ICAN Malaga 2013

Race Report

The Swim:

Mass start swim with age groupers and Pros starting together. I much prefer starts like this as I think you get a better atmosphere and plus everyone knows what place they are in during the race. I actually thought I had a good swim; I managed to get in with a good group and felt as though I was swimming pretty well. My swim time was 27 minutes 38 and I exited the water in 15th place and T1 in 10thplace.

Bike:

On the bike there really isn’t much to say here apart from I just put my head down and tried to get as close to the front of the race as possible. I was working with one other guy and it was going pretty well with me us getting our way up to 2 & 3 positions on the 2nd of the 3 laps. The guy who eventually won came past me on the 1st lap and was an absolute machine, I bet he had a bowl to eat his breakfast out of, must have had at least 6 Weetabix as well!

I was actually racing with an SRM today for this race, it was really good actually as it was like a constant kick up the arse if I started to slack off! On the last half of the 2nd lap I started to blow, I was pretty hanging if I’m honest but then I managed to get a 2nd wind on the last lap. I did a big turn and then the guy I was riding with must have had his turn of going through a bad patch. It was a bit like a magic trick really, now you see me, now you don’t and just like that another one bit the dust!

Nicholas Ward came past me on the 3rd lap at some point and I have to admit he was going bloody well. I was blowing a bit as my power was going down but I was still pulling away from other people so I knew they must have been blowing just as much if not more so I just kept plugging away. When Nick came past me it was a pretty decisive moment if I’m honest in my race as I knew he was a decent runner and I wasn’t actually sure if I could beat him on the run so I knew I had to bury myself and try to stay with him if I was to have any chance of winning. As well as this I knew Miguel Blanchard was behind me and he ran me down at Barcelona, I thought I would need at least 1 minute at the start of the run and 2 minutes to definitely hold him off (as it turned out he put 3.5 minutes in to me so fair play to him and a fantastic run!). The guy who came storming past me on the bike earlier in the race I thought must be a super biker. I thought he would blow up on the run as I figured that if he can bike that well then surely he can’t run as otherwise he would be world class. I thought that if I was within 2 minutes of him maybe 3 minutes and I could take a chunk of time out of him it would pressurise him and he might blow up. (he had almost 4 minutes on me at the start of the run and held it together pretty well on the run so fair play to him for winning.

The Run:

With me starting 4 minutes behind the leader and with a chase group behind it was just a case of holding it together as best as I could and just digging in. Miguel came past me on the 2nd lap and then on the 3rd and 4th lap I had a bit of a battle with the guy that came 4th. I was always ahead of him but he did get me down to about 20 seconds at one point during the run. I conjured up a little plan that if he caught me I would dig really deep for 1-2Ks straight away and try and break him as I knew from experience that when I’ve caught people in the past you put so much into catching them that you are so spent and then are just hanging on after that. He didn’t manage to catch me anyway in the end and I managed to hold on for 3rd.