2 days after Ironman Lanzarote..

Well an Ironman certainly gives you plenty to think about. There is plenty of time for things to happen I suppose.

Straight to the point then; I was 14th, which I'm happy with.

Here's how things unfolded; Woke up in the morning at 1am for a wee, but unlike last year without nausea and diarrhea(food poisoning in 2004)!! So a good start, went back to bed for a few more hrs of z's.

Up at 4am to eat and get ready for the 7am start at sunrise. I went off like a rocket running off the beach into the sea and into the lead at the first buoy then got overtaken and tried to follow the feet(I really need to get better at following feet as I just seemed to slowly drift off from them and so swam most of the 3.8k on my own and came out in 5th, still a good start.

Onto the bike and felt ok, the first guy to come past was the eventual 2nd place Steffen Libetrau who looked super strong. Apart from him I caught a couple of guys and got caught by a couple more and so at half distance I was in 7th place and feeling quite good then at about 100k my back started to really ache and at the top of the last climb it was killing me. The next 60k were a bit uncomfortable especially on the aerobars so I lost a fair bit of time but thought maybe it would save my legs a little for the run.

Onto the run and I was in 9th place, another super quick transition ( note: I had the fastest transitions both T1 & T2(so was quickest in at least 1 of the triathlon disciplines).

I moved up to 8th on the first lap of the run(10k) and was on target for 3hr marathon,...

But I was worried about completely falling apart and having to really slow and so I took it at a comfortable pace I was passed by a few more guys in the intervening laps but I felt I was running at the right pace so stuck to it, I managed to pick up the pace in the last 5k and this is where my frustration starts...............

I only really examined the results the next day to see if I had any chance of a Hawaii spot, on the Hawaii list I was listed as 10th "Pro" because 1 had said no already to a spot and 3 ahead of me were age group winners. So with 7 spots available I had a slim chance it might roll down, well 1 pro didn't take his spot so they read out the next guys name on the list and he was there ready and extremely happy to get the spot, oh well I will get my chance and this being my first Ironman maybe this isn't the time to be racing Hawaii.

Also after studying the results I was only 6min 21secs off of qualifying out right in 7th, such a small margin over Ironman distance!! Infact between me and 5th was only 18min 53 secs! not huge amount. I would of only had to run 3hr 7min marathon, (little voices in my head are saying well if that's all you had to do then why didn't you), I suppose on the day you either run that fast or you don't.

Plenty of positives to take from the race, we move onwards and upwards, I know with more hard work I will keep improving and will gradually get closer to the top which is where i'm aiming.

If you have followed my progress towards Ironman Lanzarote then Thankyou.

Peace out and thanks for reading.

Next Major Target is the ITU World Long Dist Champs on 7th Aug.