3:10:54 – pretty pleased with that. Race went pretty well all things considered. I woke up and laid in bed thinking that yesterdays ride may not have been such a bright idea but once I got up and walked around my legs eased off and I felt a lot more positive about it. Had a tuna and tomato omelette for breakfast and headed to the start. It was a lovely day, so when I got into the championship start area I set my alarm and had a snooze in the sun. If anything the biggest problem about the ride yesterday was the lack of time once I got back to eat and the like. Reckon I was at least an hour, if not two, short on sleep.

I started the race conservatively but after the first mile got onto a pace for sub 3 hours. This only lasted about 5 miles where I adjusted to aim for 7-minute miles. This I managed to halfway. From about 12 miles to 22 I felt the best, my legs eased off and it felt comfortable. This may have been due to my pace slowing – it was consistently around 7.15 minute miles throughout this section. At mile 22 I had to concentrate to keep pushing and with a couple of miles to go my mental focus dropped and I decided that this had been an excellent training run and I shouldn’t push the last few miles purely to gain mere seconds. What was more important now was quickly getting back into training. At the finish I kept walking and knew that my legs were by no means shot and I would be back in training the next day. I’ve just come back from my morning swim session and I felt pretty good running to and from the pool.

To give the context to this run my WTD totals going into the marathon were:

Swim: 27.45km

Bike: 509 miles

Run:  56 miles

Hours: 47.85

It was definitely a good mimic of the Ironman marathon – not necessarily physically as I think the fatigue a day after a long bike is different from that running straight off the bike – but definitely mentally. I ran faster than this in Longest Day last year but then I’d tapered and was at race weight.

Very pleased I did this.