(written by Pete Norris)
After racing Wimbleball 70.3 a week ago and qualifying for Vegas, which was my main aim, I was still very disappointed with the result mainly down to my poor run. When a friend offered me an entry for the inagural Maximuscle Marlow Middle distance triathlon I jumped at the chance knowing that this would be a great race to podium at and to get some much needed run confidence back.
Bikes had to be racked on Saturday which was nice, it meant I could check the course out. I had a funny feeling I should of brought my Ironman UK 70.3 bike cover as the weather forecast told me it could be a wet one overnight. After racking bike and driving the bike course it was back home for some spag bol and a quick check(as you do) of the start list to see if I knew anyone then off to bed. After a relatively good nights sleep I was awoken at 4:45 with the sound of a rain bouncing off the window, no need for an alarm clock then. I'm more of a fair weather racer so this wasn't the best start to the day. After a couple of slices of toast and rather disappointingly no jam we were on the road to Marlow. As I arrived I had a deja vu moment, field,mud,cars,stuck, roll back 7 days and I was seeing the same things at Wimbleball at stupid o'clock in the morning. After living in Cyprus for 3 years and racing/training all year round it's taken me 2 years to get my head round the poor conditions in the UK, I think I'm finally getting there(maybe not). I eventually slipped my way into transition to put nutrition, shoes etc on bike and don wetsuit. The day started to get better at this point they had cut the swim down to 1500m, and the skies were clearing, bonus.
The swim started in 2 waves so with 400ish entrants there wasn't much of punch up. Luckily I saw Natalie Barnard just before race start and told her that I was going to draft her all the way up river(yeh right). I've never done a river swim before but actually really enjoyed it, swimming past barges with people staring out their port holes at 0700 on a sunday morning was rather bizarre. Exiting the water 2 minutes down Nat was exceptable. A quick transition and it was onto normally my favourite part of the race. The bike route is 2.5 laps with one noticeably long hill to a turn around and then flat out down again. My legs didn't really get going till I was into the last 10 miles, by this time I had worked out that I was in 3rd and slowly starting to feel good. A quick transition and I was out on the run hoping to prove something to myself. My friend said I was 3 minutes down on the leader and 1.20 down on 2nd. Out onto the 1st lap and this is where the race started to get interesting, the route followed a trail next to the river, on a normal day this would be very pleasant to run on but due to the downpour through the night it was like running through a swamp. My 1st lap I just went for it and nearly slipped quite a few times, the 2nd lap I had worked out where the tufts of grass were to place my racing flats on, by the time I had got onto my 3rd lap I was starting to feel stronger and was catching the guys in front, the swamp was starting to get enjoyable, it made it even better when I saw people clearly on their 1st lap slipping and slidding all over the place. It was a nice destraction I found, took my mind off how much my legs were hurting. Onto the final lap and I was 30 secs down on leader, I had him in my sights as we approached the swamp. Knowing now exactly where to run I placed my feet on all remaining tufts and went for it. As we hit the tarmac I looked back to see a sizeable lead had grown, I was still feeling good so I just nailed the last 2 miles. I had plenty of time to lap up the winning feeling, slap hands and punch the air. One very happy boy.
Thanks to F3 events for putting on a cracking event, Karin Polcerova, www.facebook.com/KayaTherapy who gave me an incredible massage, the people who put out a magnificent spread of cider and flapjacks. The RAF for giving me a new Zerod 2 piece and my coach Steve cassonz www.cassonz.com.
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