AWESOME. I am chuffed to bits. I got my Kona Slot !! How pleased I am about this makes me realise how much I wanted to go but also how I’d really managed to reconcile myself to the fact I wouldn’t be going. The competition in my age group was hot. I was in the final slot position and was some 15 minutes quicker than the final slot position in the age group below (35-39).

My race report is here.

Yesterdays race was satisfying for so many reasons.

• it went pretty close to plan
• it showed my swimming hasn’t really dropped off despite the reduced swimming of late. I managed a fast time despite swimming all but the first 150m without a draft
• I think Epic Camp has kicked in. I rode massively within myself and still got a great bike split
• I ran the whole marathon
• I felt I was in the run competing. I was in a slot position the whole way and managed to (just) tough it out to keep one. It felt good to be racing.
• There were no excuses. My foot was completely fine and I ran strong.

Now I can look forward to training for Kona. Not only that I’ve the confidence to really start to work on my running. Based on yesterday I need to be running 3:10s off the bike to be really competitive.

We went and watched the final finishers as usual. It was a classic with the last person having to put a spurt on to cross the line in 16:59:51 !