Hi,
first of all I have updated the look and feel of the blog. Thanks go to John Mallia, my father-in-law, for the creation of the banner photo.
On Sunday the 25th of August I took part in Race 3 of 4 organised by my club Birkirkara St. Joseph. The distances for this race were 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run in that order. I had 6 weeks to prepare for this race - having finished my previous race with a Personal Best of 1hr 11mins 05sec.
I was aiming to improve by 1min and although these 6 weeks have had lots of ups and downs when trying to balance family, work, summer rest and training, I was determined to succeed in my intent. Moreover, the extreme heat made it very hard to find adequate time to train and early mornings are also a difficult option with my sleeping patterns and limiting in the sense that before 6am it would be dark and as such dangerous to ride a bike.
On the day I was early at the venue to have ample time for warm up. I was feeling prepared and tried to relax as much as I could - positive thinking helps me a lot. The swim was really tough - not because of the water conditions but rather because I faced tough competition and was hit many times which hindered my rhythm and stroke. This intensified at the first buoy where my goggles were almost knocked off. I turned to breaststroke for a bit to reset them properly and continued. I was out of the water after 13mins 26sec placing 16th out of 62 athletes. This was a personal best for me by 1min 3sec and was extremely happy with the improvement as I worked on my swimming technique and speed really hard during those past weeks.
Probably due to the effort I put in the swim, I felt slightly tired on the bike. I wasn't as powerful as I wanted to be. I also did not want to push harder as I was afraid of slowing down in the run. I finished the bike in 33mins 32sec - 33sec slower than my Personal Best.
By working out an estimate of the time I needed to complete the run, I was still confident I would set a new Personal Best time on the course. I started out slowly as I frequently feel like cramping in the first 200m of the run. I had to step up my gear very soon as I was seeing people going past me and most of all looking much stronger and confident in their running. I tried to look for someone to draft behind and went all the way to the second kilometre behind another athlete until I felt I needed to increase a bit more. It was very tough and painful but I knew everyone was suffering and I wanted to finish in a good time. My run was over in 22:31 which is exactly the same as my best time obtained in the previous race.
Having had two very good transitions of 32sec and 34sec, the total time was 1hr 10mins 35sec; a Personal Best by 30 sec. This was due to the improvement in my swim which cancelled out the 30sec I lost on the bike. I am still very happy with the result, considering I have improved by almost 9minutes from last season.
Thanks go to all those who frequently help me out in my training, those who came to came to see me especially my uncle Victor and last but not least to my wife Maria and my child Elena.
Anatoly
Anatoly
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