Today was the day and my oh my, what a day it has been! It all started @ 5am this morning with a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, a cup of coffee and some last minute carbo loading.
Linda and I hopped in to the taxi at 05h30 and took a rather expensive taxi ride to the start. The transition area was electric with everybody doing their last minute bike checks and laying out kit for the bike & run leg. It can be all quite intimidating as you see all kinds of very serious looking bikes and people & you have no idea who they are or how fast they are. Sometimes the fancy gear is all they have...
We had a 20 min walk down to the start for the swim as the swim route was 1,5km in one direction i.e. no turn around point. My age group wore light blue caps & as the clock ticked, so we moved closer and closer to the start line. There were 3 age group starts ahead of us as well as the para triathletes. I had an awesome start to the swim and an awesome swim so got off to a very good start. I was 11th out the water. Then in to transition to grab our bikes and head out on a 40km (2 x 20km laps) bike route. In age group races you are not allowed to draft/ slipstream and can get penalised and or disqualified if you are caught. We were very lucky to have both sides of the road closed for us so there was plenty of room for moevement. There were loads of spectators along the route so that made things really special too. I had an awesome bike ride and loved every minute of it. I came off the bike in 13th position and then back in to transition to load my bike and put on my running shoes....
I had a great run and felt good, but just was not good enough to keep the rest of the competition at bay. They are seriously strong and run like crazy so I ran and watched one and then another and then another just pass me by. I still had a great run though and landed up finishing 33rd overall in my age group which I am very chuffed about!
The race and experience was amazing and so difficult to describe in enough words. There were spectators everywhere and just running down the blue carpet under the finish line as they called out my name was so special. I totally loved the whole experience...
Linda and Andre also had great races and are both very happy with their results. The race was totally about you and how you felt and not about finishing in the top 3!!!
We are finally taking a break and have bought a bottle of bubbles to celebrate tonight...
Running out of time, but will post more news tomorrow after our breakfast ride along the coast. Thanks for all your wishes and sms'es etc, support has been amazing!!!
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