Beaver Fest

It's the day after the Beaver Middle Distance. Legs not as bad as I thought!! So how was it?

This would be my first proper test of the fitness building up to the long course in August in Finland, and I am happy with the current fitness level.

The weather didn't look to friendly when I got up Saturday morning, I could hear the rain on the back door and could see it was windy too. When I got down to Belvoir Castle I met up with Pete and we went up and racked the bikes. Transition set I went back to the car and got changed into my superb XTERRA wetsuit (love it, its amazing to swim in) and we walked down to the lake, this turned into a brisk walk/jog as we were being called into the water for our wave to start. It was very crowded and when the klaxon sounded the first stretch up to the turn point was a bit of a battle. It settled down a bit after that and I got into a bit more of a rhythm. I felt good on the swim and the second lap picked up the pace. I exited the swim on 30 min 15 seconds by my watch which I was happy with as the course was technical with a lot of hairpin turns. For those that have done the course you'll know all about the run to transition but for those that don't it's about 3-400 meters up the field. I opted to strip the suit at the waterside and run with it and on arrival at T1 I popped the socks on to save doing it later for the run.

The start of the bike is hard on that course, it doesn't appear to be much of a hill but it's enough to stop you getting up to speed. You quickly hit the first decent but the cross wind made it interesting and then at the bottom you started the 3-4 mile straight which was into a hell of a headwind. I took a good 7 or 8 miles of the first lap to get going on the bike but then felt strong as I was passing lots of people. I continued to pass loads of people as there had been a wave in front of us made up of women and I think some of the young age groups. During the bike I only got passed once which boosted my confidence and it seems I'm finally getting the bike back to where it normally is for me. On arrival back in T2 I was very pleased to see just 9 bikes on the racks, I had a good transition and set off on the start of the 4 lap run.

The first lap I was beginning to think that I hadn't brought my running legs to the party, especially going up the hill as cramp kicked in to the front of the quads. Once up the hill I tried to get into a rhythm but was thinking it could be a long half marathon. Coming back down the hill seemed just as hard on the first lap but when I got onto the field to start lap 2 the runners legs arrived and I felt great. The next 3 laps up the hill were fine, after the first lap it was hard to tell where the 9 runners ahead of me were but I could see Pete each lap and he was holding his lead he had over me. By the 3rd lap I was almost sprinting down the hill and on the 4th lap I could see I'd made some time on Pete but not much. With about 500 meters to go I passed a guy I recognised from the first lap (he was leading on the first lap) and he offered no resistance, by the finish he was some 25+ seconds behind but he was later Dq'd anyway for a biking offence.

I finished 9th overall and 3rd in my age group. Pete managed 4th overall and was 6 minutes clear of me. I'm pleased with my race I feel it all went well and can't really pick fault with any of it, not very often that I'm happy with everything but the overall package is coming together nicely. No pictures yet but I think Marc Preece might have some so will post them when I get hold of them.