First Success at 70.3

T1 - pretty ok, just the usual struggle to get the wetsuit off. I dried the feet before socks and shoes went on. I headed off then on the 90km ride.

Cycle - Was pretty fast for the first 25km, I was going way above what I thought I should be doing. But I felt ok. After 35km it began to get windy and started to rain. It was tough at times during this. As we were going through the Port of Antwerp, we had to cross rubber mats which were laid out over the train tracks. This was fine until it started to rain and it became a bit treacherous. Into the countryside for a while and through a small town before turning back to Antwerp and back through the port. One particular mat had become really bad. Stewards on the course were asking us to slow down as we crossed it in single file. There had been a lot of fallers. As I crossed, the guy behind me fell. He was about half a foot from clipping my back wheel when I looked. I survived and ploughed ahead. There were a couple of instances where I got out of the saddle into the climbing position. I began to notice my front tyre was going a little soft. Anytime I hit a bump on the last 15 km I began to think it would blow. On the last 6 or 7km we had to cross cobbled streets as we were back in the city (Antwerp has a number of cobbled and paving stone streets). I felt the tyre was going to go before I got to T2. It didn't in the end. Phew..!

T2 - As I crossed the line into T2, I dismounted and headed to my spot. No Black Cards, so I was ok. Probably could have been quicker here. Hit the road out of T2 for the run. Checked my watch and saw that 5 hours was possible and thought let's go for it. I felt my run was going to be strong, I had posted good times in training before the race.

Run - 3 laps of 7km around the city centre. Flat roads and some cobbles. Felt good in the first lap. I probably slowed a little on Lap 2. As I got my second ribbon (after 7km you were given a ribbon to mark the end of each lap so you didn't miscount at the finish), I looked at the watch and saw that I had about 29 minutes to do 7.5km, do-able, but would take a huge effort. I gave it a lash but I knew as I hit 20km I was going to be outside 5 hours. I gave it loads in the last 1200m or so, as I entered the finish chute myself and 3 others caught up with the guy who won the wheelchair event. The TV (Belgian TV covered the whole race Live on TV) and Media were all focussing on him for the finish. We all crossed the line together.. And so it was, we finished together and it started to lash rain again! Nice for the cool down! So it was a great experience, all the hard training paid off and I was delighted with the time and performance I had put in.