The day after is always looked forward to the day before but when it arrives I often have “Post Prokoviev Blues” – the empty feeling following something you’ve built up for for so long. I slept OK for once and got my therapeutic race report out quickly as usual.

It’s great to hang out with friends and hear all about their races and to just not be in a rush for anything. First up was coffee then off to the Powerbar Breakfast which was fun and relaxed. This was followed by another coffee with Roger this time and then a brief chill in my room before off for a few early afternoon beers. After this it was to look at the finishers gear and my finishers photos. The latter all very sophisticated – review them on a iPad, click order, pay and then collect them on a 2gb USB stick five minutes later. Pretty pleased with the photos as they’d managed to get one of me smiling on the run !!

We had quite a crowd of us at the awards and it was fun as usual. Speaches didn’t seem overlly long (other than Chrissies) but that may be because I spent so much time getting up to go and chat with friends about there races. Everyone has a story to tell and are keen to tell it which is so nice.

Brett, Mel and I went out for a few beers after the race. It’s ashame that K-Swiss have decided over the past few years thats celebrating should become an exclusive thing. In my first years everyone just when to Lu Lu’s … now there’s an invite only party which last year we managed to get to but this year didn’t try.

This morning as I write this the annual post Kona event happens – someone always has to post a static picture from front on of an apparently large pack of riders. Then everyone gets on their high horse about how terrible it is. So … here’s my view as someone that would love to eradicate draft cheats and has race here six times (yeh baby!)

1. Static pictures are no evidence whatsoever. Refs are on motorbikes since they need to observe the movement to tell if someones intentionally drafting
2. The picture is clearly taken from a distance with a zoom which reduces depth of field meaning you can’t tell whether they sitting in an organised peleton with inches between wheels or several feet. Of course lots of people like to assume the worst. Me … I assume the best
3. Every year I get to see the main body of riders as I return from Hawi and I’ve never thought there looks to be packs. More it’s a long line of riders.
4. The previous comment makes me think that most are trying to do the best BUT remember at Kona probably over 1,000 people come out of the water in a 15 minute period the sorting out of this number of people takes a fair way. The pictures posted are invariably on the Queen K which puts it in the first 50k of the ride. To avoid this would require waves which would remove one of the iconic images of our sport, namely the Kona swim start. I for one don’t want that.

So please when you see this sort of picture think about whether it’s really evidence and point out the error in their ways to those people posting these pictures thinking they’re somehow helping remove drafting from our sport. Instead they post pictures of potentially innocent people displaying their race numbers.