Olympic Distance in Retie

When I finally woke up at around 10am I really didn’t feel like racing at all. Still sore from a hard run training on thursday and another swim and bike on saturday made me wanna stay in bed all day. 

I made myself and Reiny a nice and big breakfast and packed my stuff. On the way to Retie it started pissing down which made me feel even better. 

Got my number at Den Dries and put my running shoes in T2. I ran into Steven Dujardin and had a little chat to him. I wasn’t the only one NOT looking forward to racing today. Jess and Dillie decided both not to start because of injuries, which was a very wise decision! And I was so jealous when I saw them at the side of the road when I was struggling to ride my bike in strong headwinds. Damn!

So, got my bike out of the car. Told Reiny not to come to the swim start because it was too far away anyways and rode to T1 with Steven. Got my bike ready, started the usual wetsuit struggle and noticed there wasn’t that much time left until the start and it was still a long walk.. better start heading out there. First couple of 100 meters on the path were ok but then we got all these little rocks and shit again like in Geel and I wasn’t making a good time! Then over this slippery bridge, noticed there were a lot of people in the water a bit further, and started running. as I got close I heard it was 30sec until the start. OW SHIT! ‘can someone please zip up my wetsuit??”  bang.. oops missed the start. Jumped in the water, put my goggles on, lost maybe 30 secs.. and started swimming. I moved to the left side of the canal straight away, ready to pass people. My swim was going really well from the start on and I passed a lot of people. I felt so fast haha! I saw some blue swimmingcaps so that ment there were some girls around me. Good! I’m not in last position anymore. We had to turn around a buoy with about 100 meters to go and got into a bit of a fight with some guys. One of them was so bad he tried to pull me under!! So i totally cut him off at the steps. If you see a blue swimming cap next to you, and you’re a ‘veteran’ man, then you should be the gentleman and be nice to us girls. If you get me on  a bad day like today, I might look innocent, and you might be twice my size, but i’ll get back at you! HA. A bit shaken from this fight I got into T1, and almost jumped on the the wrong Moozes! there was one just like mine. I tried to get my wetsuit off but I was still a bit shocked that this guy was such an idiot, that it took me a bit longer than it should. oh well. 

out of T1, onto the bike, with one girl 200m in front of me, I was hoping to find my legs. But I didn’t. my hamstrings were so sore still from training, I just couldn’t push it today. after 1 lap I lost sight of the girl and just kept going at my own pace, trying to get the legs going. I noticed Reiny, Jess and Dillie along the course, yelling out at me and being silly :-)

At the end of the bike leg I felt terrible, I didn’t want to run and took my time in T2. Even got lost there for a brief moment, but thanks to the volunteers I finally did find my running shoes and started the run. My calfs felt like they were gonna explode and my hamstrings were so lactated, I told Reiny straight away: I feel crap! ‘just keep going sweety’ he yelled out :-S 

After about 1 km I started feeling better. then this guy, Rudi, passed me but sort of ran the same pace. And he really helped me getting through the run. when I got to km 2 i checked my stopwatch, and saw I was running for about 8min20 after leaving T2 ????? No, i’m not running that fast am I?? But apparently I was going allright because at the turn around point I noticed 4 girls quite close together in front of me. ‘how is this possible’ I thought. I’ll try and catch one so I’ll move to 5th position and get some price money. And I did! The first lap I was making time up quickly and got a lot closer, at the 2nd lap I passed a girl! ‘got ya’ I tried to keep the pace up but after about 8km I started to go flat so I just tried to keep going at a decent speed.  unfortunately I couldn’t catch anyone anymore but I was very happy with my run and swim after I crossed the finish line. The guy on the mic was saying that I won the first race of the year in Herderen and I couldn’t believe even anyone would of remembered :-S 

So not so sure of my swim and bike times yet but I got a pb on the 10k run! 43:36 and I think that might be including T2. that would be awesome. I think this is the best race I’ve done so far this year. It’s funny how things like that go sometimes. You miss your start, you feel like shit, but you go well. And my legs feel a lot better after racing haha :-)

Thanks Jess and Dillie for the great photo :-)