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UK Half-Ironman 70.3, England - 11th Sep. 2005On The Podium Yet Again - Longleat, England.Dear Sponsors and Friends On Sunday I competed in Half Ironman UK. It was always going to be interesting to see how my body had recovered after destroying the Field at Ironman UK. The only reason for going back was to try and pick up a Historical Double Title. I felt good in my preparation but my Coach and myself knew my running wasn't coming back very fast and I had no leg speed but I tried hard to freshen up and race to my peak form. This was made harder as I had to pack up the rest of our base camp in Schaffhausen and move it into the storage attic. I flew into London Heathrow on Friday and was picked up by my old Kiwi Triathlon friend Ian McBride who now lives in London. The drive down to Longleat took forever. Getting in late I got my P3 Carbon together the next day and rode it for 30mins then racked it in T2. I felt tired but was hoping that was just the travel. In the morning I woke to quite poor weather, which didn’t make me altogether happy as I was hoping for a warm dry day like IMUK. The Pro's were off at 7am and this time it started on the dot. I had a bad start but got into my rhythm and really started to push the pace at the 1200m mark to spread it out. I came out of the water First with Luc Van Lierde, Richard Allen and Paul Matthew's close. I went hard to get through transition and get on my bike to see if I could get away like the Ironman UK but as soon as I hit the bike I knew that I was going to have to earn my place. I had no gas on the bike and stayed with Richard most of the way as Paul had jumped up on the ride by about 1min on us. I was dropped at 50miles by Richard and just tried to minimise any damage. The bike was 59.3miles long. So I was happy to come off in 3rd place only 1m 10sec down on the leader and 20sec on Richard. My legs felt ok on the run but I just couldn't turn them over fast enough (Ironman Legs) and the leaders were pulling away. I was hanging in and the run course was super hilly and hard; at 7miles I got passed by Mathias Hecht of Switzerland and he looked good. I paced off him and knowing what my Coach always say's; they come back in the last 5k. At 3miles to go I made my move going up the last big hill and went as hard as I could and didn't look back. I got past Mathias and broke away; it hurt like never before and I was super glad when it was over to finish in 3rd Place. It was awesome to have done so well as I thought I might have bitten off more than I could chew but was really stoked to be on the Podium with such a quality field. Race Results:
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