a dozen people on the side of the road fixing flats or waiting for transport due to busted carbon wheels. There were also 3 stretches of cobble-stones which gave me new found respect for the guys that race Paris-Roubais. There was a killer set of cobble-stones at 88km that went on for about 500 meters - a real killer at the end of a long ride.

Apart from the less than senic aspect of the course (train tracks included), the most diffciult aspect of the flat course was the wind. There was a huge gusting wind that hammered the course. The last 30km I was riding stright into a 20+kph headwind. When the wind gusted, my speed dropped below 20kph (yes, I need to imporve my bike conditioning). Considering the conditions, I rode the best I could. However, my mistake was that I became fixated on the clock and with each gust I became more and more frustrated as I knew that it would become more and more difficult to break 5 hr. I ended up riding about 5 to 10 minutes slower than expected but with a much higher heart rate. (I would pay the price in the run)

I had put in about 3,000 km on the bike in the 6 month prior to the race. Ideally I would have liked to have put in >4,000km + lots more interval work to build up my bike strength. Time to start planning for 08 :)

a new Cervelo P2C? ;)

T2 was a bit of a mystery as we were not able to stage our own area. The evening before the race we dropped off our T2 stuff in large plastic bags and the race organizers were to stage the stuff for us. I arrived in T2 navigated to my spot and found my plastic bag. I dumped it out put on my shoes and headed out of T2. I was oblivious to the fact that I left T2 at the exact same time as Simon, a fellow BT'er! Small world.

Not much.

The atmosphere on the run was great. The entire course was packed with spectators and you could catch a glimpse of the race leaders as they were finishing their final run laps. The little loop into the plaza was on cobble stones which was a little tricky after 4 hours of racing. By the time I got to the run the temperature had gone above 90Fs.

I had planned on running a 1:35-ish half marathon and managed to hold that pace for the first 5K. Then I started to think about comments a lot of people had written in their race logs about running into trouble in the last 5 miles. I knew that I had spent way more energy on the bike than expected and at the 5K mark I realized that I had a good chance of blowing-up if I continued to try and break 5 hr. So, I dialed back the speed with the intention of finishing off the run in sub-1:45. I was really glad that I had stuck to the nutrition plan developed during my training. The heat and the wind was taking its toll. I stopped for about a 1 minute at each 5km to eat a gel, take some water and get my hr back below 130. I was also grabbing sponges every oportunity I could to stay cool. The toughest stretch was between 10 and 15K. After 15K I could see the light at the end of the tunnel - or, perhaps it was the Coke I had at the 12km / 15km / 18km mark that kept me going.

The long BRICKS I had done were 75km/10km. For my next HIM I would like to do 90km/10km bricks as that would more closely simulate the race experience.

Hung around the finished area and drank h2o and gatoraid. Did some streatching and then had to think about running 2km back to the T2 to collect my bike (Ugh!).


The wind / bike conditioning.

ummm, perhaps a new cervelo P2Carbon with Zipp wheels might have helped :)


The logisitics for the race were a little complicated as the Swim/T1, T2 and Finish were all located in different parts of the city.

Once again, thanks to the family for all their support.