Antwerp 70.3 2009 race report

Gosh, where to start. Great weekend, great time, great race, not-so great weather, great city and great result(under the circumstances - more of that later!)
Arrived there Saturday afternoon after a very easy journey over, and relaxed in the afternoon, bit of a snooze and pootled off to register. No hassle, very well organised and back to hotel to chill and out in the evening for a small bite to eat and then an early night.
And lo and behold the rain came race morning, and kept on coming until towards the end of the bike leg! Never thought it would stop, and massive amount of surface water for the first half of the bike.
But anyway, I was feeling in great shape for this one. Wave swim start, not my favourite of things as meant I had to pick my way through a large number of bike riders once onto the bike. Butthe swim was good, very solid, took it out reasonably hard and maintained that effort and got out quickly to bike and was into my riding pretty quick and was motoring along, went through 10 miles in 23 minutes and was pushing on with real prupose until 12 miles and bang, I hit the wet tram lines and down I went. My god, it hurt. A lot! 13 minutes worth of sitting/stanidng/wobbling, bleeding and generally tryingt o make sense of what had happened and not making a good job of it. Eventually when I felt better enough to climb back on the bike I gingerly rode off and thought I'd just play it by ear and see what transpired. As it happened, everything was moving ok and I was back up and speeding along inbetween bends and tram lines where I was slowing down more than I normally would. I was still in and out of a lot of bikes and repassed people I had passed earlier on. Groundhog day!!
So the rest of the bike went without incident and at 50 miles gone I was almost back into central Antwerp and was flying along. Into T2 and a quick transition saw me gather my 2 gels and set off. I didn't think about the aches/pains or blood and just pushed on, deciding to realy attack the run and try and hold it. Under 20 minutes for the first 5k and I was feeling good, but then after reaching for my caffeine gel only to discover it wasn't there, I suddenly hit my first real low point, and for those of us who know what that's like, it can really start playing with your mind and then the body seems to follow!! The pain kicked in from there on in. To the end of the race I kept fighting with myself to push on through the hurt of the crash and the general fatigue that set in. The final lap of a 3 lap run course was tough and I was pretty much battered by then, taking on anything at the drinks stations. 500m to go and a bit of cramp in the calves followed me home!!
4 hours 33 for 70.3. 13 minutes of that spent on the floor in pain. I was very happy with my result. Sure, I would have gone a lot quicker had I not fallen, but that's how it goes sometimes. It went wrong, I dealt with it, and I gave as much as I could. Massive learning experience for the future. Bodes well for the coming seasons. 4 minute PB in the swim, my ride time on the bike was 2 hours 12 if you take off the 13 minutes lost to the crash and it was a 70.3 half marathon PB. All in all a good day. 21st in my age group in the end. It was a big field, a lot of Pros and some very quick Belgian age groupers in what is without a doubt one of Belgium's biggest triathlon events of the year. 130th overall. Again, time and position for me were secondary this time around, I was more concerned on goin gout hard and seeing what the body could cope with. And a massive positive that it can actullay cope with a lot more than I thought. Training has made me strong and this race has just made me much stronger.
Onto the New Forest middle distance tri in September with even more confidence!!

But, oh how my body hurts!!!

Results: http://www.chronorace.be/web2/Files/4289.pdf

Pictures to follow.