European Championships Race Review

Saturday was race day, we left the hotel at about 06:45 by coach to travel about 18km to the start/T1 and the sun was starting to shine. The lake was stunning, clear fresh water and the view across the course was great, you could see the whole course, 1 lap of 4km. The first turn was exactly 1 mile out so plenty of time for the field to spread out although with the different wave starts it wasn´t busy anyway. I didn´t draft on the swim as people didn´t seem to be able to swim in a straight line so I spotted the bouys and chose my own line. At the first turn I felt I had paced myself well so picked up the speed a bit. After the next turn which was another 500m I was spotting the next bouy and could see a group of swimmers ahead, a couple were in orange hats which was my wave and a lot of yellow hats from the wave that had left 5 mins before us. I thought I would try and bridge the gap and this helped me to push on during the swim. I did bridge the gap and went past most of them. I exited the water in 1 hour 5, a good swim by any standard I feel but as someone who classes themself as a weak swimmer I was very pleased. The bike course was a rolling course and due to split transitions it was 1 and 3/4 laps. I would liken the course to the dambuster course to be honest, and despite the heat building I seemed to be fueling ok and taking on plenty of fluid. The last 20k of the bike was a bit dull as it was very long straight roads and I didn´t see anyone in front of me for most of the last 20k and started to think I had missed a turn on the course. Eventually I reached the town and back into the crowds to end the bike on 3 hours 23. Now here´s the thing, at this point I didn´t know it but I was at this stage in a silver medal position. I left T2 but unlike most races I didn´t feel like I was going to run fast and straight away felt I was running a steady enough pace to get round but could tell I wasn´t going to be racing. I don´t know why this was, it could have been the heat I guess or maybe i´d over done the bike. I still can´t put my finger on it but I ran the whole 30k and seemed to be hanging on to a steady sort of pace. The run course went through some country wetland sights which were very humid then back onto the streets but the only cool part of the course was the run through the arena on each lap. I ran a 2 hour 28 which is 18 mins slower than the last 2 times i´d raced this distance. The winner of my age group was only 20 mins and 1 second ahead. Had I ran my usual 2 hour 10 then I would have got a silver or bronze depending on the transition times being added. So how can I view the race, it could be seen as negative for blowing the chance of a european podium medal but i´m taking the positive outlook which is that I swam and biked to medal standard, and also that it was a great days brick training before Antwerp 70.3 in 4 weeks time. After crossing the line my body decided to shut down in a big way and I lay on the cold concrete floor for about 30 mins just shivering and unable to take on any fluids. I sat up after a while and then threw up just a water/gel combination. It was about another 30 mins then I cycled back the 5 min ride to the hotel, showered and went to bed for an hour, then tried to drink some coke, this proptly returned back up the body and was sick again. At about half nine that night I finally got a Forgoodness Shake down and kept it down but went back to bed. The day after I felt fine and after breakfast went for a gentle spin on the bike for about 40 mins. Today I did about a 24 mile bike with a very gentle 10 min run at the end before packing the bike ready for the long journey home. My next outing will be the Cranwell Sprint in about 9 days time. I hope to get some pics sorted of the race etc when I return home.