Martin reports from Bala Middle 2008

Thanks to Graham, Andy and Jevon, this was really a great day out and I can only agree, one of my best races, if not the best.

The weather was perfect and the water was warm 17.5 degrees and flat, unlike the bike and the run.

The three wave start made it stress free and being basically an out and back swim, navigation was pretty easy, even for Jevon.

When it came to the bike I felt quite out of place, even though I had my superfast TT bike (bike at the end of the racking picture below) it was not a Cervelo P3C, which seems to be the standard TEAM MK bike and about 20 to 30 minutes quicker over this distance.

Graham was quite right when saying that driving the bike leg had freaked me out. I sat quietly the whole Saturday night  wondering if I should have been running a compact or even worse should I have brought my road bike. However it turned out just fine I averaged 27.5 kph or 17.5 mph, and the TT bike really paid off, the last 10 miles being all downhill to the finish and I was able to really drop the hammer and pass loads of road bikes with a top speed achieved of 65 kph.

Marshalls on the course were great, road surface was better than anything around Milton Keynes and the scenery was simply amazing, when you were not looking at the 10 metres of tar in front of you.

I was warned before the race  by a regular that the run was not going to be easy, but remembering what Mark Booth had said a few weeks back, “you think that if you walk it will be easier, but it’s not”, I made the decision that I was not going to walk, no matter what. It paid off, with a 01:46 half marathon.

The race was well organised and I would recommend doing it in the future. But remember, we did it the year that the bike was extra tough.

Martin