Well another Busselton is done and dusted and at the end of this one I am reasonably happy. It's great to be back on the start line against quality athletes again. But at the end of the day I was blown away by the pro field.
How it played out...
As the gun went off I was next to Guy Crawford, the pace was fine initially and the pack started to form a pace line. Guy had moved up and I had Courtney Ogden on my inside, so I eased up to get on his feet. I did it poorly and got checked by his feet, this caused me to pause and I was fighting to stay on the pace line. A few hundred metres later I was off and swimming on my own. I swam on for a 28.42. I had a lot of work to do.
Onto the bike and I set about chasing people down. I had had a good 6 weeks of trying to get my bike leg back up to speed and was confident going in, but this gap was bigger than I'd expected. My confidence was taking a hit as I realised last years 42kph average wasn't going to happen. I held just over 40kph on the first lap, which improved to 41kph for the 2nd lap when my body had warmed up a bit. It was fairly un-eventful being out there on my own, with only the odd camera man shoving a camera in my face when I eating 32Gi chews to break it up.
Into T2 and onto the run, my legs felt good and I settled into a good rhythm. Ben Cureton was around a hundred metres back after a flying bike leg and I was confident I could hold him off. The first lap flew by, but I didn't notice the pace drop on the 2nd lap and heading out on the final lap Ben was only 5 metres back. I had to hurt, but I had another gear and opened up the gap again. There wasn't much pleasure in this as I knew Ben was well ahead of me after starting in the open wave, it just gave me something to focus on late in the race.
Swim was 28.42
Ride was 2.13.08
Run was 1.19.56
for a 4.05.53
I was happy to pull out a time like that, but my swim needs work ( I need to find a squad) and my bike is still lacking a few %. It will come and I have to be happy with where I'm at 7 months after breaking my neck and back.
I'll look at doing a few different things in training before Cairns 70.3 to try and get that missing few percent.
Finally congrats to Brad Kahlefeldt and Liz Blatchford on the wins and to James Lewin and Rachel Smith on winning the WA Long Course Titles.
Mike
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