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Swim 32:32 Bike 2:41 Run 1:32 Overall 4:54 Age Group Position 19th (now 16th) Overall 248th (220th) Happy but sore – more tomorrow after several large Austrian beers this evening! Quick edit…. there was a cock up with the results and the organisers are having to go through the results manually to add time penalties to about 10% of the field who ran 1k short by accident so my official results posted at the race tent. If I wait a bit longer I might go up even further…..!
It’s been a busy day all in all. After breakfast I was going to go for another swim but decided it wasn’t worth it. Nirvana wanted the bikes ready for 10am to transfer them to the race site which would have meant getting to the lake and back before the bike course tour a bit of a rush. I decided in the end to go back to my room for a couple of hours and read instead. A good choice I think. The bike course tour was well worth doing. The course itself is stunningly pretty especially along the Danube with a few climbs. There is a lot of fast stuff on the downhills but the first, shorter climb is much more ‘British’ with some steep ramps up to 13 or 14%. The Gansbach is much longer at 8km long but is a much more ‘continental’. It is a steady climb of around 7-8% with 1km or so at 11-12%. Time will tell if I’ll regret bringing an 11-23 cassette. There is a last climb of 2.5k at around the 75k mark as well which on its on wouldn’t be much but will be a stinger of a climb at that stage of the ride. The race briefing brought no new news but it was hard tryng to stay in the shade as by mid afternoon it was in the high 20′s. What to do tomorrow? If I have a good swim I could swim 32-33 minutes but a lot will depend on the congestion. There is not a lot of distance to the first and second turn buoys and there will be plenty of biff around those that will slow things down. There is also lots of climbing on the bike but lots of fast downhill as well – I’m hoping to ride around 2:45 ish. The run will be as fast as I can manage! It’s all risk and reward. I could push the bike hard and hope that I don’t crash and burn on the run – if I pace the bike well I should run close to 1:30 and if all goes to plan I’ll get in just under 5 hours. That’s the plan anyway although I’ll probably end up trying to push the bike a bit harder and try to hold on on the run. Risk or reward….?  Checking out the competition! What a difference a day makes. There were plenty of people in St Polten today and all the shops were open in the afternoon – Thursday must be early closing day. After breakfast this morning I headed to the start / finish area to take a look at the lakes and transition. It is enormous! From the swim exit it is a long long way to the bike out. Transition times won’t be quick. The run between the two lakes that splits the two lakes is 250 metres so we will have run the best part of 1k before we even get on the bike! I swum the first 1k swim loop this morning. The lake is fairly clear but I’m pretty sure it’s not the claimed 18°C. It’s nowhere near the 9°C or so the Eastleigh was the other day but it was far from being warm. The only other issue there might be in the swim is that it is only a 200m dash to the first turn buoy and another 100m to the second in a relatively narrow piece of lake. There will be plenty of biff at those first two turns. After John arrived we took the bikes out for a quick spin so that he could see the lay of the land as well and to check that the bikes were reassembled OK. Touch wood it all seems good. We went to the Pasta Party this evening and am now relaxing before what will hopefully be another good nights sleep. After yesterday’s rain the weather has been sunny and hot and is only forecast to get warmer over the weekend.
The town itself seems very quiet at the moment, the Expo is open but not that many people about as yet – that will I’m sure change tomorrow and the day after. I’ve been to register, only a 2 minute walk from the Hotel and picked up my race numbers, transition bags and a few other bits and pieces. Along with the registration pack there is a code for early entry into Ironman Austria in Klagenfurt next year so I might have a decision to make over the next month or so about plans for the future. The bike appears to have survived the journey as well although I’ll take it out for a short ride tomorrow to check everything is in place. I’m also hoping to swim at the race site as well in the morning. Hopefully I’ll get a good and long night’s sleep tonight to make up for last night and start to feel a bit more human again before Sunday.
I’m going with a Nirvana Europe package so hopefully they should take care of all the travel and accommodation issues leaving me to concentrate on the race. The race – what to do? I suppose it’s a bit of risk and reward. My sensible race plan is to swim strong and steady, pace the bike and leave some energy for the run. However what I’m actually intending to do is to swim as hard as I can, bury myself on the bike and hope I’ve got enough left to run somewhere near a 1:30 half marathon! Time will tell if that is daft or not and obviously how I feel on the day will dictate how I end up racing. It should be a good event, my first Ironman branded race and it will be interesting to see how it compares to other events like The Outlaw, Race New Forest and Challenge events. I am looking forward to Austria, it will be a decent gauge of improvement since last year. I hope that the last fatigue has gone from my legs after the London Marathon and that I have a strong race.
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